Welcome to the Christian Fall 2014 Scavenger Hunt. You have arrived at Stop # 28. The hunt begins at noon (Mountain Time Zone) on October 17, 2014. You may have arrived here before the start, which could mean all of the sites aren’t ready quite yet. Once the official start has begun, you should go to Stop #1 (www.robinleehatcher.com) and then work your way through the sites, gathering clues and entering bonus giveaways, until you reach the final stop which will also be on the site of Robin Lee Hatcher.
The hunt ends on Sunday, October 19, 2014 at one minute before midnight (Mountain). That means you have all of the weekend to finish it, so take your time. Enjoy reading the exclusive content the authors have prepared for you. You will collect a CLUE IN RED at each stop. Write them down as you go. At the end of the hunt, you will enter the clues into a Rafflecopter form. (The answer will make sense, even if you aren’t familiar with the quote.)
The hunt is open to international entries. The grand prize is a Kindle Fire HDX. Two runners-up will receive a new release from each of the participating authors.
IN CASE YOU FIND A BROKEN LINK…Robin Lee Hatcher has prepared a “cheat sheet” with direct links to each author’s post in case a site goes down or a link gets broken. We hope there will be no such issues, but just in case, please make note of the URL for the Participating Authors & Stops page so you can check back and be able to complete the hunt.
Author: Winnie Griggs
I’m thrilled to host Winnie Griggs, a wonderful writer and a good friend. She writes such heartwarming stories that are a treat to read.
Winnie Griggs grew up in south Louisiana in an undeveloped area her friends thought of as the back of beyond. She and her two younger siblings spent many an hour exploring the overgrown land around her home, cutting jungle trails, building forts and frontier camps, and looking for pirate ships on the nearby bayou. Once she ‘grew up’ she found other outlets for dealing with all those wonderful, adventurous imaginary friends by filling notebooks with their stories.
Eventually she found her own Prince Charming, a rancher whose white steed takes the form of a tractor and whose kingdom is situated in a small rural community that she loves to call home, and together they’ve built their own storybook happily-ever-after that includes four now grown children, two of whom are twins.
Now a multi-published, award winning author, Winnie feels blessed to be able to share her stories through her writings for Love Inspired Historical books. Winnie loves to hear from readers. You can connect with her on facebook at www.facebook.com/WinnieGriggs.Author or email her at winnie@winniegriggs.com.
Building A Family
My upcoming release, Her Holiday Family, features a reserved young widow, Eileen, who finds her home suddenly invaded by an army of orphans and their male caretaker. Eileen has no experience dealing with children and makes a number of missteps as she finds her way with them.
One of the decisions I had to make when I envisioned this book was how many children to include. It needed to be a fairly large number because the whole reason they end up in Eileen’s home is because hers is the only home in town large enough to house them. But I didn’t want to overwhelm the story, and the reader, with trying to keep up with too large a cast.
One of the things that went into making that decision was me thinking about my own family, and that of my husband. We both come from large but close-knit families. I am one of five siblings, and my father was one of thirteen. My mom only had one sister but she had a veritable army of aunts, uncles and cousins who all lived nearby and were a part of our lives growing up.
My husband comes from a large family too. He is one of six siblings and also grew up surrounded by a number of cousins and other extended family members.
We raised four children of our own, and because of the large families we came from, our children’s lives were enriched by a large number of cousins, aunts, uncles and other relations. Family gatherings, on both sides of the family, can and often do include 30+ people.
So, as you can see, crowds, especially when it’s family, don’t really intimidate me. To bring this back to my story, I finally settled on ten orphan children. Ten is a nice round number – not too large to keep track of, but plenty large to intimidate a reserved young woman who has never been around children. The trickiest part was to give each child some element to help the reader keep them straight. For instance Molly sucks her thumb when she’s anxious, Joey is fixated on wanting a dog, Audrey and Albert are twins, Tessa has a heart for the grandmotherly lady who lives in Eileen’s home, Fern is a bit surly and is carrying a grudge against Eileen, Harry is something of a tease, and so on. My editor said I carried it off – let’s hope readers agree!
Blurb for Her Holiday Family by Winnie Griggs:
What happens when a straight-laced young widow’s home is invaded by ten rambunctious orphans and their handsome caretaker just in time for the holidays…
Reserved widow Eileen Pierce never considered herself the kind of woman who was cut out to be a mother. She wouldn’t know what to do with one child, much less ten. But when handyman Simon Tucker is stranded in town with a group of young orphans just before Thanksgiving, she discovers she can’t just turn them away.
Simon knows there’s more to Eileen than meets the eye. Though his easygoing demeanor immediately clashes with her buttoned-up propriety, Simon’s kindness soon melts Eileen’s stern facade. Simon and the children already upended Eileen’s quiet, orderly life. Will they do the same to her guarded heart?
Buy Links: Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Christianbooks.com
The Scavenger Hunt Info Needed:
Thanks so much for stopping by my site and participating in the new Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt. Before you move on to Stop #29, which is Winnie Grigg’s site, to pick up your next clue, be sure to write down this Stop #28 clue: “SOME BOOKS
Bonus Contest for this Blog:
This is Margaret Daley here. I have an additional contest running on this blog only. In my book, Her Holiday Hero, a therapy dog plays an important role. Her Holiday Hero is the second book in Caring Canines Series about service and therapy dogs. I will be giving away 3 copies worldwide. Do you have a favorite pet? Who is it and why is the pet your favorite? I will give three books away. The giveaway entries will be from the people who answer those question below. You will get an extra entries in the giveaway if you sign up for my newsletter (sign up is on the right hand side of this page) and/or like my Facebook page. Please let me know if you did either in your comment.
