Imagination is more important than . . . : *2 BOOK GIVEAWAY*

By Kelly Bridgewater

www.flickr.com

Imagination is more important than . . .?

Do you know the answer to that quotation?

Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Do you believe it?

As writers, we spend most of our days with our head in the clouds, looking for the next good chapter or book idea to fill our time. But I wonder, how did you allow your imagination to roam free as a child?

As a child, me and my best friend, Robin, used to run around and play in her side yard all day long. We used a tree that grew right next to her fence as horses. The branches moved up and down, so we would climb the tree and straddled the branches. We would go far across the open plain and fight knights and villians who attacked us.

Robin's side yard was pretty big or maybe it just appeared big to our imaginations. We saw a huge mansion where we would walk in circles, but we saw the curved stairs, leading to the upper floors of ornate home with our beds. The neigbor across the street had this huge tree with branches that grew up like stairs, so Robin and I would spend hours climbing up the tree and talking and laughing.

We even created our own world with our own storyline called IceLand. Robin and I were twin sisters sent to Earth when the Evil witch destroyed our Ice home, another planet out in the galaxy. We were sent in pods to earth by the king and queen who were our parents. It kept us occupied for hours.

Plus, what young girl in the early nineties did not play with Barbies. Robin and I played for hours. I enjoyed playing at her house because she actually had the Barbie dream house with all the furniture. Robin would buy two of the same dolls, which of course, we made as twins who lived in different homes.

www.inspirationalhunter.com

As a child, this was how I kept my imagination on overdrive. Since then, I have seen the benefit of my overactive imagination. It has allowed me to stayed glued to the computer screen and watch my characters interact with each other on the page. I can imagine my story world to the finest detail, even though sometimes it doesn't come out on the page like I want it to.

What did you do as a child to stimulate your imagination? Come on, I shared some stories that my friend, Robin will probably cringe that I have put out in cyberspace. Now it is your turn.

Amazon

**************Giveaway*******************

Want to win a hardback copy of A Novel Idea: Best Advice on Writing Inspirational Fiction? I'm also throwing in a copy of Hiding Places by Erin Healy.

Enter at the Rafflecopter below!

*Open to US Residents only! Sorry!

Good luck!

********************************************
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mrs. Roosevelt Confidante: Susan Elia MacNeal

By Kelly Bridgewater

Synopsis:

December 1941. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C., along with special agent Maggie Hope. Posing as his typist, she is accompanying the prime minister as he meets with President Roosevelt to negotiate the United States’ entry into World War II. When one of the First Lady’s aides is mysteriously murdered, Maggie is quickly drawn into Mrs. Roosevelt’s inner circle—as ER herself is implicated in the crime. Maggie knows she must keep the investigation quiet, so she employs her unparalleled skills at code breaking and espionage to figure out who would target Mrs. Roosevelt, and why. What Maggie uncovers is a shocking conspiracy that could jeopardize American support for the war and leave the fate of the world hanging dangerously in the balance.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

I am a huge World War II junkie. I love everything about the period. The clothes. The music. The external and internal conflicts. By reading Sarah Sundin, Liz Tolsma, and Kristy Cambron, it has sparked my renewed interests in the period. I wanted to find something to do with mystery during the same era, so I found Susan Elia MacNeal’s  Maggie Hope’s mysteries. Her books have everything you would want in a World War II historical mystery. A recurring character. An interesting setting. Unique perspective.

One of MacNeal’s greatest strengths in my humble opinion is her ability to bring characters to life who I have met in history books. For instance in Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante, I got to meet and hang out with Eleanor Roosevelt for a while. In the history books, I have learned about her accomplishments as she stood behind her husband President FDR, but MacNeal brings her to life. In her previous books in this series, I got to hang out with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. She does a good job at making these historical characters real.

I really enjoyed her descriptive setting. MacNeal captures London and America during the World War II conflict. I could see the burned out buildings in London and see the Christmas lights shining in America, even though Pearl Harbor just occurred a couple of weeks ago. MacNeal really understands how the setting makes the story.

