Maplecreek Amish #1 September 2010 On Sale: August 31, 2010 400 pages ISBN: 0778328058 EAN: 9780778328056 Trade Size $13.95 Add to Wish List Romance Suspense Buy at Amazon.com Dark Road Home by Karen Harper Murder shatters a quiet Amish community After a murder case threatens her safety, attorney Brooke Benton seeks sanctuary in the quiet Amish community of Maplecreek. Although the locals disagree with her cosmopolitan ways, she soon manages to find a place in their lives. But when a tragic hit-and-run accident turns fatal, Brooke cannot abide by the community’s belief in absolute forgiveness. She wants answers. Daniel Brand left his childhood home to explore the outside world years ago. Now he has returned to his Amish roots, and worldly Brooke Benton does not fit into his plans. But when his niece dies, he slowly agrees that they must bring to justice the driver who killed her—especially when a silent presence continues to threaten the community. Together Brooke and Daniel begin a journey along a dark road, hoping to bring peace to the small community…and maybe lead their hearts home. Excerpt May 9, 1993 Maplecreek, Ohio Some said you can’t go home again, but Daniel Brand was bound to…
In January I was a guest on Fresh Fiction for the release of my third novel, My Dearest Mr. Darcy, and I wrote about birthing babies. That blog can be read here and I chose the topic because in that novel Mr. Darcy and his wife Elizabeth welcome their first child, a son named Alexander. For me this was an easy subject to write since my professional expertise is in the maternal child health field. I have witnessed many, many deliveries! Since my vision of the Darcys is a continuing saga my next book, In The Arms of Mr. Darcy, began shortly after Alexander’s arrival and covered the first year of his life. One might think that since he is a baby his interactions would be rare and not very exciting. Oh contraire! I can assure as a mother of two and an RN with 25-years working with babies, infants have distinct personalities from the get-go! Even premature infants who are very early and very small will subtly show their character, holding true to those traits as they mature. It is quite phenomenal. My approach in writing Alexander was to establish his unique personality as well as convey how Darcy…
Ohio-Country Mystery #1 October 2010 On Sale: September 28, 2010 Featuring: Bishop Eli Miller; Pastor Caleb Troyer; Michael Brandon 256 pages ISBN: 0452296463 EAN: 9780452296466 Paperback (reprint) $13.00 Add to Wish List Mystery Amateur Sleuth, Inspirational Fiction Amish Buy at Amazon.com Blood Of The Prodigal by P. L. Gaus From the tranquil farmlands of Holmes County’s Amish countryside to the choppy waters off Lake Erie’s Middle Bass Island, mystery and foreboding lurk under layers of tradition and repression before boiling to the surface with tragic consequences. Set authentically among the Old Order Amish of Holmes County, Ohio – home to the largest Amish and Mennonite settlements in the world – Blood of the Prodigal offers readers a growing understanding of Amish ways. For Jonah Miller, shunned by his Old Order sect and cast into the wider world, the summer begins with his decision to kidnap his ten-year-old son from the home of the bishop who had exiled Miller a decade earlier. In his desperation to retrieve the boy, the bishop appeals for help to the only “English” men the sect would ever approve. Professor Michael Branden and Pastor Caleb Troyer had been looking forward to the kind of sleepy rural…
The old adage write what you know never made sense to me. I like to write books about Regency England, England in the early nineteenth century. I love to describe ladies dripping with jewels and garbed in satin gowns with embellished slippers, gentlemen in cravats and tail coats, and the sound of a coach and four as it clops and jingles past couples strolling along Picadilly. I’ve never been to Regency England, and even if they invented a time machine, I’m not sure I would go. I do have a fondness for indoor plumbing! I’ve never worn a ball gown or met a man in a cravat and Wellington boots (although I’d like to!). Obviously, I don’t know Regency England, not first-hand anyway. But I do know something about falling in love. I’ve been married for four and a half years to a wonderful man (even if he doesn’t wear a cravat). And I know something about being nervous before entering a party, losing someone I love, and having to start over. My heroine, Felicity Bennett, has all of these experiences. Felicity and I share something else as well—a love of music. I started taking piano lessons in first grade….
