Are you a parent needing an extra dose of sanity this season?

The holidays are almost here, bringing added stresses, misunderstandings, and teen attitudes. Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa Rice can help families with these issues during this often difficult time, as well as the rest of the year.

You've still got time to sign up to win one of two free copies of Shaunti and Lisa's book, For Parents Only, by posting a comment at the end of Tuesday's post.

Zero-G by Alton Gansky

Looking for a great Christmas gift for the suspense-loving reader in your life? If so, then be sure to pick up a copy of Alton Gansky's new thriller, Zero-G.

About the book:

Veteran astronaut Benjamin “Tuck” Tucker is slated to pilot the first commercial space flight. But ruthless enemies are about to jeopardize the enterprise. With a recent tragedy still haunting his memory, Tuck must turn to a God he no longer trusts as he fights for his life and the lives of all aboard.

Poised to make history, SpaceVentures, Inc., hovers on the brink of launching the first commercial space flight. And Benjamin “Tuck” Tucker’s skill and reputation have thrust the new company into the forefront in this powerful new space race.

A veteran astronaut and national hero, Tuck accepts the coveted honor—and the risk—of piloting the Legacy on her maiden space voyage.

The danger is far greater than just the perceived risks.

The real threat, a plot far deadlier than anyone could have imagined, is exposed as Legacy reaches the suborbital regions of space. Suspended seventy miles above Earth, Tuck must use his skill and his faith—faith in a God he has found it hard to trust since a deadly tragedy in space over a year before—as he fights an unknown enemy who will not hesitate to kill again.

This book has so much going on the pages flew by - I was kept guessing time and time again. This book is now one of my favorite Alton Gansky books. Enjoy!

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
AURALIA'S COLORS
(WaterBrook Press - September 4, 2007)
by
Jeffrey Overstreet

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeffrey Overstreet lives in two worlds. By day, he writes about movies at LookingCloser.org and in notable publications like Christianity Today, Paste, and Image.

His adventures in cinema are chronicled in his book Through a Screen Darkly. By night, he composes new stories found in fictional worlds of his own. Living in Shoreline, Washington, with his wife, Anne, a poet, he is a senior staff writer for Response Magazine at Seattle Pacific University.

Auralia’s Colors is his first novel. He is now hard at work on many new stories, including three more strands of The Auralia Thread.



ABOUT THE BOOK:
As a baby, she was found in a footprint.

As a girl, she was raised by thieves in a wilderness where savages lurk.

As a young woman, she will risk her life to save the world with the only secret she knows.


When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history.

Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow. There, she discovers an unsettling–and forbidden–talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar’s hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets.

Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.

Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations.

Visit the Website especially created for the book, Auralia's Colors. On the site, you can read the first chapter and listen to Jeffrey's introduction of the book, plus a lot more!

PRAISE

"Film critic and author Overstreet (Through a Screen Darkly) offers a powerful myth for his first foray into fiction. Overstreet’s writing is precise and beautiful, and the story is masterfully told. Readers will be hungry for the next installment."
--Publishers Weekly

“Through word, image, and color Jeffrey Overstreet has crafted a work of art. From first to final page this original fantasy is sure to draw readers in. Auralia's Colors sparkles.”
-–Janet Lee Carey, award-winning author of The Beast of
Noor and Dragon's Keep

“Jeffrey Overstreet’s first fantasy, Auralia’s Colors, and its heroine’s cloak of wonders take their power from a vision of art that is auroral, looking to the return of beauty, and that intends to restore spirit and and mystery to the world. The book achieves its ends by the creation of a rich, complex universe and a series of dramatic, explosive events.”
-–Marly Youmans, author of Ingledove and The
Curse of the Raven Mocker

For Parents Only by Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa A. Rice

As a parent, do you find yourself asking the following questions? If so, have I got a book for you!

What do moms need to understand about the “tough and tender” boy who values respect over love?

What do dads need to understand about their daughter’s need for affirmation?

What are the six biggest pet peeves teens have about their parents?

For Parents Only is an excellent resource you'll want to keep and read over and over again. It contains such great insight from teenagers themselves on what they want and need from parents.

I have a 7 year old daughter (and a 16 month old as well), and the information in this book really opened my eyes to the things I need improvement on as a parent. For Parents Only, to me, is a "handbook" of encouragement to give hope to parents that may feel as I do, and an affirmation to the many parents out there that they are on the right track in raising their children to be Godly men and women.


Shaunti Feldhahn is the author of For Women Only and numerous other books, with sales totaling nearly one million copies. A nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and public speaker, Feldhahn earned her master’s degree at Harvard University. She and her husband, Jeff, have two young children.

Lisa A. Rice is the associate editor of Christian Living magazine, the mother of two teenage girls, and a screenwriter and producer.



A big thank you to Multnomah Publishers for being gracious enough to send two copies for me to give away. Please leave a comment on something your child(ren) did today that made you smile. Don't forget to include your email address is this format (you at yoohoo dot com) and I'll draw winners around noon central time on Monday, December 3rd.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out by Neta Jackson

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing
THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP GETS DECKED OUT

(Thomas Nelson - October 2, 2007)
by
Neta Jackson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Neta Jackson's award-winning Yada books have sold more than 350,000 copies and are spawning prayer groups across the country. She and her husband, Dave, are also an award-winning husband/wife writing team, best known for the Trailblazer Books--a 40-volume series of historical fiction about great Christian heroes with 1.8 million in sales--and Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes (vols 1-4).

