When you’re ten, eleven, and twelve, and an indiscriminate reader, you read a lot of junk. My book selection methods were pretty simple in those days. I’d go to the library, find a turnstile, and flip through every book on it. If I hadn’t read it already, it came off the turnstile and into my arms. Continue Reading
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Why I Recommend a Book That Wasn’t a Favorite
People know that I love the book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. They know reading one particular scene in it was what made me want to write way back in 1982. What people don’t always know is that I rarely recommend it. While Betty Smith wrote a powerful story of a girl’s life in Continue Reading
The #1 Thing I Learned from Undiscovered Treasures
A room full of authors bobbed their heads when I asked if they’d ever thought about why we always say not to judge a book by its cover when that’s exactly what we do. One guy suggested it wasn’t supposed to be taken literally. I could see why, but I disagreed with him. “That saying came from the Continue Reading
5 Interesting Truths about State of Lies
When you’re an author, people ask you lots of book-related questions. Things like your favorite genre (the one I’m currently reading), or your favorite book (changes weekly). Sometimes they want to know what you think of a specific author, like Dee Henderson (she wrote my all-time favorite scene) or Continue Reading
How This True Crime Novel Grabbed My Attention Immediately
The stack of magazines hadn’t interested me at first, but after reading everything else my aunt had brought to our desert hacienda, my thirteen-year-old self was bored. So, I dragged them out and discovered among the Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens magazines, there were others—True Continue Reading
Is Crown the Perfect Jewel That Wives Need?
“Where do these authors get this stuff? That book says my husband can beat me, and I have to take it.” I stared at the woman, and if you told me my jaw hung, I would have believed it. I’d just finished the book in question, and hadn’t read that anywhere in there. In fact, as far as I was Continue Reading
Is There Anything Better Than a Good Life’s Story?
The Crime of Innocence. It was an assignment. I can’t remember if it was youth group in high school or the first weeks of Bible school afterward, but the instructor/leader told everyone to come up with a title for their life’s story. That was mine. The Crime of Innocence. I thought it told the Continue Reading
The Best Reasons to Stop Everything & Read This Book
It had been years—a decade, even—since I’d read any Amish fiction. While I’d enjoyed the first few stories I’d read in the genre, it had gotten old… stale. And quickly. So, when a new friend mentioned loving a couple of Amish authors, I asked who she recommended. Why she recommended them. She Continue Reading
Why Do Books about Healing Make the Best Reads?
What is it about being a teen that makes you want to do grand, sweeping things in your life. You’ll solve every problem. The cure for every disease is in your grasp. It’s like that song by The Statler Brothers. “The Class of ’57.” It goes “The class of ’57 had its dreams. We all thought we’d Continue Reading
Why It Takes True Grit to Read This Book
Sand crunched beneath my feet—my very hot, sweaty feet. In fact, considering I wore Keds-like sneaker, part of that heat was the burning of that sand through to said feet. Just sayin’. While normal kids did Saturday morning things like watching cartoons, I trudged through the Superstitions Continue Reading
Love at First Sight? Why This Author Is a Favorite
When you cut your finger it's difficult to write out a review--even of a book as great as Daughters of Northern Shores. It's also difficult to write out a review when you can't keep your eyes open. When you stayed up reading a book after not sleeping at all the night before. Not that that ever Continue Reading
If You Want to be Bored, Don’t Read This Book!
The question came up on Avid Readers of Christian Fiction. What good books are set in Alaska? The answers came one at a time. One gal said, “I don’t know if she has books set there, but Alana Terry lives in Alaska, and she writes good books, so try her.” I’d never heard of Alana Terry, but I Continue Reading
