The heroine in my debut novel, Callum’s Compass, is Kat Williams. She is a wildlife biologist tasked with documenting spring salamanders in select water sources of Anderson and Morgan counties here in East Tennessee, where I live. I chose this career path for her for a number of reasons. Having her out in the forests […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Lisa J. Flickinger tells of a childhood trip
The original seed for my latest release Fool’s Notion was planted long before I put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard). When I was nine years old, my family packed foodstuffs, clothing, and my grandmother in our brown panel van and drove eighteen hundred miles to Los Angeles for a vacation. We toured the amazing Disneyland, […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Shannon Taylor Vannatter & the city girl living in an abandoned farmhouse
A few years back, a young single woman from our church had to move out of her apartment on very short notice. The only new place she could find where she could move in quickly was in the country. The house belonged to another church member, but it was old and had been uninhabited for […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Donna Schlachter’s desert oasis tale
A Prickly Affair came about as the result of a long-standing friendship, a step-mother who I dearly loved, and a desert oasis I longed to write about. Mary Davis, a good friend, contacted me because I’d worked with her on a previous romance collection, wanting to know if I was interested in another, and I […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Laurie Lucking constructs fantasy-world religion
Christian fantasy is one of my favorite genres to read, but until I started writing my own novel, I never realized how tricky it can be to handle religion in a fantasy context. Would the people of a fantasy world approach religion the same way we do? If not, how far can their religious practices […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Carole Brown listened to her mother’s stories of World War II
Do you have a favorite military picture of a loved one? My journey into learning about the spies of World War II begin with my mother’s tales of living through the war and the pictures I saw. The romance, bravery, fashions, vocabulary, the shows and music, so much nostalgia—all of it fostered a love of this […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Becky Melby tastes the cherries of Door County
If you look at a map of Wisconsin, Door County is the tip of the thumb of the mitten-shaped state—the part that gets frostbit on nippy winter days. This location, with its cooler spring months, makes Door County the perfect place for growing yummy, tart Montmorency cherries. At their peak in the 1950s, 700 cherry […]
Behind the Scenes: Author June Foster confronts flawed characters
Prescription for Romance is the sequel to Letting Go, both set in small town Alabama. Scott Townsend made a brief appearance in the first book and dated the heroine. He was a nice guy then. Unselfish, thoughtful, sweet. Or so I thought. He didn’t tell me much in that first book. It wasn’t until Prescription […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Gail Kittleson on War, Magic and Irony
Roald Dahl, who created the incredibly engaging tales my children and I used to read together, said “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” It may seem strange […]
Releasing this week: Children of the Forgotten by Charles Franklin
We’re so excited about our new book, Children of the Forgotten by Charles Franklin. We’re sure you’ll like it (provided you can handle reading some violent scenes). Here’s the scoop: Sickness within the city. Deranged killers in the surrounding hills. Is this the end of mankind … or a new beginning? Christian young adult fiction. […]