SNEAK PEEK! Less than 48 hours away from "WARNING IN WAUKESHA!"

Good evening:

So, file reviews being what they are, the best guess is that my newest Nora Hill novel, "Warning in Waukesha" will be available online in print or digital form in the next 48 hours.

This book took a lot longer than I anticipated to finish.  Why?  This one was a soul struggle for me.

There are two reasons I began writing Christian fiction:

The first most people know, that I set a challenge for myself to come up with a fictional heroine set in modern times with modern temptations and modern questions about faith, family, and perceptions.  I believe, with Nora Hill, I've done that.  And since is my third book with her, I've come to know her very well. She's the character, in all of my books, who is most like me.

Which brings me to my second reason for writing Christian fiction.  I've been a devout practicing Christian my whole life. That does not mean I haven't questioned my faith, the teachings of my church, and God in general from time to time.  In recent years I've found myself struggling especially hard to find what it is God wants of me following the diagnosis of mental illnesses  for two very close family members. I've wrestled to balance the clear cut "right and wrong" world my parents lived in, the one I was raised in, to the more subtle shades of today's morality and how it pertains to my children and the other young people I love and respect.  

This is a difficult world to live in, no matter where your faith lies, I think that's one thing we can all agree upon.  So, writing Nora's stories has become more and more of a personal battle, a personal vein opening, if you will, for me.  "Warning in Waukesha" not only takes place in a a town I call home, much of the storyline hits very close to my heart.

Below is a tiny peek at the book. This is the first time ever I've released parts of this one to anyone. I'm so excited!

Watch in the next couple days for the book release on my Amazon author page. But in the meantime, please enjoy this sneak peek!

“Oh look, Nora, there’s Cassie Wilson. You remember her from the Rochester Deli yesterday, right?”

I look over my shoulder, just to please Mom, because there’s no way in the world I’m going to recognize Cassie Wilson right now. Turns out, she’s serving sandwiches and cake to the mourners. She brings a tray of cold ham sandwiches to our table and as I take the tray from her, our hands brush. The tray slips out of my hands, fortunately falling onto the table. Not that there’s anything I can do about it at the moment, I’m too busy trying very hard not to pass out.

There is no doubt in my mind that something is going to happen to Cassie and I’m going to be the one to have to track her down when it does happen.  Apparently this gift of finding missing children, this gift I love so well, (get my sarcasm) has broadened and now adults who are clearing just fine and dandy are landing on my list.

Oh goodie.

My cell buzzes. I blink away the last of the dizziness, and look at the screen. It’s Sam. I ignore the call. This is not the time or place for more angst. I need to clear my head and get ready for the next step in the whole “finding Cassie” process. Which means I need to listen for a quiet voice that’s going to tell me where to find her.

A little too mystical for most people’s tastes, but that’s my life.

My mother chit-chats for almost half an hour before deciding she’s been there long enough to satisfy the rules of church etiquette. Once inside the confines of the car, she rattles off a litany of complaints about this person and that person, all fine, upstanding church members who have said or done something she finds inexcusable. She relays how one of Lily’s precious lambs was wronged by the demon spawn grandchild of another member and she, Brenda Hill, was just about at the end of her rope with it all.

Normally I ignore Mom when she’s on a rant about church. When I was a kid her rants were directed toward Dad, who could absorb them with an easy grace. Since his passing, she’s gotten more involved (if that’s even possible) in the church and with more involvement comes more stories about people who just aren’t doing Christianity right.

She seems really worked up for someone who just ate two pieces of decorated funeral cake, so I ignore my better judgement and ask a question. “Mom, if this church makes you so upset, why don’t you just find one you like better?”

I know I’ve said something monumentally stupid. Mom takes a break in her constant stream of vocalizing to gather herself to squash a challenge she deems to be ridiculous. “Nora, I can’t just leave that church. I’ve been a member there since your father died. All my friends are there.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know it to hear you talk.”

I don’t know why I say things. I should just be quiet.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, given how you don’t darken the door of a church unless someone forces you. I pray for you, Nora, I pray for you every day.”

It’s nice she’s praying for me, even though I know she doesn’t mean for me to think it’s nice. I’ll bet she doesn’t have to pray for Lily and Rose. “Mom, all I’m saying is that if your church is making you miserable, maybe there’s one where people, you know, don’t irritate you.”

