This week Irene Brand, Roseanna White and Terri Blackstock

» Posted on Feb 20, 2011 in Blog | Comments Off on This week Irene Brand, Roseanna White and Terri Blackstock

LFY Mistletoe

Congratulations to Charity for winning Miralee Ferrell’s Love Finds You in Tombstone, Arizona, to Jordan for winning Janelle Mowery’s When All My Dreams Come True, and to April for winning April Gardner’s Wounded Spirits.

This week I’m hosting Irene Brand with An Appalachian Christmas, Roseanna White with Jewel of Persia and Terri Blackstock with Vicious Cycle. 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 (February 27th) evening.

Bio for Irene Brand:

IRENE BRAND became one of the early pioneers of inspirational fiction when she was contracted by Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984, to write one of the four launch titles in their Cherish (Promise) Romance series. Her first fiction book, A Change of Heart, was followed the next year by A Mighty Flame. While still writing for Thomas Nelson, she published both historical and contemporary romances with Zondervan. In the early 90’s, four of her books were published in Fleming Revell’s Meadowsong Romance series. She started writing for Barbour Publishers in 1990 and has published several titles in their Heartsong Present series.

Irene also plowed new literary territory when she joined the Steeple Hill team of authors in 1998, publishing the 19th book in their Love Inspired romance series. She published the third title in the Love Finds You series by Summerside Press in December, 2008. Her most recent publication, a novella, An Appalachian Christmas, September, 2010 was one of two books in the Love Finds You Under the Mistletoe anthology, co-authored with Anita Higman.

In addition to writing, Irene is actively involved in the ministry of her local Baptist church, where she has been a member since she was eleven-years-old, the year she believes God also called her to a writing ministry. She currently teaches an adult Sunday school class, plays tahe piano for all services, directs the choir, serves as the church treasurer and is an active member of the women’s mission society. She and her husband are the kind of members, who are there “every time the church door opens.” In fact, they usually unlock the doors.

Irene lives at Southside, West Virginia, just five miles from where she was born. She and her husband Rod have traveled to thirty-five foreign countries and all fifty states.

Blurb for An Appalachian Christmas by Irene Brand:

A novella in the anthology Love Finds You Under the Mistletoe, published by Summerside Press, September, 2010. Anita Higman is the other author. My book is AN APPALACHIAN CHRISTMAS.

A promise to her dying sister compels Julia Mayfield to take her young nephew to Mistletoe, Kentucky, a tiny hamlet tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains. Sparks fly when she meets David Armstrong, a World War II veteran like herself. Even as shadows from the past weave a dangerous web around Julia and David, will their love flourish like the mistletoe that blankets the nearby hills?

This book was #32 on Neilsen’s November, 2010 list and #6 on the January 2011 CBS Best Sellers list of Christian novels.

Jewel of Persia

Bio for Roseanna White:

Roseanna M. White, author of A Stray Drop of Blood, makes her home in the mountains of Western Maryland with her husband, two small children, and the colony of dust bunnies living under her couch. After graduating from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, she and her husband founded the Christian Review of Books, where she is the editor. She is a member of ACFW, HisWriters, and HEWN Marketing.

Blurb for Jewel of Persia:

How can she love the king of kings without forsaking her Lord of lords?

Kasia grew up in a poor Jewish home with more siblings than luxuries. But when a chance encounter forces her to the palace of Xerxes, she becomes a concubine to the richest man in the world. She alone, of all Xerxes’ wives, loves the man beneath the crown. She alone, of all his wives, holds the heart of the king of kings.

Traveling with Xerxes through Europe as he mounts a war against Greece, Kasia knows enemies surround her, but they’re not the Spartans or Athenians. The threat lies with those close to the king who hate her people. She determines to put her trust in Jehovah–even if it costs her her marriage.

Years of prayers are answered when Kasia’s childhood friend arrives at the palace after the war, but even as she determines to see Esther crowned in place of the bloodthirsty former queen, she knows the true battle is far from over. How far will her enemies go to see her undone?

Combining the biblical account of Esther with Herodotus’s Histories, Jewel of Persia is the story of a love that nearly destroys an empire . . . and the friendship that saves a nation.

Bio for Terri Blackstock:

Terri Blackstock is a New York Times best-seller, with over six million copies sold worldwide. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in The Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual “new kid,” her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist. She sold her first novel at the age of twenty-five, and has had a successful career ever since.

In 1994 Terri was writing romance novels under two pseudonyms for publishers such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dell and Silhouette, when a spiritual awakening prompted her to switch gears. At the time, she was reading more suspense than romance, and felt drawn to write about ordinary people in grave danger. Her newly awakened faith wove its way into the tapestry of her suspense novels, offering hope instead of despair. Her goal is to entertain with page-turning plots, while challenging her readers to think and grow. She hopes to remind them that they’re not alone, and that their trials have a purpose.

In 1994 Terri was writing for publishers such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dell and Silhouette, when a spiritual awakening drew her into the Christian market. As she was praying about her transition, she went on a cruise and noticed that almost everyone on the boat (including her) had a John Grisham novel. It occurred to her that some of Grisham’s readers were Christians, and that if she wrote a fast-paced thriller with an added faith element, she might just find her niche. As God would have it, Christian publishers were showing interest in the suspense genre, so she quickly sold a four-book series to Zondervan. Since that time, she’s written over thirty Christian titles, most of them suspense novels.

Besides entertaining her readers, Terri tackles issues that she hopes will change lives. Her recent book, Predator, was inspired by her experiences on Facebook and Twitter, and her concern that people posted too much personal information about themselves. The book deals with an online predator who uses social networks as his playground. She hopes the book will change readers’ online habits. Her New York Times best-seller, Intervention, was inspired by her own personal struggles with a daughter on drugs. In the book, a mother hires an interventionist for her drug-addicted daughter. But on the way to treatment, the interventionist is murdered, and the daughter disappears. Barbara, the mother, sets out to search for her daughter. Terri modeled Barbara after herself, and poured many of her own emotions and experiences into that character. As a result, many families experiencing drug addiction have written to thank her for telling their story and giving them hope. Vicious Cycle, Book Two of the Intervention Series, releases February 22, 2011. She’s currently working on Book Three.

Other recent books include a stand-alone novel called Double Minds, as well as Last Light, Night Light, True Light and Dawn’s Light (from her acclaimed Restoration Series). She is also known for her popular Newpointe 911 Series and Cape Refuge Series. Terri makes her home in Mississippi, where she and her husband Ken are enjoying their empty nest after raising three children.

Terri has appeared on national television programs such as “The 700 Club” and “Home Life,” and has been a guest on numerous radio programs across the country. The story of her personal journey appears in books such as Touched By the Savior by Mike Yorkey, True Stories of Answered Prayer by Mike Nappa, Faces of Faith by John Hanna, and I Saw Him In Your Eyes by Ace Collins.

Blurb for Vicious Cycle:

When fifteen-year-old Lance Covington finds an abandoned baby in the backseat of a car, he knows she’s the newborn daughter of a meth addict he’s been trying to help. But when police arrest him for kidnapping, Lance is thrust into a criminal world of baby trafficking and drug abuse. His mother, Barbara, looks for help from Kent Harlan-the man whom she secretly, reluctantly loves and who once helped rescue her daughter from a mess of her own.

Kent flies to her aid and begins the impossible work of getting Lance out of trouble, protecting a baby who has no home, and finding help for a teenage mother hiding behind her lies. In this latest novel of suspense and family loyalty, bestselling author Terri Blackstock offers a harrowing look at drug addiction, human trafficking, and the devastating choices that can change lives forever.