The conflict is unique, yet powerful. For someone like me, suspense in any time period makes the story more riveting, grabbing me from the first page, and MacNeal does that. There is a dead woman lying in a bathtub with slit wrists, so MacNeal drags Mrs. Roosevelt and Maggie through the pages of the story as they try to figure out who murdered her.

For the members of the CBA market, there is a word of warning. MaNeal does mention homosexuality like it is nothing, so be prepared to read moments where she describes a couple of key characters in this type of relationship. It made me flip through those pages pretty quickly, but it doesn’t ruin the story.

In true historical significance Susan Elia MacNeal’s latest mystery in her Maggie Hope series continues with a familiar character and allows me to return to World War II and solve the mystery.  If you are a World War II buff and a mystery lover, than this book is for you!

I received a complimentary copy of Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante from Random House through Netgalley and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Purchase Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante

Have you ever tried anything from Susan Elia MacNeal? What aspect of her historical World War II suspense series captures your attention?

Bonnie S. Calhoun: Lightning

By Kelly Bridgewater

Description:

After she found her real father, life for Selah should have felt settled. But the horrors have just begun. In her broken world of toxic earth and tribal clashes, Selah must 
battle the forces of nature alongside those in the Mountain who are calling for her blood. Haunted by the pain of mounting losses, she forges on, seeking her lost family and 
uncovering new mysteries. But the ultimate betrayal of her own body may soon make her quest impossible as it becomes apparent that what has made her new could also drive her to a life of madness.

My Thoughts:

After reading Thunder by Bonnie S. Calhoun and truly enjoying it, I couldn’t wait for the next installment in her futuristic Dystopian Stonebraide Chronicles. This time around there is a prequel to cover the time period between Thunder and Lightning. It is entitled Aftershock. It is about fifty pages, so it didn’t take long to remind me of the key characters and the situations that were occurring.

From Amazon

I liked that Lightning picked up right around the time that Aftershock ended, and how Calhoun started the story with a dilemma where Selah needed to find her mother. It gripped my attention and took me away to another time, wrapped in chaos and confusion.

While on the journey to free her parents, Calhoun creates this fallen world with great detail. I could see the danger and the Air Wagon as it lurked through the woods. I really felt like I was there, running for survival along with the crew.

The main issue in Lightning centers on Selah wanting to find her stepfather, mother, and little brother. She needs to protect them and free them, so Selah travels through the woods and on the boundaries of Stonebraide, but ultimately has to go back into the dreaded mountain where she freed her father, Gale, in Thunder. Emotionally, Calhoun really doesn’t allow me to feel a connection with Selah. I know she wants to free the family that raised her, but other than that, I really don’t feel emotionally connected to her at all. A word of caution there are a couple of point of view shifts that occur on the same page. One minute, I was in Selah’s point of view than in jumped into Treva. Made me read this section again.

Once Selah enters the mountain, the story picks up in pace. One moment I am running through the Blue section, then crossing over to the Green section where I watch as Selah hides for her life. The last third of the book moved extremely fast, making me not want to put the book down. I really enjoyed how Calhoun placed timers at the beginning of each chapter near the end to hasten the dilemma’s urgency. The major event toward the end was unexpected and original. I liked how the story ends.

Even though I did enjoy Lightning, I had a few issues with it. The first two-thirds of the book dragged on and on. I didn’t see the point of them traveling around in circles on the time with a couple of encounters with troublemakers. None of the people they met really caused them any harm, even though Selah was a wanted fugitive. 

Second, when they arrived in the mountain, Calhoun has Selah run into Bethany, the scientist who causes a lot of trouble in Thunder, and now wants to destroy and use Selah’s blood. After an escape attempt from Bethany, Selah keeps running back into Bethany over and over again. I really wished Calhoun would have allowed Selah to run into different trouble. Why allow Selah to run into the person who wanted her dead a number of times?

Third, once in the mountain, I had a really hard time visualizing the surroundings. If I was inside of a mountain, then how are all these different colors or cities different from one another? What did they look like? Are they only different because of what work they do or the color of their t-shirt?

