Ready or Not, Here's 2020!

As I start a new year, I can't help but look back on last year. My youngest son is still in college, though he will graduate this May and get married in June. But this past Christmas break, he was still at home with us. One of his dress jackets was missing a button so I took it to a local fabric shop to match buttons so I could replace the missing one, or as it turned out, all of them.

I was not prepared for the flood of emotions that washed over me when I stepped into that fabric shop. My mother, whom I lost last August, absolutely loved fabrics. She learned to sew as a teenager, the daughter of a poor farmer. She used to make dresses out of her father's feed sacks which she said came in pretty cotton prints back then (not burlap.) She became quite good at sewing and sewed so many things throughout her life--wedding dresses, for herself and her daughters, clothes for her family when we were in Africa, and beautiful heirloom smocked dresses for her granddaughters which are now being passed on to her great-granddaughters. (I put my sweet mama's story in fiction form in a book a few years ago titled, The Whisper of the Palms.)

I had to walk back to the very back of the store to find the buttons and as I walked past row after row of fabric, especially the laces and lovely dress fabrics, it was all I could do to hold back my tears. I could just see her stopping all along the way to touch and ooh at the lovely things. I felt her loss all over again and it made me pensive and even a bit weepy all that day.

This happened on New Year's Eve and had me thinking even more than usual about the year gone by and the one to come. 2019 was one of the harder years in my life but it had high moments too. As I start 2020, my mom is in heaven and her new body feels better than it has in many years, a loved one who had struggled greatly in the winter and spring of last year is back on his feet, two of my children got engaged, and I have a new grandson. I have much to be thankful for indeed, and reason to be hopeful and excited for the year and decade ahead. I pray the same for you!    

New Pictures and a Chat with my Mom

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I had some pictures made in order to choose one for back of our book, "A Stand for Truth" that is currently in the publishing stage with Olivia Kimbrell Press. The choice was difficult since we had a great photographer who made us look nice, in spite of ourselves. Here is the one we chose.

Oliva Kimbrell Press is the same publisher who published my novel, The Whisper of the Palms back in March of 2017. This book is the fictionalized version of my parents' story--their childhoods, love story, and call to foreign missions that ultimately led them to Nigeria where I was born. In celebration of the two-year book anniversary, Valentines (since this is a love story), and my mother's birthday (Feb 23) the ebook is going on sale Feb 13-16. You can watch for more reminders of that sale on my Facebook author page.

Since the story is based on the lives of my parents, I wanted to share a conversation I had with my mom the other day. Mom told me about a book she is currently reading that took her back to her childhood because it had a rural farm setting about the time she grew up in the hills of North Carolina, the daughter of a poor farmer. Mom told me about the turning plow and the regular plow. In the book she's reading the little girl had to learn how to use a turning plow.

"Now that was different from me," she said. "Daddy would never let me work the turning plow. He said it was too hard to handle." Then she explained that the turning plow turned over new ground still hardened from the winter. "But I begged him so that he finally agreed to let me try my hand at the regular plow. I was supposed to plow between rows of corn but I lost control and plowed up about a fourth of a row of corn. We could get most of it to stand back up by stepping around the roots and packing them back in the dirt but Daddy lost some of his plants." 

I asked her if my grandfather, whom I remember so fondly, was angry with her. "Oh no," she said. "He thought it was funny and laughed and laughed at me. I had my pride hurt, though. I was always so sure I could do anything anyone else could do." 

… and this is why I wanted to write a book about my parents. I love my mom's can-do attitude and my dad's ingenuity. My mom has always believed anything was possible and my dad has usually found a way to make it happen, whatever it was. If you haven't reads the book yet, get it while its on sale in a couple of weeks. I promise you will enjoy it. 

New Release

It's release day!!!! YAY!! My debut novel, published by Olivia Kimbrell Press, based on the lives, love, and calling of my parents is now available on Amazon. Woo-hoo! Amazon will eventually combine the paperback and kindle but for now there are two links. Both can be found on my author page

The two characters in the book, Kyle and Ali, are very like my parents, Keith and Alice, and many of their adventures come straight from my parent's lives. However, Ali and Kyle also have adventures of their own which came from my imagination rather than stories I've heard my parents tell.

When I embarked on writing their story, it soon became clear to me that it would be easier to write and make a livelier read if wrote it as fiction. Had I chosen nonfiction, I would have had to make sure every little detail was absolutely as it happened. In fiction, I had more leeway ... and well, I took it. I combined some characters into one in a couple of places and added made-up adventures in some places.

I sent the manuscript to my mother, chapter by chapter as I wrote it over the past couple of years and she loved it! She once called me up and choking back tears, she told me how much she liked the way I was writing her and Daddy's story She added, "It didn't all happen this way, but it could have."

This book was written from my heart for my parents and it has their stamp of approval.

😊

Cover Reveal!

I am so excited to share the cover of my upcoming novel! The book will be released soon from Olivia Kimbrell Press and I will share the links with you at that time.

It is my first novel, a fiction based on fact. In it I tell many stories from my parents' childhoods, love, and their calling to the mission field. It was a labor of love, a work from my heart. But as I began to contemplate writing it, I quickly realized it would work better as fiction. So, though it is based on my parents' lives and much of it actually happened just the way it appears in the book, other parts are completely made up.

It is the story of Ali Blackwell and Kyle Edmonds who grow up in very separate worlds--she the daughter of a poor farmer, he the son of a wealthy doctor. Though based on the lives of Alice Blankenship and Keith Edwards (my parents), Ali and Kyle's story is their own.

This book was so much fun to write! I discovered I love writing fiction. It felt like I was a kid again, playing make-believe. At this point I do not have any future fiction projects in the works, and am juggling several nonfiction ones, which will keep me busy for a couple of years. But I do hope to write another novel some day.

Here's the cover:

Merry Christmas!

With Christmas just around the corner, I want to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas!

The Christmas season and upcoming year are exciting times for me as I eagerly await the release of two new books. A study guide companion to Prayer: It's Not About You is at the publishers and will be released by Pix-N-Pens in early January. In addition, my debut novel, "The Whisper of the Palms" is also at the publishers and is coming soon from Olivia Kimbrell Press. It's fiction based on fact in that it is the fictionalized retelling of my parents' lives. Stay tuned; I'll keep you posted. 

Enjoy this season of celebrating the birth of the Savior!