I’m excited to reveal the cover for Setting Two Hearts Free, to be released in October of 2020.
Would their love survive the invisible wounds of war?
Here is the blurb:
Donald Duncan joined the Patriot cause for noble reasons, battling the British while enduring deprivation and hardship on every side. The war has changed him, and now the battle is internal. Returning home to Virginia is in sight where a new life and his Mary wait for him.
Mary Stewart spends the war years with her family at Stewarts’ Green, helping them operate their ordinary. Daily, she prays for Donald’s safe return, eagerly waiting for him … until that day the evil side of war touches her.
Two hearts changed by a war that dragged on for six years. Two hearts left hurting and struggling to find the love and trust they once knew. Is there a path for them to rekindle what was lost, Setting Two Hearts Free?
Please tell us something about yourself, Jodie. Where were you raised and now live?
Hi Janet, thank you for having me here today. I was raised in Hershey, PA and now live about an hour away from there. Although when my husband was in the military we lived in Georgia, Ohio, and Germany.
What sparked your interest in writing?
My interest in writing was sparked as a second-grader when we were given an assignment to write a poem. Soon after, I wrote my first story about our pet dog, Ginger, attending Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball. I was hooked and knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
Are you a plotter or a pantster?
I would call myself a plottster. J While I do some plotting of each of my
stories, there’s always times when the characters take over, and I’m flying by the seat of my pants to keep up with them.
You’ve written several books, some published by traditional publishers, some independently. Please tell us about your writing journey.
Jodie’s workspace
My first book, Hearts Tightly Knit started because several of the contributors from the Stitches Thru Time blog decided to write an indie collection together. I had such positive feedback, that I wrote the sequel, Love in the Seams. Soon after I was contracted to write a novelette as part of a collection with Celebrate Lit Publishing, Let Love Spring. Next, I received a contract for my first full-length novel from Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, To Claim Her Heart. In the midst of the editing process, I was contracted again (Celebrate Lit Publishing) for a sequel to my novelette. That story is part of The Hope of Christmas collection. When my full-length story finally released, I had many people ask me about the etiquette quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I put together 100 of these sayings in Mrs. Wigglesworth’s Essential Guide to Proper Etiquette and Manners of Refined Society. Then recently I was contracted for my second full-length novel, Taming Julia with White Rose Publishing. For each story, I pray that it will find the home where God wants it to be, whether it’s with a publisher, or something indie produced.
What do you find most challenging about being a writer? (research, plotting or organizing a story, marketing, or something else)
For me, the hardest part is the editing and marketing process. I love the research, plotting, and writing a story, coming up with characters and developing their story world.
Please tell us a little more about Taming Julia.
Here’s what the back cover says:
In 1875, Kansas bachelor Drew Montgomery’s sole desire is to serve God, but his congregation’s ultimatum that he marry or leave forces him to advertise for a wife by proxy.
Jules Walker strides into Drew’s life wearing breeches and toting a gun and saddle–more cowboy than a bride. After years on the trail, she’s not exactly wife material, but she longs for home and family and will do anything to ensure Drew never discovers what she really is.
God often teaches us something through our writing. What did you learn about life, faith, or yourself in the process of writing Taming Julia?
I actually wrote this book almost eight years ago. Through the process of getting it accepted and into print, I’ve learned to trust God with His timing. Even when it seems like an answer is long in coming, we can trust and know that He hears us and is working.
Is there a message in the story you want readers to grasp?
At the start of my novel, Jules Montgomery has no idea what it means to follow the Lord. Throughout the book, she learns more about God and who He is. She finds that each step of her life, the Lord has been calling her, wooing her to Him.
Through a series of events, she learns that she can trust God even in the midst of a dangerous situation. She can trust that He’s working in her life even when the outcome doesn’t have any hope of changing. In the same way, we can trust God to be working in our life. It’s important to have our heart seeking after Him. We can take comfort in Psalm 61:1-2 (KJV) “Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
Thank you so much, Jodie for being my guest. I know folks will enjoy your books.
It’s been my pleasure to be here! Thank you for inviting me.
I interviewed Donna Schlachter last week and learned a bit about her writing journey and her December release, Missing Deposits. It is a contemporary mystery written under Leeann Betts her pen name. Here’s more about her journey and her upcoming January release, Double Jeopardy.
God often teaches us something through our writing. What did you learn about life, faith, or yourself in the process of writing these books?
Donna~ I’ve learned three important things:
The books are the mechanism the message gets to the reader, but the author is the message. The Lord once showed me that the stories are the packaging around the product, which is the author. He works through the stories, but not unless He’s already worked through and in the author. Which means we have to make ourselves available to him.
The One True God gives us second, and third, and fourth—and more—chances to make the best decision. He never stops chasing us down.
Never, never quit. Whatever gift you’ve received from the Holy Spirit isn’t yours to pick and choose how it’s used. It’s a gift from God to reach others. Use it to its fullest to reach the many.
You have written novels and novellas. Do you prefer one format over the other?
Donna~ Novellas are nice because they are much quicker to write. With a main plot and one subplot, they aren’t as technically difficult.
