The Artist's Granddaughter Arrives Today!

When Megan bids on her grandfather's painting,the last thing she expects is to be outbid by Michael Kirk, her first love. He left town years ago leaving her reputation--and her heart--in tatters.She must keep her grandfather's final legacy in her family, but Michael claims to need it for his career. He also claims to want Megan back in his life, and her betraying heart doesn't mind the idea...but does Michael want her or the painting?

Order here!


Seeing that my release date followed St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd share a little bit about that saint's life. Read down to the bottom for a chance to enter my drawing.



Many folk ask the question 'Why is the Shamrock the National Flower of Ireland ?' The reason is that St. Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagans. Saint Patrick is believed to have been born in the late fourth century, and is often confused with Palladius, a bishop who was sent by Pope Celestine in 431 to be the first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ.

Saint Patrick was the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland who is credited with bringing christianity to Ireland. Most of what is known about him comes from his two works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish christians. Saint Patrick described himself as a "most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped idols and unclean things had become the people of God."

Saint Patrick is most known for driving the snakes from Ireland. It is true there are no snakes in Ireland, but there probably never have been - the island was separated from the rest of the continent at the end of the Ice Age. As in many old pagan religions, serpent symbols were common and often worshipped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic of putting an end to that pagan practice. While not the first to bring christianity to Ireland, it is Patrick who is said to have encountered the Druids at Tara and abolished their pagan rites. The story holds that he converted the warrior chiefs and princes, baptizing them and thousands of their subjects in the "Holy Wells" that still bear this name.

Read more about St. Patrick here. --Thanks to St. Patrick.com--



Here's the fun part-- I'm giving stuff away!

Enter by "liking" me on my Facebook author page, then leave a comment about how you celebrate St Patrick's Day or Easter, if you do. If not, just comment with the name of your favorite holiday.


Easter Monday one lucky winner will be sent:

A Ty Maryland style crab Beanie Baby, print copy of my 2007 novella "From Now On" and non-fiction anthology "Fiction and Truth," (edited by Kathy Ide), pdf copy of my novella "Prodigal" and a silver-plated heart shaped ring box.

Rainn on My Parade coming April 1

Blurb:

After firefighter Rainn Harris rescues Geneva Carson from being stuck in a tree, she feels she owes him. Helping to care for his autistic niece comes easy, but her attraction to Rainn is a different story. Being drawn to a man twelve years her junior metes internal havoc as Geneva attempts to balance responsibility and personal fulfillment. And the prospect of becoming a middle-aged mom to a special -needs child sends Geneva into a tailspin of conflicting emotions.

As the custodial parent for his young niece, Rainn is determined to be a better parent than his absentee sister. When Geneva agrees to help care for Mia, Rainn is overjoyed. He admires Geneva’s compassion and enthusiasm for life, and expects she’ll be a positive influence on Mia. What he doesn’t expect is to fall in love with the beautiful and vital woman. But Geneva’s hung up on their age difference, and he must convince her of his sincerity before they will ever have a chance at happiness together.

As tension threatens to pull them apart, both must learn to rely on the Lord to direct their futures—whether that means two lives joined or paths in opposite directions.

A Bit About LoRee Perry~

I'm so excited. Yesterday, on my personal blog I was able to post another wonderful true story of a woman's journey to faith and publication... LoRee Perry. This stuff is just too good to keep to myself, so I thought I'd share it with you! :)

LoRee, can you tell me about your journey to faith?I grew up going to church and never doubted John 3:16. But that promise wasn't real until I was 27 years old. Thanks to Bible classes I became familiar with God's Word as a girl. I went through my teens and young addulthood with this weird idea that I was a Christian and would have a few seconds before dying to ask for and receive forgiveness of sins.
One April morning in 1975, I woke up to my husband asking, "You believe in God, don't you?" Then he told me my brother had called to say our father had been murdered. It rained the day of his service and from a distance afterwards, a rainbow arced over the grave.
A few months later, on the day before Thanksgiving, my husband fell off the 2 1/2 story garage roof and crushed both heels. The three days we waited for the swelling to go down in his feet to enable surgery (they were the size of footballs), I read a paperback New Testament in the waiting room of the hospital. I have no memory of specific verses, but God's Word was my only solace.
The following April I was invited to attend a special luncheon where the speaker explained a relationship with Jesus as being personal. Jesus could be my friend as well. That was new to me. I never doubted He was the Savior of the world, but until that day it had been an ambiguous belief.

