Christy Awards Finalists 20202 -- General Fiction

GIVEAWAY

 What are the Christy Awards?

"The Christy Award is designed to nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview and showcase the diversity of genres." (from the Christy Awards website.)

These 2020 finalists are books published in 2019. You might have read them already. You might not. I've read one in this category. I'll include a link to my reviews in the descriptions.

How does this giveaway work?

You select which of the three Christy Award General Fiction 2020 finalists you would like to receive if your name is drawn. Mention the title in your comment (or an email if you're entering that way.) If you win, that's the book that will be sent to you. Easy Peasy. Here are the three finalists.

All Manner of Things by Susie Finkbeiner (Revell / Baker Publishing Group)

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know.

In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts. In the tumult of this time, Annie and her family grapple with the tension of the holding both and grief in the same hand, even as they learn to turn to the One who binds the wounds of the brokenhearted.

Author Susie Finkbeiner invites you into the Jacobson family's home and hearts during a time in which the chaos of the outside world touched their small community in ways they never imagined.

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes (Bethany House / Baker Publishing Group)

In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose...and rocks. Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-giving. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss's humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the tiny, coastal Maine town, and he sets his calloused hands to work, but the building halts when tragedy strikes.

Decades later, Annie Sawyer is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her Great-Uncle Robert, the man who became her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help. What she didn't anticipate was finding a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Long-ago memories of stone ruins on a nearby island trigger her curiosity.

She joins forces with the handsome and mysterious harbor postman, and all her hopes of mending the decades-old chasm in her family seem to point back to the ruins. But with Robert failing fast, her search for answers battles against time, a foe as relentless as the ever-crashing waves upon the sea.

My Review: https://bestreads-kav.blogspot.com/2019/08/whose-waves-these-are.html

The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels (Revell / Baker Publishing Group)

Robin Windsor has spent most of her life under an assumed name, running from her family's ignominious past. She thought she'd finally found sanctuary in her rather unremarkable used bookstore just up the street from the marina in River city, Michigan. But the store is struggling and the past is hot on her heels.

When she receives an eerily familiar book in the mail on the morning of her father's scheduled execution, Robin is thrown back to the long-lost summer she met Peter Flynt, the perfect boy who ruined everything. That book - a first edition Catcher in the Rye -- is soon followed by the other books she shared with Peter nearly twenty years ago, with one arriving in the mail each day. But why would Peter be making contact after all these years? And why does she have a sinking feeling that she's about to be exposed all over again?

 GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY:

All three books are available in either paperback or ebook format (Amazon.com account) -- winner's choice

If you would like a chance to win a copy of one of the Christy Awards Finalists in the General Fiction Category, leave a comment below or email me at kavluvstoreadATyahooDOTca. If you add an email to your comment, remember to use AT and DOT instead of @ and . in order to protect yourself from spammers. If you enter the draw via email, please add the title to the subject line so it's easy to spot your entry. Draw will be held and winner announced on Sunday October 23 2020 . Offer open to International Readers. Good luck!

Christy Awards Finalists - First Novel

GIVEAWAY

What are the Christy Awards?

"The Christy Award is designed to nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview and showcase the diversity of genres." (from the Christy Awards website.)

These 2020 finalists are books published in 2019. You might have read them already. You might not. I've read one in this category. I'll include a link to my review in the descriptions.

How does this giveaway work?

You select which of the three Christy Award First Novel 2020 finalists you would like to receive if your name is drawn. Mention the title in your comment (or an email if you're entering that way.) If you win, that's the book that will be sent to you. Easy Peasy. Here are the three finalists.

A Long Time Comin' by Robin W. Pearson 

To hear Beatrice Agnew tell it...

She entered the world with her mouth tightly shut. Just because she finds out she's dying doesn't mean she can't keep it that way. If any of her children have questions about their daddy and the choices she made after he abandoned them, they'd best take it up with Jesus. There's no room in Granny B's house for regrets or hand-holding. Or so she thinks.

Her granddaughter Evelyn Lester shows up on Beatrice's doorstep anyway, burdened with her own secret baggage. Determined to help her Granny B mend fences with her far-flung brood, Evelyn turns her grandmother's heart and home inside out. Evelyn's meddling uncovers a tucked away box of old letters, forcing the two women to wrestle with their past and present pain as they confront the truth Beatrice has worked a lifetime to hide.

The Means That Makes Us Strangers by Christine Kindberg

Home is where your people are. But who are your people?

Adelaide has lived her whole life in rural Ethiopia where she and her family are the only white people she knows. Then her family moves to South Carolina in 1964.

Adelaide promises she'll return to Ethiopia and become part of the village for good. But until she turns eighteen, Adelaide must adjust to this strange white place everyone tells her is home. Then Adelaide becomes friends with the five African American  students who sued for admission to the white high school. As life in Greenville becomes more interesting, home becomes a much more complex equation.

Adelaide must finally choose where she belongs: the Ethiopian village where she grew up, to which she promised to return? Or this new place where she's become part of something bigger?

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose...and rocks. Its message? Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-giving. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss's humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the harbor village on the coast of Maine, and he sets his calloused hands to work.

Decades later, Annie Bliss is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Ssea when GrandBob, the man who gave her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is the one in need of help. But what greets her is a mystery: a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Memories of stone ruins on a nearby island ignite a fire in her anthropologist soul to uncover answers.