Novels give an author plenty of space to develop characters and introduce more subplots.
I like both—at first, I found novellas restrictive because I wanted more subplots, but now I like a break from a book that takes six months to write to one that takes two months (or less).
Please tell us about Double Jeopardy.
Donna~ My next release is January 7th, Double Jeopardy. It’s an historical mystery, set in southwestern Colorado.
In May of 1880, Becky Campbell leaves her wealthy New York lifestyle in search of her father, only to learn he was murdered in the small town of Silver Valley, Colorado. Unable to return to her mother in humiliation and defeat, she determines to fulfill her father’s dream—to make the Double Jeopardy profitable. Zeke Graumann, a local rancher, is faced with a hard decision regarding his land and his dream. After several years of poor weather and low cattle prices, he will either have to take on a job to help pay his overhead expenses or sell his land. He hires on with this Easterner for two reasons: he can’t turn his back on a damsel in distress. And he needs the money. Becky isn’t certain Zeke is all he claims to be, and after a series of accidents at her mine, wonders if he isn’t behind it, trying to get her to sell out so he can take over. Zeke finds many of Becky’s qualities admirable and fears he’s losing his heart to her charms but also recognizes she was never cut out to be a rancher’s wife. Can Becky overcome her mistrust of Zeke, find her father’s killer, and turn her mine into a profitable venture—before her mother arrives in town, thinking she’s coming for her daughter’s wedding? And will Zeke be forced to give up his dream and lose his land in order to win Becky’s heart?
What is your current work in process?
We are thinking ahead to June 2020 when the last installment of the By the Numbers series will release.
Donna, thanks again for being my guest.
Thank you, Janet, for hosting me. I always love connecting with readers, and I appreciate your sharing yours with me.
I met Donna through her blog, http://www.historythrutheages.com/ where she “explores history through the ages, from the beginning, through the middle, and to the conclusion, in the form of historical suspense and historical romance, written with a Christian worldview.”
Please tell us something about yourself, Donna. Where were you raised and now live?
Donna~ I was born in Newfoundland, the large island in eastern Canada, but my parents moved us to Toronto, Ontario when I was nine months old. I traveled the 600 miles from the east side of the island to the west, where the ferry to the “mainland” sailed from, in a “plastic” car bed laid on the floor behind my mother’s seat. My father, a communications and electrical engineer, moved us several times before we finally returned to St. John’s, my “hometown” when I was eight.
I now live in Denver, Colorado, and just celebrated 20 years of marriage to my husband, Patrick, who I met online and moved to Denver, sight unseen, to marry. Kinda like a mail-order bride.
What sparked your interest in writing?
Donna~ I was an avid reader as a child, always getting lost in books. I remember one time I was so engrossed in a book I was reading (I was 7) on the school bus that I didn’t realize I’d missed my stop and ended up at the depot out in the middle of nowhere. I had to call my mother, who called my father (one-car family), who had to leave work early and get me. Thankfully, no harm came to me, and I didn’t do that again.
In 2002, I saw an ad for National Novel Writing Month and wondered if I had just one book in me. I started writing, and haven’t stopped.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
Donna~ Since writing that first draft in 2002 with no outline, I have always outlined since. Sometimes it’s as simple as a 1-page synopsis. Sometimes it’s 20 pages of detail.
What do you find most challenging about being a writer? (research, plotting or organizing a story, marketing, or something else)
Donna~ Marketing is definitely the most challenging. Just when I think I’ve found something that works, it changes.
You have a contemporary mystery releasing this month under Leeann Betts your pen name for contemporary stories. Please tell us about it.
Donna/Leeann Betts~Missing Deposits:
“Carly looks forward to a vacation when Mike is hired to assist a rancher family in western Colorado catalog their various mineral rights following the discovery of a large copper field on their property. However, Carly soon learns that the real wealth—and the real danger—aren’t below ground. Someone is out to keep a secret bigger and more profitable than copper.
And they’re willing to kill for it.”
Come back next week and we will learn a bit more about Donna and her January 2020 release.
Donna, thank you so much for being my guest. Where can readers find your books?
Jennifer Lamont Leo is one of the authors of The Highlanders: A Smitten Historical Romance Collection. Her story, The Violinist, the last story in the collection.
Please tell us something about yourself and how long you’ve been writing.
I’ve always loved reading and writing, but I didn’t start writing fiction in earnest until we moved to Idaho about thirteen years ago. My first novel started out as Nanowrimo project (National Novel Writing Month), where participants are challenged to write a 50K word novel in a month. By the time the story was published it was almost unrecognizable from that early attempt, but I still recommend Nanowrimo to new writers as a way to light a fire under an idea and get the words flowing.
Is The Violinistyour first novella? Did you find writing it more or less challenging than writinga novel?
It’s my second novella. I found it as challenging to write as a novel, but in a different way. In a novel, the action has to be sustained over a longer span, but there’s room to explore different characters and ideas. A novella, being shorter, needs to be more concise and focused, which presents its own set of challenges.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I’m very much a plotter. While some things may change as I go along, I need to start out with a pretty detailed road map. (Which is the way I drive, too, so at least I’m consistent.)