Dave and Neta live in Evanston, Illinois, where for twenty-seven years they were part of Reba Place Church, a Christian church community. They are now members of the Chicago Tabernacle, a multi-racial congregation that is a daughter church of the well-known Brooklyn Tabernacle.




ABOUT THE BOOK:
Turkey dinners, tree trimming, and decking the halls--it's that time of year again! And I, Jodi Baxter, can't wait to celebrate. My kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then all of us Yadas are getting decked out for a big New Year's party.

But God's idea of "decked out" might just change the nature of our party plans. A perplexing encounter with a former student, a crime that literally knocks me off my feet, a hurry-up wedding, and a child who will forever change our family...it's times like these that I really need my prayer sisters.

This holiday season, we Yada Yadas are learning that no one can out celebrate God. So let's get this party started!

THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP GETS DECKED OUT is a festive novella featuring America's favorite prayer group, the Yada Yadas!

Sometimes dubbed "chick-lit" for their bright covers and catchy titles, this series provides far more depth than witty banter and wacky situations. Inspired by a prayer group of real women, each book will have you laughing, crying, and perhaps praying anew.

In this highly anticipated installment, the Yada Yada sisters-a group of multi-cultural friends-and their families prepare for the event of the season.

But yes, eager readers, this novella—which picks up a year and a half after the end of book #6 The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling concludes the series with some twists and turns that will amaze and encourage you. Plus, it sets the stage for Neta’s new series with new characters and new situations but also occasional roles for the beloved Yada Yada sisters in familiar Chicago neighborhoods with all their cultural richness.

Try Dying by James Scott Bell

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

TRY DYING

(Center Street - October 24, 2007)

by

James Scott Bell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Scott Bell is a former trial lawyer who now writes full time. He is also the fiction columnist for Writers Digest magazine and adjunct professor of writing at Pepperdine University.

His book on writing, Plot and Structure is one of the most popular writing books available today. The national bestselling author of several novels of suspense, he grew up and still lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next Buchanan thriller.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alejandra, in the backyard of their West 45th Street home in South Los Angeles. As Alejandra lay bleeding to death, Ernesto drove their Ford Explorer to the westbound Century Freeway connector where it crossed over the Harbor Freeway and pulled to a stop on the shoulder.

Bonilla stepped around the back of the SUV, ignoring the rain and the afternoon drivers on their way to LAX and the west side, placed the barrel of his .38 caliber pistol into his mouth, and fired.

His body fell over the shoulder and plunged one hundred feet, hitting the roof of a Toyota Camry heading northbound on the harbor Freeway. The impact crushed the roof of the Camry. The driver, Jacqueline Dwyer, twenty-seven, an elementary schoolteacher from Reseda, died at the scene.

This would have been simply another dark and strange coincidence, the sort of thing that shows up for a two-minute report on the local news--with live remote from the scene--and maybe gets a follow-up the next day. Eventually the story would go away, fading from the city's collective memory.

But this story did not go away. Not for me. Because Jacqueline Dwyer was the woman I was going to marry.

In this fast-paced thriller, lawyer Ty Buchanan must enter a world of evil to uncover the cause of his fiancee's death--even if he has to kill for the truth.

"Bell is one of the best writers out there...he creates characters readers care about...a story worth telling."
~Library Review~

JSB is one of my faves - and I can't wait to read this one!

The Road Home by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen

About The Road Home

For Las Vegas widow Naomi, memories of a Pennsylvania Dutch childhood are a painful memory of abandoned roots and lost connections. She has long since reconciled herself to the shattered dream of what had once enticed her from her heritage; a tiny apartment thick with regret, the sad lives of her two sons, and her sole consolation: the friendship with daughter-in-law Ruth.

But when hard living claims both of Naomi's boys, she and Ruth turn the creaky Impala eastward in a desperate bid for hope and meaning. Thus begins a a cross-country odyssey that brings Naomi home to her old farm in Lancaster County, and to the values of a life once spurned. Although never having seen the East before, Ruth finds a home here too, among the slow cadences of Pennsylvania farm country. Can two women from different backgrounds and generations, overwhelmed with life and loss, find healing for wounds once thought too deep to heal?

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this modern day telling of the story of Ruth and Naomi. Ruth and Noami's journey is quite eventful and you never know what will happen next as they travel across country in their pilgrimage out East. This book is fairly long - almost 400 pages - but the story was quite engaging with bits of intrigue and romance mixed in, and the pages flew by.

(One trivial sidenote here - on their journey on I-70 through Kansas, Chapter 26 says their location is Hutchinson, Kansas, however, Hutchinson is not on I-70. It's close to an hour south of I-70. My guess is they were either in Hays or Salina.)

