A Healing Heart

Posted on: by Sandra Orchard

I’m delighted at the opportunity to introduce you to Angela Breidenbach’s debut fiction book, A Healing Heart. with Abingdon Press’s Quilts of Love series.

A Healing Heart Cover

 

About A Healing Heart:

 What would you do if the one man who can help is the one man you can’t trust?
A heart attack has stopped Mara Keegan in her tracks, leaving her daughter’s unfinished photo memory quilt hanging by a thread.

Little does Mara know, this quilt—and the memories it bolsters—are the key to her rehabilitation. But Mara’s heart needs to be healed in more ways than one. And Joel Ryan is fraying her last nerve. With her daughter’s graduation fast approaching, even Mara starts to wonder if she—and her faith—can mend in time. Will Joel’s photo find a place on the quilt… and in Mara’s heart?

 I asked Angie to share with us what inspired her to tell this story.

Mara Keegan is really every mom to me. She’s a workaholic with her kids best interests on her heart, but it’s a very damaged heart. Mara gave up her dreams in order to provide for her family. Behind the scenes, I know so many women who have done exactly this sacrificial provision. Personally, I didn’t write for ten years in order to meet the needs of other people. But deep in my heart, I was miserable. I wasn’t doing what I was born to do.

In writing A Healing Heart, I wanted to heal the hearts of women like me who have given up their dreams. For the longest time I thought I’d never be able to write for publishing, my biggest dream, and be a public speaker. But God has a way of bringing people into our lives that opens the door to those dreams. After all, God put those dreams in us.

A Healing Heart is about helping women find a way back to their true purpose, the one God designed their dreams around. It’s about understanding it’s never too late to let God heal our hearts and lead us in the path He’s set before us.

That is so true. Thank you, Angie. 

Angela_Breidenbach

Angela Breidenbach is a speaker, coach, and author of A Healing Heart April 2013 from Abingdon Press in the Quilts of Love series. Her family tradition is to create the life story on a photo memory quilt for each graduating senior. She is certified in mentor/peer counseling as a CTA life coach, as a Stephen Minister, and a weight loss/nutrition coach.

 

You can connect with Angie at:

http://www.AngelaBreidenbach.com

Twitter/Pinterest: @AngBreidenbach

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/AngelaBreidenbachInspirationalSpeakerAuthor

Get your copy of A Healing Heart

 Your Turn:

What dream have you set aside? Do you think God will provide a way to lead you back to it? Or if you’ve started on that path, what obstacle did you have to overcome to take the first step toward your inborn dream?

Here’s what others are saying about A Healing Heart:

“A Healing Heart weaves tears, cheers, laughter and delightful moments to keep you saying, ‘this is my story, my own healing and my own victory.’”—Janet Perez Eckles, author of #1 best-selling Simply Salsa

“As beautifully woven as a keepsake quilt, A Healing Heart wraps itself around you, offering a cozy, heart-tugging story. This is definitely my kind of tale—one that pulls you in from the first page and keeps your emotions engaged throughout. Highly recommended.”—Janice Thompson, author of Queen of the Waves
 

Review of Scorned Justice by Margaret Daley

Posted on: by Sandra Orchard

Scorned-Justice

I have enjoyed Margaret Daley’s books for years, and aspired to emulate them, so… you can imagine how thrilled I was to be asked to write an endorsement for Scorned Justice, the newest installment in The Men of the Texas Rangers series.

The book has now released from Abingdon Press, and if you enjoy romantic suspense, you won’t want to miss it.

Margaret Daley is a prolific writer who is probably best known for her many titles with Harlequin’s Love Inspired lines. But she is a master at romantic suspense. Scorned Justice  kept me glued to the page into the wee hours of the morning with its fast-paced action, wonderfully-developed characters and romance, and an explosive twist I didn’t see coming.

Romantic Times Magazine agrees, giving it 4 1/2 stars.

I asked Margaret why she wrote Scorned Justice, what theme prompted the story. Here’s what she had to say:

I wrote Scorned Justice because I wanted to explore what revenge does to a person. How far will a person go to get back at someone? How does that change the person? Why is it so hard to forgive someone who has wronged you? In the story the reader sees what revenge does to the person who exacts it as well as the person who is the object of the revenge.

Each novel in the series is a standalone story, so you won’t be left hanging at the end, or not know what’s going on if you haven’t read Saving Hope and Shattered Silence, but if you’re wondering, there is one more to come. Severed Trust releases in October.

Don’t you love those titles?

Here’s the book’s backcover blurb:

Texas Ranger Brody Calhoun is with his parents in west Texas when an unexpected attack injures the brother of Rebecca Morgan, Brody’s high school sweetheart. The local sheriff, a good friend, asks for Brody’s help. At first, it seems like an open-and-shut case.

As Brody digs deeper, he realizes the attack may be related to an organized crime trial Rebecca will be overseeing. With Rebecca’s help, he compiles evidence involving cattle rustling, bribery, and dirty payoffs that shatter the entire community and put Rebecca directly in the line of fire.

Brody expects to protect her. What he never expects is to fall for Rebecca all over again, or for a murder to throw the case wide open. Is Brody’s faith strong enough to withstand not only deep-rooted corruption and cattle rustling, but also love?

Your Turn: The link for the books in Margaret’s series is that all the heroes are Texas Rangers. What occupations would you like to see a hero or heroine have (or have enjoyed reading about) in a Christian romantic suspense?

 

This Story Could Save a Life

Posted on: by Sandra Orchard

What boy-crazy young girl wouldn’t be flattered by the interest of a good-looking older “boy”?

Very few, and as Margaret Daley’s newest romantic suspense so deftly illustrates, sometimes the consequences are your worst nightmare.

Here’s the book’s back cover blurb: 

When a teenager goes missing from the Beacon of Hope School, Texas Ranger Wyatt Sheridan and school director Kate Winslow are forced into a dangerous struggle against a human trafficking organization. But the battle brings dire consequences as Wyatt’s daughter is terrorized and Kate is kidnapped. Now it’s personal, and Wyatt finds both his faith and investigative skills challenged as he fights to discover the mastermind behind the ring before evil destroys everyone he loves.

Saving Hope deals with the harsh reality of human trafficking in an informative and tasteful way that leaves you aching for the girls whose innocence is being stolen, without filling your mind with gritty images.

I’ve told my daughter that I want her to read the novel, and I’m recommending it to mothers of preteen and teen girls. Why?

Because Margaret has done a superb job of showing how innocently and easily a young girl can be lured into a trap.

Young men make quick cash, working for trafficking rings by seeking out girls at a mall, for example, and showing interest in them. As I asked in my opening, what boy-crazy, young teen isn’t going to be flattered?

We had exactly such a scenario make headlines here in Canada recently, because the father found out what was going on, sought out the house and pounded on the door, demanding they release his daughter. At the time, the daughter was embarrassed, unaware of the danger she was in. Her father was lucky he wasn’t shot.

Your Turn:  Wyatt Sheridan is having problems with his daughter. She wants more independence, but he isn’t ready to give it to her. How would you let a teenager become independent, but still safe?

Please join me again on Wednesday. I’ve invited Margaret to stop by and share why she wrote this story.