Was there anything that surprised you about writing this story?
As a child I was given violin lessons and played in the school orchestra, but I didn’t love it. So I was surprised that the violin played such a central role in the story.
Did you determine the storyline first or the era?
I knew I wanted to set it against the backdrop of the early 20th century, my favorite time period to write about. It was an era of great change and drama in the U.S. and elsewhere, with two world wars, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and all sorts of social upheaval. But for the novella, of course, I had to narrow it down. When I chose to bring my Highlander to Idaho as a logger, I set the story in 1915 since that was the heyday of logging here in the Northwest and fit with other events I wanted to include.
Please tell us what the story is about.
In 1915, Scotsman Callan MacTavish is working as a logger in northern Idaho. Beneath his rough plaid flannel shirt beats a homesick heart –a heart soothed only by the sweet violin of the local music teacher, Rose Marchmont. In order to spend time with Rose under the watchful eye of her disapproving family, Callan signs up for music lessons, with a surprising outcome that will tug at readers’ heartstrings.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
People are not always what they seem at first glance. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge based on outward appearances. Everyone has a story.
Jennifer Lamont Leo captures readers’ hearts through stories set in times gone by. She’s the author of You’re the Cream in My Coffee (winner of an ACFW Carol Award) and Ain’t Misbehavin’, both set in Roaring Twenties Chicago. In addition to historical fiction, she writes magazine articles on history-related topics and hosts two podcasts, “A Sparkling Vintage Life” and “North Idaho Nuggets.” She is also a copywriter, editor, and playwright. The Chicago-area native now writes from her mountain home in northern Idaho, which she shares with her husband, cat, and abundant wildlife.
Naomi Musch is one of the authors of The Highlanders: A Smitten Historical Romance Collection. A Tender Siege is the second story in the collection.
Please tell us something about yourself and how long you’ve been writing.
How long? Hm…I don’t remember when I didn’t write stories. I’ve been writing since elementary school, and all my adult life, in various venues.
Is A Tender Siegeyour first novella? Did you find writing it more or less challenging than writinga novel?
I have written several novellas, though not all are published yet. My first published novella was Heart Not Taken, published in 2010. I wrote the story of a high school English teacher struggling with his faith and a beautiful landscaper who renovates his heart and spirit along with his cabin property as an exercise to challenge myself in shorter form, because yes, I find writing novellas to be a very unique challenge. A novel gives the writer a lot of room to develop character arc and numerous tangled story threads. In a novella, it’s challenging to show an entire character arc and to limit the use of multiple story threads. I’ve simply been at the novel-length form longer. That said, I feel pretty confident that the story and character arcs in my new novella A Tender Siege are successfully woven.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I definitely use a plot, especially when I’m plunging into that first draft. That doesn’t mean I can’t veer from it if I experience a voila moment. I often do. Occasionally I swing substantially wide of the outline. If I begin to feel like I’m floundering or can’t quite get my character to tell me what to do next, then I return to the plot—the drawing board, as it were.
Was there anything that surprised you about writing this story?
I’m most often surprised by secondary characters. They have a tendency to walk onto the screen and get involved in ways I haven’t plotted or expected. Maybe it’s because I haven’t spent as much time thinking about them (though I usually do after the fact). Maybe it’s because they help me to see my main characters better, through the eyes of someone important to them. I had at least one such surprise in A Tender Siege.
Did you determine the storyline first or the era?
I determined the era first in this particular story. I knew I wanted to write about Pontiac’s War, and I knew that there were highlanders involved (quite a bit during the French and Indian wars, in fact). I had to figure out which battle would best work for a character, and then I had to figure out the back story of that character—who turned out to be Lachlan McRea, of his Majesty’s 42nd Highlanders. Lachlan is a widower. His backstory plays into his reason for being there as well as his reasons for behaving as he does.
Please tell us what the story is about.
It’s August of 1763. Wounded in battle at Bushy Run in the American wilderness, Lachlan McRea of His Majesty’s 42nd Highlanders pleads with God, yearning to be reunited with his lost wife and child. As death hovers near, he is discovered by Wenonah, a native widow doing all she can to survive alone while avoiding the attentions of a dangerous Shawnee warrior. In aiding one another, their perils increase. If Lachlan can let go of the woman he once loved, he might find healing for both body and soul.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
A Tender Siege is certainly a story of second chances. Lachlan’s deliverance demonstrates how God comforts wounded hearts and even wipes away tears in ways and places we seldom expect.
Naomi is an award-winning author who crafts her stories from the pristine, Lake Superior northwoods, where she and her husband Jeff live as epically as God allows near the families of their five adult children. Naomi is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and the Lake Superior Writers. Though she has written in a variety of venues on topics ranging from homeschooling to homesteading, her great love is historical fiction. She enjoys roaming around on the farm, snacking out of the garden, relaxing in her vintage camper, and loving on her passel of grandchildren. Naomi would love to meet with and speak to your group. She would also enjoy connecting around the web.
