Tag Archives: author choices

Vote for My Next Book Title1

Hey, ya’ll! It’s that time! Time to vote for my next book title. Let me know what you think! I’ll keep you posted on the results 🙂 

Excerpt

“It’s just because you’re a new face,” he explained. “In a town like Bentenville you’re a novelty. That building you’re in has been many things, but mostly over the past few decades it’s been abandoned. In a town with two stoplights, a bank building that dates to the 1890s, and only three school buildings, all within walking distance—well, anyone new will turn a few heads.”

“Atlanta is too big for eyes to follow you down the street,” Andi mused. “But my world was very small. There were people you knew, people who knew you and people who wished they knew you. At least that’s what my mother used to say.”

“What about people you wished you knew?”

“A Cartier knew everyone important,” Andi muttered. “According to my mother.”

“She sounds real,” he paused. “Confident.”

Andi laughed, a harsh sounding bark she’d never heard from her own mouth before. Clearing her throat, she explained. “According to my confident mother, Cartiers are to be envied. Only those we select know us and everyone else wishes they did.” The bitter aftertaste of the words clung to her tongue.

“And what would you say?” Garrick asked as he opened the door to the restaurant for her.

 “That those who get to know the Cartiers wish they didn’t.”

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Summary

At 22, Andrea Cartier has experienced her fair share of the world’s injustices. Born into a wealthy family, her parents always expected perfection from their only daughter–to admit flaws is weakness, and Cartiers are strong. Invincible. So Andrea learned to keep her flaws hidden, and the secret scars she carries with her, she knows can never come out in the open. When she opens a bookstore in Bentenville, Texas to escape her past, she learns she can’t divorce her past as Andrea from her present as Andi, because no matter where she goes, she will always be a Cartier.

Garrick MacMillan, the most eligible bachelor in Bentenville, Texas, believes he has life figured out. All he needs now is a woman who can keep up with him–his lifestyle and his goals. But he’s not worried. God has the perfect woman for him, he just needs to keep his eyes and ears open.

Bryce Calhoun moved to Bentenville as a teenager, but never truly found a place to belong. Caught between his father’s, girlfriend’s, and his own expectations, he isn’t prepared for life to turn upside down when an old friend comes back into his life.

For a small town, Bentenville has big problems.

 

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Author and Perfector

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Sometimes I wonder if I’ve chosen the right path. But then I suppose everyone has doubts about their life at some point or another. The fact of the matter is, we can’t ever be sure about every decision we make. When I was in college I watched a film called Run Lola Run (directed by Tom Tykwer).  The film centers on the idea that it’s not only the monumental decisions in our lives that shape who we become as much as every tiny decision we make—down to taking the time to tie our shoe or letting the laces flap in the breeze. These little moments can shape us as much if not more. The film shows the same event, three times with tiny changes that affect the overall outcome in enormous ways.

Which in turn reminds me of Esther. I’ve been studying this book and as I’m now in chapter 6, big decisions still hold value, but the tiny ones are every bit as important.

Esther had an opportunity to rock the Persian world. She was promised up to half the kingdom by her husband Xerxes if she asked for it—which though a figure of speech, is still a pretty amazing oath. She invites Xerxes and her mortal enemy, Hamen, to a banquet to make the request. At the banquet she has a number of options—decisions to make. And any one of them can alter the course of her personal history.

  • She could, like Herodias’ s daughter did for John the Baptist, ask for Hamen’s head on a platter (Problem solved!)
  • She could reveal Hamen’s evil plan—confront the beast head on (Uncovered, unfoiled, right?)
  • Wait (What? Why wait!?!)

The timing was right! Her life had been spared, the king had agreed to dinner—now hat do be the time. If Esther makes the request, the game is over. But she doesn’t. Like Lola, she stops to tie her shoe, altering the course of the future.

But that is a monumental decision, right? That’s certainly more than just tying her shoe. What happens next is what, combined with the monumental decisions, proving to me that our small decisions have just a great an effect on our lives as our big decisions.

That night, the king couldn’t sleep.

Now the king has some decisions to make. And he’s the King of Persia—he could get a glass of warm milk, count sheep, or he has over 100 concubines so I could think of a few things he could do on a sleepless night.

Instead he orders the chronicle of his reign to be read to him.

Well, now I can see why this might put you to sleep, but this decision becomes the peripety of the entire narrative, a seemingly insignificant event that changes the course of everything.

Elevating Mordecai in the king’s eyes just enough so that when Esther does reveal Hamen’s evil plan, the king doesn’t harbor resentment against his noble prince, but righteous indignation about the injustice done to his ally and queen. Outrage, not regret in the end result.

If Esther hadn’t waited? The sleepless night would have looked very different.

If he hadn’t read the chronicle? The timing may never have been right for Ether.

What kind of changes in history would we see if even one tiny decision had been made?

Every significant even has a place, but more importantly ever insignificant event does too. Our lives are arranged accidentally. They are carefully crafted and perfected to create individual lives and purposes that we can live to be proud of. When I write, I always start with a character: Andrea, Valerie, Clara, Lucy…How much more so does God start with us as characters crafting each even toward some kind of significant end? It’s only natural to question our decisions and actions, but in the end no matter what we choose—I’m comforted to know that the author and perfector of my faith is more than my calligrapher—He’s a master craftsman.

So sometimes I pray for a peripety.

A reversal of destiny—a change that will make its mark on me ant eh world.

Because you never know what decision today might lead to a monumental destiny tomorrow.