In true dystopian fashion, Bonnie S. Calhoun’s latest installment in the Stonebraide Chronicles Lightning features reoccurring characters and a fast paced last third of the book, but there are issues with detail while in the mountain and a villain who kept showing her face too many times too count. Even though this story was not my favorite of the two full-length novels and two novellas, I anxiously wait to see what happens to Selah and Bodhi in the next installment.

I received a complimentary copy of Lightning from Revell Publishing and the opinions stated are all my own. 

My Rating:  3.5 out of 5 stars 

Purchase Lightning

What Dee Henderson Means to Me

By Kelly Bridgewater

This is the ninth post of me writing about the authors who have influenced me as a writer. If you missed any previous posts, please return to them and read up on how these certain authors influenced me. There were C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Steven James, and Robin Jones Gunn.

This post, I will be discussing Dee Henderson.

From Amazon

During high school, I worked at the Meijer grocery store in Avon, Indiana, which was right around the corner. It was fine for a high school student who needed to earn money, but when I graduated high school, I wanted a better job with higher pay. I wanted a job with more value for what I could see myself doing for a long time. I attended IUPUI downtown Indianapolis and earned the job at Light and Life Christian Bookstore. Unfortunately, the bookstore doesn’t exist anymore, but I worked there for two years.  I still think of it as my favorite job. What was better than being surrounded by Christian employees who had a prayer time every morning before we opened and could talk about God to the customers?

Another perk I loved was being able to borrow books. As soon as a book came out, the employees were allowed to check them out and read them, then return them to the shelf for customers to buy. I read a lot of Christian fiction at the time. Still do, but that’s beside the point. When I quit and moved to Terre Haute, Indiana with my husband and six month old son, who is thirteen now, my husband joked that he would be broke from all the books I would now have to go buy. Luck for him, I visited the local library, so no loss of income there.

But as a child, I gravitated toward Nancy Drew books and the mystery collections of The Baby-sitter Club and Sweet Valley High and University. When I was reading books at the bookstore, I was introduced to Karen Kingsbury, a contemporary romance writer. I loved her books. Not her recent ones, but her first one we’re great. I was a true mystery and adventure girl, but the Christian genre didn’t have a lot of suspense authors at the time (it was only 2001), so it wasn’t that long ago. Yes, there was Frank Peretti, and I read all his books, but there really wasn’t much else.

One evening, when I had to work the evening shift with a high school student, he sat behind the register and read The Protector by Dee Henderson. I asked him what the book was about. He handed me the book and allowed me to read the back. I couldn’t believe it. A suspense book. For the next couple of days, I couldn’t wait to borrow those books, which I did and loved.

I read everything Dee Henderson had written up to that point. By reading Henderson, I started to find more suspense authors, Terri Blackstock, Kathy Herman, DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble. I still read and love this genre a lot.

Dee Henderson taught me the love of Christian suspense, mysteries, and thrillers. Without her, I would not have been introduced to the genre, and I thank her for that.

What author defines the genre you read and/or write in? How did you become introduced to the book?

A.H. Gabhart: Murder at the Courthouse *2-BOOK GIVEAWAY*

By Kelly Bridgewater

From Amazon

Back Cover Copy:

After a few years as a police officer in Chicago, Michael Keane has no trouble relaxing into the far less stressful job of deputy sheriff in his small hometown. After all, nothing ever happens in Hidden Springs, Kentucky. Nothing, that is, until a dead body is discovered on the courthouse steps. Everyone in town is a little uneasy. Still, no one is terribly worried--after all the man was a stranger--until one of their own is murdered right on Main Street.

As Michael works to solve the case it seems that every nosy resident in town has a theory. When the sheriff insists Michael check out one of these harebrained theories, his surprising discovery sends him on a bewildering search for a mysterious killer that has him questioning everything he has ever believed about life in Hidden Springs.

My Thoughts:

Nothing is better than curling up with a good mystery in a comfy chair and getting lost in whodunit for a couple of hours. I prefer to do this over reading any other genre. Well, except World War II fiction, that has been grabbing and holding my attention for a while now. Anyways, when I saw the title on A.H. Gabhart’s latest release Murder at the Courthouse, I knew I wanted to read it.

