Congratulations to Cindy for winning Darlene Franklin’s Beacon of Hope and Juanita for winning K. Dawn Byrd’s Killing Time.
This week I’m hosting Eleanor Gustafson with The Stones: A Novel of the Life of King David and Elizabeth Goddard with Exposing Amber. If you want to enter the drawings, 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 (September 5th) evening.
Bio for Eleanor Gustafson:
Eleanor K. Gustafson has been publishing both fiction and nonfiction since 1978. Her short stories and articles appeared in a number of national and local magazines. The Stones: A Novel of the Life of King David is her fourth novel. In many of her stories, Eleanor explores the cosmic struggle between good and evil in light of God’s overarching work of redemption. A graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, she has been actively involved in church life as a minister’s wife, Sunday school teacher, musician, writer, and encourager. She has enjoyed a variety of experiences, from riding horses to building houses, all of which have helped bring color and humor to her fiction. She and her husband live in Massachusetts, where he teaches Philosophy and World Religions. They travel extensively, spend time with their three children and eight grandchildren, and enjoy working and camping at the family forest in Chester, Vermont.
Website: www.eleanorgustafson.com
Email address: egus@me.com
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=eleanor+gustafson+stones&x=0&y=0
Book Blurb for The Stones: A Novel of the Life of King David:
The Stones: A Novel of the Life of King David is hot-blooded drama—a biblical novel that takes in the sweep of King David’s life from his encounter with Goliath to the deadly consequences of counting his fighting men. He’s a huge man, at once commanding, poetic, earthy, in touch with God. The book is cast as fiction with personalities plumped up but is as close to the Bible version as I could make it.
I’ve always loved the David story for its sheer drama, complex characters, romance, and tragedy. It lacks a certain dimension in the Bible, however, and I wanted to make it come alive and accessible to the average reader.
David’s passion for God did not protect him from gross sinning. He clearly stepped over a well-defined line concerning sex, but how do you portray such an act without trampling readers’ sensibilities? Neither I nor Asaph the narrator feel comfortable peering into bedrooms. Sometimes, though, we need to remove our blinders to see the cause and the effect of such an act, as well as the lessons to be learned.
David was chiefly a warrior, but he was also an accomplished poet and musician, surprising, perhaps, in a man so bloody. I look on the Psalms as David’s journal, recording his thoughts and emotions in the context of events as they happened. He lays out everything from high elation and praise for God, to anger and pure vitriol. (See the Imprecatory Psalms.). A man of many passions, he knew how to be angry, he knew how to cry.
A Stones Study Guide is available for individual or group use in looking more closely at some of these diverse issues. Included in the guide is a discussion of the fear of God and of cherem, the irrevocable giving over of things/persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them. Why would God order the annihilation of entire populations—men, women, children, infants, livestock? David had good reason to fear God!
Bio of Elizabeth Goddard:
Elizabeth Goddard is a 7th generation Texan who lives in East Texas with her husband and four children. She and her family recently spent five years in Oregon, which serves as the setting for several of her novels, but in 2010 they returned to Texas to live near family again. Elizabeth is the author of seven novels and novellas, including Praying for Rayne and The Camera Never Lies, releasing December 2010.
Blurb for Exposing Amber:
This historian loves the past…unless it’s his own. Brandon Selman is struggling to reestablish his position and reputation as a competent museum director. Hampered by scandal from his last post, he is determined to stay on the straight and narrow. He especially will not allow himself to be taken in by any innocent-looking college student interns.
Amber McKinsey is excited to learn she’s been accepted as a summer intern for the Harrington museum. Working under Dr. Selman is just the opportunity she needs to determine the direction her future studies should take. But the reality is not the dream, and her own secrets threaten to undo her.
Then, a valuable artifact disappears and Amber is the likely suspect. How can Amber leave the shadows of the past behind when they follow her so closely? And could Brandon have misjudged a woman so badly again? Will either of them learn to trust or forgive before it’s too late?