Listening to the speaker that day changed me. I recognized sin for what it really is—something incurable that I had inherited at birth, for which only Jesus Christ is the cure.

Right there, with all those women in the room, my heart screamed, Jesus is the answer for all this emptiness! I realized that, starting with my dad’s death, Jesus had been calling me to acknowledge my need for Him.

Jesus Christ met me where I was that day and flooded my whole sinful being with a peace that defied description.

That's an amazing testomy. I'm so sorry your father died, yet thankful that God redeemed that time by drawing you to Himself.
Can you tell me about your journey to publication or how/why you started writing?
I’ve been writing a long time, and I stopped for around ten years when pain was my life focus. But back to when I first started, I wrote as an outlet for grief. My first heroine was a woman going back to her home town to find out how her father had really died. By then, I was hooked on writing. Most days I couldn't not write something, even if it was only a journal entry. I’ve tried to quit writing several times, but I guess the Lord had another plan.
When I had three or four book-length manuscripts (and piled up rejections from editors in the process), I searched for an agent. Moselle ’s story was rejected by five agents, but feedback led me to believe I was close to acceptance. I had never considered going the route of an online publisher. But at the time, there was only one NY publisher that accepted unagented material, and they had rejected half my stories. Lori Graham, an editor for The Wild Rose Press and then editor for White Rose Publishing, came to Prairieland Romance Writers. She invited me to submit Moselle’s Insurance. It was rejected twice by White Rose editors, with the invitation to resubmit. I was devastated by the second, very detailed rejection letter, and quit writing for several months. At retreat in January of 2010, my fellow writers encouraged me to reconsider that best-kind-of-a rejection. So I went through the editor’s comments, agreed with her, revised, and resubmitted. Moselle ’s story was accepted in less than a week.
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You can find LoRee here...
www.loreepeery.com

Rainn on My Parade coming soon from White Rose Publishing/
Moselle's Insurance http://www.whiterosepublishing.com

Journey's of Faith and Dreams

Happy March! For this month on my personal blog, I'm asking friends to join me as we focus on "journeys." So many have fascinating stories that come from their unique life experiences.

I'd like to share an example of one WRP author's "journey", Dana Pratola~

Hello JoAnn, to answer your questions: Hmm. I thought I knew how to answer this until I started, lol. I didn't think my journey to faith was full of drama - I wasn't a drug addict or hadn't been in prison or anything like that. But looking back I guess I did have a lot of drama going on in my life. My first real awareness of God was when I was 7. I remember it as plain as yesterday. I was just back from church with my parents, it was a sunny Spring day and I was staring down at a little patch of white flowers on our side lawn. And all of a sudden I felt inside, just knew, God is here, and He loves me. I carried that with me ever since. As I grew I always had great conviction when I did something I knew wasn't right. I was raised Catholic and asked God to forgive me on a regular basis, but I didn't accept Jesus as my Savior until I was 17. My sister had gotten saved and was like a terrier trying to talk to me, pray with me... It was too much at once I thought. Finally she wore me down, lol. Well the Holy Spirit did. And me and my boyfriend (now my husband) prayed with her. It's been a long, interesting ride since.


My journey to publication or how/why I started writing: I have been writing since I can remember, as I'm sure most writers will tell you. I used to put on news shows with my friends. We made a TV out of a box and would take turns kneeling inside it and reporting. But I always had a taste for romance. I wrote, wrote, wrote... but never completed a novel until now. I didn't have money to attend a conference so a friend told me about the Muse It Up online conference and that it was free! I signed up, met with Nicola Martinez and she requested THE COVERING. She offered me a contract and now I'm telling you. God is good!
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Thank you so much for joining us today, Dana! For those of you who may want to learn more about her, you can find her@ www.danapalooza.blogspot.com

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to stop over at my website and look at the "events calander" to see who will be sharing next. Hope to see you there~
http://home.comcast.net/~jo.glenncarter/site