While the writing is okay with plenty of description to anchor the reader in Hidden Springs, the prose got a little heavy at times. For a mystery, which should be fast paced with lots of hunting for clues, Gabhart’s Murder at the Courthouse had a LOT of backstory filling the pages. Sometimes I would be reading something and scratch my head. Why was I learning about this event that happened so many years ago? Gabhart would repeat herself and tell the same story later. I was confused.

Gabhart does do a good job at creating characters with backstory. I enjoyed getting to see Micheal’s scars and watch him overcome them. I was proud to see him road to success.

As for the mystery, which is why I picked up the book anyway, it didn’t capture my attention like most mysteries should. It dragged on and on and on. In the first couple of chapters, I had a suspicion the bad guy was, and as the story progressed, I watched this person. They kept doing things to prove my theory. At the end, it was this person. No surprise. Gabhart left a pretty big trial of clues for avid readers like me to figure out who the bad guy was pretty early. I kept wanting to do other things, like cook and clean. Murder at the Courthouse did not capture my attention.

Another weird thing is the mention of Karen, the preacher in town. Michael mentioned her a couple of times, but then the ending had them wanting to be together forever. Kind of out of the blue. I didn’t understand this. The romance really didn’t develop across the pages of the story.

Overall, Murder at the Courthouse is a slow moving mystery with a predictable ending. 

Want to find out for yourself if you disagree with my opinion? I mean, come on, everyone has an opinion. That is what makes the world go round. 

Sign up below to win a copy of Murder at the Courthouse.

I received a complimentary copy of Murder at the Courthouse from Revell Publishing and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Purchase Murder at the Courthouse

*********************************************************************
I am giving away my ARC copy of Murder at the Courthouse by A. H. Gabhart and throwing in an ARC copy of Every Girl Gets Confused by Janice Thompson. Log in to the rafflecopter below to sign up.

Amazon

*Due to shipping costs, the giveaway is open to US residents only. Sorry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway *********************************************************************

Critique Partners

By Kelly Bridgewater

How do you find critique partners? If you are like me, then you have joined a number of the ACFW’s critique groups, hoping for someone who would help bring life to the story you have poured your heart into.

But what does a critique partner do for you? I have a suggestion of three things, so this shouldn’t be that long of a post to read. (Yeah, I know.)

       1.)    Know the Genre

What good would it do to have someone who focuses on historical western romances when you want to write contemporary thrillers? Try to find someone who enjoys reading the same genre. That way the partner will know the plot points and what is missing from your story.

2.)    Willing to be Honest

I know this sounds funny. But I HATE when I was in graduate school and my one of my writing class had underclassmen in it. No offense to them, but I was farther along in my writing skills, and I hated getting critiques back from them that said, “Great. I would change nothing. You’re a great writer.” I wanted to slam the piece on the table. That offered no help. I know I’m not that good, or I wouldn’t be trying to learn all I could to improve my writing.

If your critique partner isn’t willing to show you your weaknesses, then what are they trying to do? I can give you plenty of people who will pat your shoulder and praise your work. Ask your mother or father. I’m sure they will say that you are the best writer around.

I want to improve my craft, so I want someone to say, “Kelly, your setting doesn’t come alive to me. Here is a book that will help. Look at Susan May Warren’s writing. She is good at anchoring the reader to the setting.” (I am studying her books for that right now!) Who doesn’t need to hear the truth some time?

     3.)   Prayer

On Seekerville in the middle of May, one of the writers asked if writers had people in their court praying for them. Made me think. I ask my writer friends to look at my work, but I never think to have them pray for me when I’m in the pit of despair and doubt God’s chosen work for me. Even if I sent off a tiny email, mentioning the prayer. You don’t have to go into specifics. Just say you need prayer.

This is something I need to work on!

What are other suggestions do you have for what a critique partner should do for you?

A Respectable Actress by Dorothy Love

By Kelly Bridgewater

Back Cover Copy:

When India Hartley is accused of murder, she must uncover the deceptions of others to save herself.