Mom shakes her head. We’re back at her house and in her driveway, which means the discussion is over because we both know this isn’t one we’re bringing into the house. “I can’t just pull up stakes from my church because someone bugs me, Nora. That’s not how it works.”

Sitting on her perfect settee, watching a humid Saturday pass me by, I roll her words over in my mind and realize that maybe it’s not that easy for her, but it maybe should be. I have my doubts that there’s a church out there where a person like me is going to feel at ease, but I keep looking. I’d like to help Mom find a church that gives her more peace than irritation.

My phone buzzes again. Sam, again.

Guess I’ll have to worry about my mother’s church home another time. I can’t ignore Sam forever.

Sneak peak week! MISSING IN MANITOWOC! Part 1

Good evening!

Here we are, first snippet of my new novel, due for release on Sunday, November 1.  

Enjoy!

FRIDAY 5 PM

            If it’s true what they say, that God has a sense of humor, then He’s having a huge laugh at my expense right now.

            Fifteen years ago I swore I would never come back to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, so the fact that I’m standing here in an auto repair shop can only be attributed to some kind of twisted Divine sense of humor. That’s what my father would probably say, anyway. My mother…well, my mother would probably scold me for thinking blasphemous thoughts. She didn’t exactly share Dad’s more lighthearted approach to the Almighty, which is odd, since he was a minister. You’d think the opposite would be true.

            Meanwhile, I’ve been here for an hour. There’s no Wifi, which isn’t quite the big deal for me as it is for most people. It’s not like I spend a ton of time on social media. I’m not that social. But I could be doing some online research for work. Work would help pass the time I’m forced to spend sitting on an orange molded plastic chair circa 1977.

Oh sure, I could access the Internet with my phone’s data plan, but my phone is dead. I haven’t been able to find my charger. This, again, is not the disaster it might be for most people. It’s not like I’m going to miss some life or death text if I don’t have a charged phone for a couple days. My mother and sisters are used to not hearing from me every day. My agent is really the only person who gets frantic when she can’t reach me.

            No, my biggest problem at this moment, other than not being able to escape Manitowoc before anyone manages to recognize me, is that I’m bored.

            I’m not bored often. When you’re in my line of work, if you get bored, you get up, walk around a bit, or maybe get in your car and drive some place. Do something to change the scenery, and

then get back to work. And when I’m really into it, if I’m really in the writing zone, boredom is the least of my problems. Remembering to eat is usually a bigger issue.

Besides, I’m not built to be bored. If you’re a person who believes in Divine Intervention, you’d know what I’m talking about. God saw to it when He made me, He made a person who simply had zero chance of finding the world dull or tedious. Terrifying, yes. Bewildering, absolutely. Never boring.

            And yet, here I am. Maybe it’s some sort of evil spell that hangs over this city on Lake Michigan.

            No, that’s not the case. I don’t have to go back too far in my memory to realize that ‘terrified’ and ‘isolated’ are really the only two things I took away from my time in this burg. I was too busy being tormented to feel anything other than those two emotions. So, hey, there’s that silver lining my sisters are always telling me to look for.

Right now the one thing that’s saving me from sliding into a brain dead coma is the television in the corner of the waiting room. Granted, it’s tuned to local news and the local anchor, complete with that North Eastern Wisconsin accent, is telling us all a delightful little story about some seventh-grade school group having an exciting day at all the tourist attractions along the Lake Michigan shore. The story is pure fluff and I have zero interest in local news, school groups, or Lake Michigan while my vehicle is being poked by strangers.  But TV noise is better than the sound of a mechanic telling me my beloved Forester is dead.

Sneak Peak Week! "MISSING IN MANITOWOC!"

Good evening all!

Some of you know I've been working on the first novel in a series and that I'd hoped to have the first book out earlier this year.  Well, my friends, as a self published author, I have a team of critique partners, line editors, and beta readers (most of whom are close friends and even closer family) who help me make sure my book is interesting and readable and free of most spelling and grammar errors.

What my team can't help me do is get it right.  That's true for anyone who writes something.  The only person who can get it right is the writer.  And when it comes to my character, Nora Hill, it's got to be right, because I have a feeling Nora is going to be in my brain for a pretty decent amount of time.

