Larkspur Cove

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Larkspur Cove Bethany House (February 1, 2011) by Lisa Wingate





ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Wingate is an award-winning journalist, magazine columnist, popular inspirational speaker and a national bestselling author of sixteen books. Her first mainstream novel, Tending Roses, is in its eighteenth printing from Penguin Putnam. Tending Roses is a staple on the shelves of national bookstore chains as well as in many independent bookstores.



Recently, Lisa’s Blue Sky Hill Series, set in Dallas, received national attention with back-to-back nominations for American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year Award for A Month of Summer (2009) and The Summer Kitchen (2010). Pithy, emotional, and inspirational, her stories bring to life characters so real that readers often write to ask what is happening to them after the book ends.



Lisa is one of a select group of authors to find success in both the Christian and mainstream markets, writing for both Bethany House, a Christian publisher, and NAL Penguin Putnam, a general market publisher. Her bestselling books have become a hallmark of inspirational fiction. Her works have been featured by the National Reader's Club of America, AOL Book Picks, Doubleday Book Club, the Literary Guild, Crossings Book Club, American Profiles and have been chosen for numerous awards.



When not busy dreaming up stories, Lisa spends time on the road as a motivational speaker. Via internet, she shares with readers as far away as India, where her book, Tending Roses, has been used to promote women's literacy, and as close to home as Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the county library system has used Tending Roses to help volunteer mentors teach adults to read. Recently, the group Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Lisa along with Bill Ford, Camille Cosby, and six others as recipients of the National Civies Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life.







ABOUT THE BOOK

Adventure is the last thing on Andrea Henderson's mind when she moves to Moses Lake. After surviving the worst year of her life, she's struggling to build a new life for herself and her son as a social worker. Perhaps in doing a job that makes a difference, she can find some sense of purpose and solace in her shattered faith. For new Moses Lake game warden Mart McClendon, finding a sense of purpose in life isn't an issue. He took the job to get out of southwest Texas and the constant reminders of a tragedy for which he can't forgive himself. But when a little girl is seen with the town recluse, Mart and Andrea are drawn together in the search for her identity. The little girl offers them both a new chance at redemption and hope--and may bring them closer than either ever planned.



If you would like to read the first chapter of Larkspur Cove, go HERE.

Larkspur Cove by Lisa Wingate is a compelling and heartfelt novel of finding yourself and healing the past. Andrea Henderson has moved with her fourteen-year-old son Dustin to her parents' cottage on Moses Lake to recuperate from a terrible divorce that has left her trying to support them on her own and picking up the broken pieces of her dreams. When she took the job as a counselor for Child Protective Services, she had no idea just what that would entail in this remote area where GPS is useless and directions are given using bullet hole ridden stop signs and trees struck by lightning. Mart McClendon has returned to Moses Lake to heal some wounds of his own. Working as the game warden, he ends up running into teens in trouble, so he assumes after catching Dustin with some other kids, that Andrea is just another parent too busy to worry about what's really going on with her child. But Mart and Andrea are forced to work together when it's discovered that a strange man living up in the hills has a young girl living with him, and no one seems to know where she came from. Their investigation will force them to re-evaluate their opinions of each other, as well as start to deal with the tragedies in their pasts. Wingate is a terrific writer. While this is technically a romance, there is unexpected death and heart to the story. Readers will want to pack up and move to Moses Lake, a small town populated by people who genuinely care for each other (even as they gossip and tease), and when a neighbor is in need, the whole community turns out to help. Wingate paces the tenuous relationship between Mart and Andrea perfectly, not rushing, and allowing it to build at a natural and beautiful pace. She populates the book with many interesting sub-characters, and I hope that she will revisit Moses Lake soon to tell their tales as well.