India Hartley, a famous and beautiful actress, is now alone after her father’s death and embarks upon a tour of theaters across the South. Her first stop is Savannah’s Southern Palace. On the eve of the second night’s performance, something goes horribly wrong. Her co-star, Arthur Sterling, is shot dead on stage in front of a packed house, and India is arrested and accused of the crime.

A benefactor hires Philip Sinclair, the best—and handsomest—lawyer in Savannah to defend India. A widower, Philip is struggling to reinvent his worn-out plantation on St. Simons Island. He needs to increase his income from his law practice in order to restore Indigo Point, and hardly anything will bring him more new clients than successfully defending a famous actress on a murder charge.

From Amazon

Because India can’t go anywhere in town without being mobbed, Philip persuades the judge handling her case to let him take her to Indigo Point until her trial date. India is charmed by the beauty of the Georgia lowcountry and is increasingly drawn to Philip. But a locked room that appears to be a shrine to Philip’s dead wife and the unsolved disappearance of a former slave girl raise troubling questions. Piecing together clues in an abandoned boat and a burned-out chapel, India discovers a trail of dark secrets that lead back to Philip, secrets that ultimately may hold the key to her freedom. If only he will believe her.

My Thoughts:

I have never read anything by Dorothy Love. The covers really did not appeal to me, nor did the synopsis from the back cover. A historical story set during the Victorian Era reminds me of the most famous Victorian writer: Arthur Conan Doyle.

Love does a great job with her top notch writing. I really felt the setting came to life with Love’s attention to detail. The historical detail gripped my attention, and it carried back to my love of the Victorian era, which is popular in Sherlock Holmes’ world. The individual character’s dialogue matched the characters and their social status. The intermingling of the prose versus the amount of dialogue were even matched and allowed me to immerse myself completely.

While the writing captured my attention, the suspense part had me frustrated. As an avid reader of a number of suspense books, I felt that the suspense was low key and could use more attention to what makes a suspense aspect of the book. I don’t mean to be mean, but a suspense started the book, then India is whisked away to an island with her attorney, and they spend time falling in love with each other while India is shunned by a number of servants who work on the island. The case is solved, and India is kidnapped back to the island with a death threat over her head. The threatee approaches and is arrested within minutes. Kind of weird for me.

The romance was also way too fast for my taste too. I really had a hard time believing that India and her powerful attorney, Philip Sinclair would fall in love and be happy by the end of the book. The tension moves too fast, not that I didn’t follow the storyline because I did, but the tension really did not glue the plot together.

Overall, Dorothy Love’s A Respectable Actress had great writing but lacked the suspense and romance that I am used to in a novel. While I could see the action occurring in my head and enjoyed the story, I really wished the story had more meat to the conflict.

I received a complimentary copy of A Respectable Actress from Thomas Nelson Publishing and the opinions stated are all my own. 

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Lisa Harris: Vendetta

By Kelly Bridgewater

Back Cover Copy:

From Amazon

No one needs to push Nikki Boyd to excel on the Tennessee Missing Person Task Force. The case of her own missing sister, still unsolved after ten years, is the driving force in her work. When a Polaroid photo of a missing girl shows up at a crime scene, Nikki quickly recognizes similarities to the past. The closer she gets to the abductor, the more she feels that this case is getting personal, and that she is not the hunter at all--but actually the one being hunted.

My Thoughts:

I have read Hidden Agenda by Lisa Harris, and it was an okay mystery. There were some elements that needed fixed in the overall plot. Feel free to browse my previous review on Hidden Agenda. The synopsis for Vendetta appeared to be better, and I was hoping that Harris’ game was more up to a mystery lover’s standard. Vendetta was a much better written book than Hidden Agenda for three reasons.

1.)Conflict

The conflict in this story was twofold: internal and external. Harris made me care about Nikki who wanted to seek revenge on the Angel Abductor, who took her sister ten years ago. I could totally understand and empathize with her pain. I really enjoy stories where someone is missing, and my heart races as I flip the pages, wanting to find out what happens to the absent person. The dilemma in this story was not original by any means. It has been done tons of times, so there was nothing really new here. I didn’t figure out the who the abductor was because they pretty much don’t enter the story until the last third of the book, so there were no bread crumbs pointing to him. It did appear kind of odd that this person was the villain. I would have liked to have seen more interaction with him during the beginning of the book to throw me off base.