That said, I'm so pleased to announce that the first book, "Missing in Manitowoc" will be available on November 1st.  (If it kills me or not.  And it might. But this can't bleed into National Novel Writing Month  ((Nanowrimo)) because I'm using November to get a solid start on the SECOND book in the series, "Superhero in Superior" which I hope to have out late Spring 2016.)

This week I want to give you all a five day sneak peek at Nora Hill and her world.  Each day this week I'll share and excerpt from the book in the hope that by Sunday you'll be so geeked out to find out what happens you won't be able to contain yourself, you'll just HAVE to buy it!

Nora and "Missing" is a big step aside from what I've done in the past, and so I'll be writing under a slightly different author name.  This isn't a romance, and this isn't humor, although those elements are present in the book, albeit faintly, in the case of romance.  No, the most concise definition I can put on this book series is that it will be Christian Cozy Mystery Series.

I've wanted to write in Christian/Inspirational fiction for many years, but I never landed on quite the right concept.  Three years ago I scanned the shelves of Christian Contemporary/Inspirational fiction and I saw a lot of Pioneers and Amish novels.

Nothing against those authors, but I don't write historicals (mostly because the research would kill me) and if I'm looking for something to inspire me spiritually, it's not going to be from the days of a bygone era.  I felt there was a gap for readers who wanted something compelling to read that was also Christian/Inspirational in nature, but was also current.  I found a few authors who fit the bill and I read their work.  The novels I read were compelling, and current, but again I felt like the character's ability to go to God in prayer was just too easy, too normal.

I teach a Bible study to junior high students.  These are not people for whom the concept of prayer comes easily.  They are on the cusp of the eight years of their lives where they will make some of the biggest decisions they will ever make, and many of them will make those decisions largely without even thinking about prayer.  They will muddle through, some will go to church and go through the motions, but few will give religion deep thought.  I know I didn't, during my high school and college years. So my focus during this Bible study is not how great the people of the Bible were and how faithful, but really how flawed those heroes of faith were.  Think about it:  Adam, a weakling who tried to blame sin on his wife.  Noah, drunkard.  Abraham...bigamist.  Isaac...Dad picked his wife, but he picked his favorite child.  Jacob...ah, Jacob.  Jacob who wrestled with God.  Jacob who had a temper, made mistakes, had a favorite wife, but wasn't above begetting children with four women...this is the type of guy I love to highlight in Bible study with my junior high students.

My own children are pretty much grown up but they are in those frightening years and they are wrestling with God in their own ways, just as I did at their age.  And I look at their friends, and I see a generation of younger adults who are searching for something beyond the black and white judgement of a CHURCH. They are looking for a God who loves them as they are, flaws and all and they aren't satisfied with "Just believe."  They are searching for the face of God.

It was that idea, a believer wrestling with God to see Him and gain His acceptance that brought me to Nora.  Nora Hill is a woman in her early 30's.  She is a successful young adult fiction author.  Her father, now deceased, was a minister. She has a mother and two sisters who are several years older than she is.  

She also has prosopagnosia, which you might know as face blindness. She was born with it, but was not diagnosed until she was late in her junior high years. Her parents thought she was autistic or just a naughty girl, and her childhood was less than ideal because she never felt like she measured up to her sisters or belonged.  Even as an adult she isn't comfortable with her family and she has few friends because face blindness is a disorder that isolates people. Without the ability to recognize and remember faces, how can we make social contacts?

Nora is a woman who is searching.  She is searching for a place to lay her share of her father's ashes to rest. She is searching for a church home where she feels comfortable and accepted.  She is searching for the face of God, a face she prays she can recognize.

She is also always searching for lost children.  Where ever her travels take her there seems to be a child who is not only missing, but is also in grave peril for one reason or another.  Finding such children has been a talent, a gift, or a burden for Nora since she was very young.  She cannot explain how she knows where the children are, she just does.  And because such an ability tends to throw her into a very bright spotlight, she is uncomfortable with it and wishes she didn't have to be the one who finds the children.

Starting tomorrow and through the week I will share excepts of the first book in the series, "Missing in Manitowoc."  I hope you enjoy sharing this adventure with me.