Together with the handsome and enigmatic town postman, Anne uncovers the story layer by layer, yearning to resurrect the hope GrandBob once held so dear and to know the truth behind the chasm in her family's past. But mending what has been broken for so long many require more of her and those she loves than they are prepared to give.

My Review: https://bestreads-kav.blogspot.com/2019/08/whose-waves-these-are.html

 GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY:

If you would like a chance to win a copy of one of the Christy Awards Finalists in the New First Novel Category, leave a comment below or email me at kavluvstoreadATyahooDOTca. If you add an email to your comment, remember to use AT and DOT instead of @ and . in order to protect yourself from spammers. If you enter the draw via email, please add the title to the subject line so it's easy to spot your entry. Draw will be held and winner announced on Sunday October 17 2020 . Offer open to International Readers. Good luck!

Christy Award Finalists -- Contemporary Romance

 

GIVEAWAY

What are the Christy Awards?

"The Christy Award is designed to nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview and showcase the diversity of genres." (from the Christy Awards website.)

These 2020 finalists are books published in 2019. You might have read them already. You might not. I've read two in this category. I'll include a link to my review in the descriptions.

How does this giveaway work?

You select which of the three Christy Award Contemporary Romance 2020 finalists you would like to receive if your name is drawn. Mention the title in your comment (or an email if you're entering that way.) If you win, that's the book that will be sent to you. Easy Peasy. Here are the three finalists.

Just One Kiss by Courtney Walsh (Courtney Walsh Writes)

He broke her heart. Now, he's back, and he's determined to show her what they had isn't over...and he can prove it with just one kiss.

Single mother Carly Collins likes predictability. However, when her son Jaden's health is threatened, her neatly controlled world is tossed into a tailspin for Josh Dixon, Jaden's father, her first love and the man responsible for shattering her heart sixteen years ago.

When Josh Dixon walked out of Harbor Point, he left behind his only shot at a real family. Now a successful tech mogul, the town rebel has found a cause -- ensure his son's recovery and prove to Carly and Jaden that he's not the same guy he was back then.

Carly and Josh are forced to wade through messy emotions and questions that have gone unanswered for years, which would be easier if not for the pesky feelings, every bit as strong and impossible to ignore as they ever were.

Will forgiveness win, giving Carly and Josh a second chance at love...or will the past prove too much to overcome?

A small town romance about first love second chances and how our most beautiful life might look nothing like we planned.

Now and Then and Always by Melissa Tagg (Larkspur Press)

"It was just a house...Just a weathered old house in a hidden grove, shuttered and still..."

Last year, after traumatic circumstances forced her from her job as a nanny, Mara Bristol finally found a place to belong -- the winsome Everwood Bed & Breakfast at the edge of Maple Valley, Iowa. For months, she's helped its owner, Lenora, maintain the ramshackle property despite their shortage of guests. But when Lenora fails to return from a month-long trip and the bank threatens foreclosure, Mara worries she's once again alone...abandoned...about to lose the only true home she's ever known.

Detective Marshall Hawkins is no closer to whole today than he was two years ago...the day his daughter died. Between his divorce, debilitating migraines, and a dependence on medication, his life is falling apart. And when a reckless decision on the job propels him into administrative leave, he has no other plan but to get in his truck and drive. A one-night stay at the Everwood was supposed to be just that. But there's something about the old house -- or maybe it's intriguing caretaker that pulls him in. 

Together, Mara and Marshall set out to save the Everwood. But its secrets run deeper than they could've imagined. As they renovate the house and search for its missing owner, they'll each confront the pain that brought them to the Everwood in the first place...and just maybe discover a faith and love to help them carry on.

My Review: https://bestreads-kav.blogspot.com/2019/10/now-and-then-and-always.html

Sweet On You by Becky Wade (Bethany House, Bake Publishing Group)

Britt and Zander have been best friends since they met thirteen years ago. Unbeknownst to Britt, Zander has been in love with her for just as long. 

Independent and adventurous Britt channels her talent into creating chocolates at her hometown shop. Zander is a bestselling author who's spent the past 18 months traveling the world. He's achieved a great deal but still lacks the only thing that ever truly mattered to him -- Britt's heart.

When Zander's uncle dies of mysterious causes, he returns to Merryweather, Washington to investigate, and Britt is immediately there to help. Although this throws them into close proximity, both understand that an attempt at romance  could jeopardize their once-in-a-lifetime friendship. But while Britt is determined to resist any change in their relationship, Zander finds it increasingly difficult to keep his feelings hidden.

As they work together to uncover his uncle's tangled past, will the truth of what lies between them also, finally, come to light?

My Review: https://bestreads-kav.blogspot.com/2019/06/sweet-on-you.html

GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY:

Please note: Just One Kiss by Courtney Walsh isn't available on Book Depository so it will be an ebook giveaway. The other two books are available in either paperback or ebook, winner's choice.

If you would like a chance to win a copy of one of the Christy Award Contemporary Romance finalists, leave a comment below or email me at kavluvstoreadATyahooDOTca. If you add an email to your comment, remember to use AT and DOT instead of @ and . in order to protect yourself from spammers. If you enter the draw via email, please add the title to the subject line so it's easy to spot your entry. Draw will be held and winner announced on Saturday October 10 2020 . Offer open to International Readers. Good luck