2.)Characters

Like I already said, I got on board pretty quickly with Nikki and Tyler. Harris made Nikki’s dilemma come to life, which paralleled the dilemma unfolding in Vendetta with the missing teenager, Bridget. I understood the paralyzing fear that gripped Nikki as the killer taunted and tortured her with clues to the current and past case. Nikki was a strong heroine who would not back down from the case. She wanted to prove the bad guy that he had no control over her life. Nikki is the type of character most of us women can relate too. On the other hand, Tyler was a supportive friend who did whatever Nikki asked. Being an ex-army guy, Tyler was trained in all sorts of missions and skills, so he could lend a helping hand as he comforted Nikki. They both had deaths in their past that they both have been blaming themselves for, but with Bridget missing, both of them learn to lean on each other and let go of some of the blame.

3.)Writing

Harris takes a familiar story and lightens with her use of descriptive images. I really felt like I was traveling through the Smoky Mountains. She does a good job at showing me what is happening in the surroundings as much as the tension happening inside and outside Nikki. There is an even amount of prose and dialogue when it is needed. But there is also lots of dialogue during the important moments, which help quicken the pace for the story. I love when a writer does this.

Overall, Vendetta by Lisa Harris is a much better mystery for me. I really enjoyed the characters and the descriptions. I just wish the villain made an appearance sooner.

My Rating:   4.5 out of 5 stars

Purchase Vendetta 

What Robin Jones Gunn means to Me

By Kelly Bridgewater

From Amazon

This is the eighth post from me writing about the authors who have influenced me as a writer. If you missed any previous posts, please return to them and read up on how these certain authors influenced me. There were C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Steven James.

This post, I want to focus on the author who introduced me to the Christian fiction genre. She was the first Christian author to write for the Young Adult readers. Know who I’m talking about. At the 2013 ACFW conference, she was the Keynote speaker, and I had her autograph one of my classic copies of her book.

Have you figured out who I’m talking about yet?

If you guessed Robin Jones Gunn, then you would be right. As a fifteen year old, I was immersed in reading, but I filled my days and evenings with The Baby-sitter Club, Sweet Valley High and University, Nancy Drew,  and other books for young adults. My father had a subscription to the Focus on the Family  magazine. There was an advertisement for the next book in the Christy Miller Series called True Friends, which was the seventh book in the series. My father knew how much I loved to read, but he wanted to introduce me to Christian books, so he purchased the book.

I loved it and wanted the previous six books in the series. The book affected me as a young teenage girl who grew up in the church but had gotten made fun of because of my strong belief in Christ. Joining Christy Miller as she struggles with the issues I faced as a teenager made her realistic for me. Gunn did a good job at allowing me to understand that being a Christian as a teenager is not a bad thing; it is actually a good thing. We have values and guidelines to help us set our lives upon.

It might be funny for the secular community that the public school preaches, but in the end, I’m the one that didn’t have to deal with unplanned pregnancies, STD’s, hang-over, and failing grades.

Me with Robin Jones Gunn at the 2014 ACFW conference

Robin Jones Gunn introduced me to the Christian Fiction genre and helped me stand strong as a Christian in a world where being a Christian was frowned on. Her stories comforted me and allowed me to stand strong as I took a stand on sex before marriage and drugs.

What author helped you to stand stronger in your faith? What book did they right that inspired you to keep your faith?

Dawn Crandall's Paperback Editions + Giveaways

By Kelly Bridgewater

My friend and author, Dawn Crandall's, Everstone Chronicles books that came out last year in e-book are now out in paperback.  She and I are REALLY excited about this because I have personally sent numerous emails to the publishing companies begging for print editons of her well-received books. All three of the books in the series  are receiving 4.5 star reviews out of 5. If you haven't read them but want the print copies, now is your time to get them.