Shadow of Treason Blog Tour

All About Tricia Goyer:

Tricia Goyer has published over 300 articles for national publications such as Today's Christian Woman, Guideposts for Kids, and Focus on the Family, and is the co-author of Meal Time Moments (Focus on the Family). She has led numerous Bible Studies, and her study notes appear in the Women of Faith Study Bible (Zondervan).

She has written seven novels for Moody Publishing:
From Dust and Ashes (2003)
Night Song (2004)
Dawn of a Thousand Nights (2005)
Arms of Deliverance (2006)
A Valley of Betrayal (2007)
A Shadow of Treason (Fall 2007)
A Whisper of Freedom (February 2008)
Night Song was awarded American Christian Fiction Writer's 2005 Book of the Year for Best Long Historical. Dawn of a Thousand Nights won the same award in 2006.

Tricia has also written Life Interrupted: The Scoop on Being a Young Mom (Zondervan, 2004), 10 Minutes to Showtime (Thomas Nelson, 2004), Generation NeXt Parenting (Multnomah, 2006) and My Life, Unscripted (Thomas Nelson, 2007). Life Interrupted was a 2005 Gold Medallion finalist in the Youth Category.

Also, coming out in the next year are: Generation NeXt Marriage (Multnomah, Spring 2008), and 3:16-the teen version of the a book by Max Lucado (Thomas Nelson, Spring 2008).

Tricia and her husband John live with their three children in Kalispell, Montana. Tricia's grandmother also lives with them, and Tricia volunteers mentoring teen moms and leading children's church. Although Tricia doesn't live on a farm, she can hit one with a rock by standing on her back porch and giving it a good throw.

Be sure to check out her blog, It's Real Life, as well.

* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * ** * * *


Book 2 in the Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War series

Sophie discovers that nothing is as she first imagined. When Walt, the reporter who helped her over the border, shows up again after Guernica is bombed, Sophie is given an impossible mission. She must leave behind the man she's fallen in love with and return to the person who betrayed her. Another layer of the war in Spain is revealed as Sophie is drawn into the international espionage schemes that could turn the tide of the war and help protect the soldiers from the International Brigade ... she must find a way to get a critical piece of information to Walt in time.

* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * ** * * *

Q & A with Tricia:

Q: Shadow of Treason follows A Valley of Betrayal. This is the first time you've written books as a series instead of stand alone. Which way do you like better?

A: I love writing in series. It was great to continue with the same characters. In my stand-alone books I fell in love with these people and then I had to say good-bye after one book. It was wonderful to be able to continue on.


Q: In A Shadow of Treason Sophie must return to the person who betrayed her in an effort to help the Spanish people. It makes the book hard to put down because the reader has to know how Sophie's heart will deal with it. Why did you decide to make this an element of the book?

A: There are very few of us who go through life without giving away a part of our hearts to someone who didn't deserve it. Even though Sophie had the best intentions, she gave away her heart and she was hurt-not only that she must revisit those emotions.

I wanted to include this element-to delve into the topic that emotions are sometimes as big of a trap as any physical cage. Emotions are real and they guide us -- even when we don't want to admit it. Poor Sophie, not only does she have to deal with a war around her -- she also has to deal with a war within herself. It's something I've battled, and mostly likely others have too.


Q: There is an interesting element that arises in this book and that is Spanish gold. I know you can't tell us what happens in this book, but can you give us a brief history of this gold?

A: Sure. When I was researching I came upon something interesting. The Spaniards, as we know, had taken much Aztec and Inca gold during the time of the conquistadors. Well, at the start of The Spanish Civil War much of this gold was still held in Madrid. In fact Spain had the fourth largest gold reserves in the world at that time. The Republican government was afraid Franco would take the city and the gold. They had to get it out of Madrid and this included transporting priceless artifacts. The element of gold does make its way into my story. It was great to include this little-known (and true!) element into my story.


Q: Another historical fact I learned about was the Nazi involvement during this time. Not only were the Germans active in Spain, but they had spy networks busy around the world. How did you find out about this?

A: I love reading tons of research books. Usually I find one little element that I dig out and turn into a plot line. This is what happened with my plot-line for the Nazi pilot, Ritter. I dug up this bit of research of Nazi involvement in Spain -- and the United States -- because a lot of people aren't aware of the Nazi involvement prior to WWII. The truth is they were busy at work getting the land, information, and resources they needed far before they threatened the nations around them. The Germans knew what they wanted and how to get it. And most of the time they succeeded!


Q: A Shadow of Treason is Book Two. When will Book Three be out? Can you give us a hint of how the story continues?

A: Book Three is A Whisper of Freedom. It will be out February 2008. The characters that we love are all still in the midst of danger at the end of Book Two. Book Three continues their stories as we follow their journeys in -- and (for a few) out -- of Spain. It's an exciting conclusion to the series!


Q: Wow, so we have a least one more fiction book to look forward to in the near future. Are you working on any non-fiction?

A: Yes, I have two non-fiction books that will be out the early part of 2008. Generation NeXt Marriage is a marriage book for today's couples. It talks about our marriage role models, our struggles, and what we're doing right as a generation. It also gives advice for holding it together.

I've also been privileged to work on the teen edition of Max Lucado's book 3:16. It was a great project to work on. What an honor!