Congratulations to Deevena for winning Louise Gouge’s A Proper Companion, to bn100 for winning Carol Cox’s Love in Disguise, to Karin for winning Patty Hall’s Hearts in Hiding, to Lane for winning Elizabeth Musser’s Two Crosses and to Jane for winning Elizabeth Musser’s Two Testaments.
This week I’m hosting Miralee Ferrell with Love Finds You in Sundance, WY., Jordyn Redwood with Proof, Vickie McDonough with End of the Trail, and Mary Ellis with Living in Harmony. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (June 24th) evening.
Bio of Miralee Ferrell:
Miralee and her husband, Allen, live on eleven acres in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge in southern Washington State, where they love to garden, play with their dogs, take walks, and go sailing. She is also able to combine two other passions—horseback riding and spending time with her grown children—since her married daughter lives nearby, and they often ride together on the wooded trails near their home.
Ironically, Miralee, now the author of six books, with more on the way, never had a burning desire to write—at least more than her own memoirs for her children. So she was shocked when God called her to start writing after she turned fifty. To Miralee, writing is a ministry that she hopes will impact hearts, and she anticipates how God will use each of her books to bless and change lives.
An avid reader, Miralee has a large collection of first edition Zane Grey books that she started collecting as a young teen. Her love for his storytelling ability inspired her desire to write fiction set in the Old West. “But I started writing historical fiction without even meaning to,” Miralee says, laughing. She’d always planned on writing contemporary women’s fiction, but God had other ideas. After signing her contract for the novel Love Find You in Last Chance, California, she decided to research the town and area. Though it had been a booming town in the late 1880s, it had pretty much died out in the 1930s. So her editor suggested switching to a historical version, and Miralee agreed, although she’d never even considered that era.
It didn’t take long to discover she had a natural flair for that time period, having read and watched so many Western stories while growing up. From that point on she was hooked. Besides their horse friends, Miralee and her husband have owned cats, dogs (a six-pound, long-haired Chihuahua named Lacey was often curled up on her lap as she wrote this book), rabbits, and yes, even two cougars, Spunky and Sierra, rescued from breeders who didn’t have the ability or means to care for them properly.
Miralee and Allen have lived in Alaska and the San Juan Islands for just under a year each, where she became actively involved in women’s ministry. Later, she took a counseling course and earned her accreditation with the American Association of Christian Counselors, as well as being a licensed minister (not a pastor) through her denomination. She spends time each month in her office at church praying with and ministering to women, as well as occasionally speaking and filling the pulpit.
Miralee serves as president of the Portland, Oregon, chapter of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers, and belongs to a number of writers’ groups. She also speaks at women’s groups, libraries, historical societies, and churches about her writing journey.
Blurb for Love Finds You in Sundance, WY:
Angel Ramirez is tired of living a lie. But can she live like a lady?
On the run from a dangerous outlaw, Angel works her way across several states disguised as a boy and working as a varmint tracker and horse wrangler. After taking a job on a Wyoming ranch owned by a bachelor and his widowed sister, she finally reveals her true identity and must fight to prove her worth as a ranch hand while somehow discovering her role as woman.
Hiring a woman doesn’t sit well with Travis Morgan, and the dark-haired beauty is causing a
ruckus among his cowboys. Just as Angel decides she’ll never be able to please her boss, an
unexpected surprise arrives from across the ocean and makes trouble on the ranch. Will Angel leave with the person who’s come so far to claim her?
Bio for Jordyn Redwood:
Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. You can connect with Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.net.
Blurb for Proof:
Dr. Lilly Reeves is a young, accomplished ER physician with her whole life ahead of her. But that life instantly changes when she becomes the fifth victim of a serial rapist. Believing it’s the only way to recover her reputation and secure peace for herself, Lilly sets out to find–and punish–her assailant. Sporting a mysterious tattoo and unusually colored eyes, the rapist should be easy to identify. He even leaves what police would consider solid evidence. But when Lilly believes she has found him, DNA testing clears him as a suspect. How can she prove he is guilty, if science says he is not?
Bio of Vickie McDonough:
Bio for Mary Ellis:Amy King–young, engaged, and Amish–faces difficult challenges in her life when she suddenly loses both of her parents in a house fire. Her fiancé, John Detweiler, persuades her and her sister Nora to leave Lancaster County and make a new beginning with him in Harmony, Maine, where he has relatives who can help the women in their time of need.
John’s brother Thomas and sister-in-law Sally readily open their home to the three newcomers. Wise beyond his years, Thomas, a minister in the district, refuses to marry Amy and John upon their arrival, suggesting instead a period of adjustment and counseling. During this time Amy discovers an aunt who was shunned. She wishes to reconnect with her, but this puts a strain on her relationship with John.
Can John and Amy find a way to live in happily in Harmony before making a lifetime commitment to one another?