I welcome Dawn as she tells you a little about The Everstone Chronicles in print:

The Hesitant Heiress (Everstone Chronicles #1) Synopsis:

After being unjustly expelled from the Boston Conservatory of Music, Amaryllis Brigham sees her dreams of founding a music academy in her hometown of Seattle, Washington, disappearing before her very eyes. Now, the only way to achieve her goal comes with high stakes for someone set on avoiding men as much as possible: Marry within the year to inherit the immense fortune of her estranged grandmother. Amaryllis reluctantly moves in to her aunt's Boston home and rubs shoulders with fashionable society. Despite her own misgivings, she soon finds herself quickly falling in love with the most unlikely of men--Nathan Everstone, the envy of every eligible female, whose father has haunted her dreams for the decade following her mother's tragic death. However, Nathan turns out to be much more than he seems...and everything she never knew she wanted. But just as everything Amaryllis has recently hoped for comes to fruition, it all falls apart when she finds that the real culprit who has been managing her life isn't who she thought at all.

The Bound Heart (Everstone Chronicles #2) Synopsis:

One accidental kiss from Lawry Hampton. That was all it took to throw Meredyth Summercourt's world upside-down. Determined to marry the ever-elusive Vance Everstone, she simply doesn't have the time or the desire to fall for her best friend. But with Vance out of the country, and with Lawry at her side nearly every day, teaching her what the world is like through the eyes of a little orphan girl named Wynn--Meredyth can't deny that what's holding her to Vance is nothing more than a desire to redeem herself from her past. Will she marry Vance once he returns from Europe? Or will she be strong enough to break free from the tangled web she's convinced she deserves, and accept that God's plan for her life includes redemption...and, quite possibly, Lawry Hampton?

The Captive Imposter (Everstone Chronicles #3) Synopsis:

For her own protection following the murder of her brother Will, hotel heiress Estella Everstone assumes the alias of Elle Stoneburner and takes a job as companion to an elderly widow. Never did she imagine that her position would lead her back to her beloved Everston, a picturesque resort property tucked away in the rugged mountains of Maine. Living below her station in a guise of anonymity has its struggles, but her spirits are buoyed by a newfound friendship with the hotel manager, Dexter Blakeley. And his distaste for the spoiled socialites who frequent his hotel causes her to take a close look at her own priorities and past lifestyle. When Estella finds herself in need of help, Dexter comes to the rescue with an offer of employment she can't refuse. As the two interact and open up to each other, Estella feels a growing attraction to Dexter; and increasing discomfort over concealing her identity. Yet, in spite of the false pretense she's putting forth, she's never felt freer to be herself than in his presence. But will he still love her when he learns the truth about who she is?

The paperback versions of The Everstone Chronicles are out in paperback format from Whitaker House right now! 

From Dawn

Find them here: 
Amazon (amazon.com/author/dawncrandall) 
The Hesitant Heiress (Releases on September 8, 2015)
The Bound Heart (Releases on October 6, 2015)
The Captive Imposter (Releases on November 3, 2015)

If you are still unsure or haven't heard about Dawn Crandall's books (where have you been? jk), here is a link to all the books on Goodreads. Feel free to scan some of the raving reviews about her books.

The Hesitant Heiress
The Bound Heart
The Captive Imposter

Here is the link to MY personal reviews that have been here:
The Hesitant Heiress
The Bound Heart
The Captive Imposter

Would you like to read the first chapter of The Hesitant Heiress by Dawn Crandall? Go here and download the first chapter for Free!!!

CONNECT WITH DAWN

Sign up for my quarterly Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bilhmv

Facebook: facebook.com/DawnCrandallWritesFirst

Book Review Blog: www.APassionforPages.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/dawnwritesfirst

Twitter: @dawnwritesfirst / www.twitter.com/dawnwritesfirst

Author Website: www.dawncrandall.blogspot.com

From Dawn

*******Giveaways!!!**************

Please go and sign up! Good Luck!!!

GoodReads Giveaway (5 print copies of TBH)

Rafflecopter Giveaway (5 print copies of TBH)

Win a print copy of @dawnwritesfirst/Dawn Crandall's award winning sophomore novel, The Bound Heart.

***********************************************************************************

Thank you for stopping by and learning about Dawn Crandall's much anticipated paperback editions of her Everstone Chronicles!!