Kate Burkholder #2 July 2010 On Sale: June 22, 2010 Featuring: Kate Burkholder 320 pages ISBN: 0312374984 EAN: 9780312374983 Hardcover $24.99 Add to Wish List Suspense Psychological, Thriller Police Procedural Buy at Amazon.com Pray for Silence by Linda Castillo New York Times bestselling author Linda Castillo delivers an electrifying thriller in which Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must confront a dark evil to solve the mysterious murders of an entire Amish family. The Plank family moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the small Amish community of Painters Mill less than a year ago and seemed the model of the Plain Life—until on a cold October night, the entire family of seven was found slaughtered on their farm. Police Chief Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the English—and each other—but this crime is horribly out of the ordinary. State agent John Tomasetti arrives on the scene to assist. He and Kate worked together on a previous case during which they began a volatile relationship. They soon realize the disturbing details of this case will test their emotional limits and force them…
Trivia likes to lodge itself in my brain and never leave. I can remember the most obscure facts and anecdotes. Whenever my friends and family play Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy I’m suddenly popular, but if you’re ever stranded in Phoenix, Arizona, and happen to ask me for simple directions to a grocery store or gas station, I will most assuredly disappoint you with a blank stare. I forget where I was when I learned about the Hohokam Indians but I most definitely remembered the history behind Phoenix’s original inhabitants. It stuck in my brain like a seed. And it’s also what inspired my historical romance novel, CAPTIVE SPIRIT. You see, around 300 BC, people from the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures traveled north to settle in the desert valleys formed by the slow moving Gila and Salt Rivers in what is now known as Arizona. They existed peacefully as farmers and master canal builders until around 1500 AD when their population vanished for reasons unknown. The Pima Indians called these people Hohokam, "Those Who Have Gone." How cool is that?! There are about a million stories woven into that fact alone begging to be written. Why would a thriving population…
I may have mentioned, October is my favorite month. It’s finally cool enough to throw open the windows, sprawl out on my patio in a lawn chair with a pumpkin spice latte and an equally delicious book. BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, should fit the bill. This Southern Gothic is about as Southern and as Gothic as they come. The atmosphere is as thick as South Carolina humidity, with characters so vividly quirky they come off the page. In a switch from the usual “Extraordinary boy pulls misfit girl into his extraordinary world” theme so prevalent in paranormal YA right now, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES is told from the point of view of a 16-year-old boy in a small Southern town where there are only two kinds of people living: “The stupid and the stuck… . Those bound to stay or too dumb to go.” Ethan can’t wait to shake the dust of Gatlin off his heels, but when a new girl arrives in town, the niece of the crazy old recluse, he learns of a whole other side of his home town, and nothing he’s taken for granted his whole life is what it seems. There’s this whole…
Seasons Of Sugarcreek #3 August 2010 On Sale: August 17, 2010 Featuring: Robert Miller; Lilly Allen 256 pages ISBN: 0061852376 EAN: 9780061852374 Paperback $12.99 Add to Wish List Inspirational Fiction Amish Buy at Amazon.com Autumn’s Promise by Shelley Shepard Gray Could an Englisher really give up all that she knows for a chance at true love? Some promises are meant to be broken. . . . Until Robert Miller met Lilly Allen, his world had been dark. A widower after only two years of marriage, he’d been living in a haze, feeling that, at twenty-four, his life was already over. But thanks to his friendship with Lilly, he now has new reasons to wake up each day. He knows his connection to her doesn’t make sense. She’s only nineteen, with a past the whole town talks about. Even more, she’s not Amish, like Robert. A marriage between the two of them could never happen. Lilly’s heart is drawn to Robert, not to his faith. No matter how much she admires his quiet strength and dependability, she doesn’t think she could ever give up her independence and reliance on the modern world. Is their love doomed before it even begins? Previous…
The first time I encountered Death, I hurled my mother’s medical chart at him. As far as impressions went, I blew it, but I was five at the time, so he eventually forgave me. Some days I wished he hadn’t—particularly when we crossed paths on the job. When you think of Death personified, what image do you see? Many probably conjure images of skeletons in black robes carrying long, deadly scythes and intent on reaping souls. At one point, that might have been my first image as well. Not so much anymore. Now when I picture a personified Death, the image in my mind is of a much more relaxed figure in a black tee-shirt and faded jeans. He leans against a wall, arms crossed over a wide chest and his dark hair falling around his face as he watches with a smirk. Not a traditional image, that’s for sure, but that’s what he looked like when he first walked into a scene and became a leading character in my newest book, GRAVE WITCH. Angel of Death, Soul Collector, Grim Reaper—whatever you called him, most people saw him only once. A popular question has been why I decided to cast…
Writing is a tough profession. The competition in today’s publishing world makes the strongest writers think twice about their commitment to excellence. But those of us who are lured by the magnificence of story are committed to creating a world where our readers slip into the shoes of our characters and are whisked away to an amazing thrill filled with uncertainty. A writer has a gauge by which she measures her stories, the one she is currently writing and the future projects that are being shopped at publishing houses. My personal barometer is for each reader to Expect an Adventure. This aspiration is a two-way street. If I don’t have the adventure of a lifetime while I’m writing the story, then how can I expect a reader to feel the same exhilaration? When I laugh, cry, hate, love, argue, discover, run for my life and leap high mountains, I expect my readers to take the same plunge. Oh, the span of emotions that expands the human heart. What is my criteria? Simply stated, each book has to have deeper characterization than the previous novel, a more intricate plot, and a setting that challenges the storyline. No pressure there! My quest…