This week's winner!

This week's winner is:

Rose!

Congratulations!

Please contact us at heartsongblog at gmail dot com to claim your prize!

From The Vault

This week's treasure from The Vault is:


Past The Ps Please by Yvonne Lehman
Heartsong Presents #510
ISBN: 9781586606244


Unsure of God's direction for her life, Sara is spending the summer after graduation house-cleaning at the estate of her college roommate's family. What others soon recognize is that God is using Sara in the lives of the three Paridy sons. Albert, the gifted lawyer and aspiring politician, admires Sara's people skills. Movie producer Adam wants to develop Sara's potential in front of a camera. And Forrest, running a huge but secret project, wonders if Sara is God's choice to help make his dreams reality. As the summer ends, Sara ponders her next step. Is it time to leave the Paridys forever? Or is she ready to trust her heart to the care of the Paridy man she loves? Fall in love with this inspiring love story and our entire collection of Christian romance novels from Heartsong Presents!


For more information on Yvonne Lehman and her other Heartsong Titles, including Past the Ps Please, click HERE.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What was your favorite/least favorite job while in college?

Guest Blog with Yvonne Lehman

What could be more romantic than writing a series of historical Hawaii novels? After all, Hawaii is a tourist mecca and thousands go there each year for vacations, weddings, and honeymoons.

I felt sure my words and imagination would just flow since I had written a contemporary Hawaii novel, my three daughters had visited there and I have a writer-friend, Carmen Leal, who lives there.

Well…not so!

I discovered there is much more to Hawaii than islands sparkling like jewels in the sea, warm breezes in the palm trees, beautiful girls swaying with the hula, and ukeleles softly playing.

Love from Ashes, the third in my historical Hawaii series, was the most difficult romance to write since I wanted the setting to be shortly after World War II, a devastating time for the entire world.

My first book, written almost 30 years ago, was my attempt at reconciling racial differences between black and white. My belief is that acceptance doesn’t come just by laws being passed, but by individuals reaching out to each other. Now, Love from Ashes, my 48th book again takes on not only the race issue, but cultural differences and two people whose native countries were wartime enemies less than a year earlier.

My heroine in this book, Amelia Thurstan, has lived a lie for almost five years, believing her parents faced enough grief with the loss of their son during WWII and the death of her love, Joe, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But that’s before Joe’s brother, my hero, shows up in Hawaii, filled with questions she never wanted to answer.

Luke Thurstan is a former marine battling to bring peace to himself and his parent after the war. When he lands in Hawaii, the revelation that his brother married a woman who is half Japanese is disturbing enough. But events quickly force Luke to confront the bitterness that has sprung up within him as a result of the war’s devastation.

When Amelia’s secret if finally uncovered, they both wonder if this will be another blow to two families overwhelmed by grief. Or will love rise from the ashes on wings of healing?

God shows his love in the midst of our pain, loss, and sorrows. I want to show this in my books. When life seems to be a pile of ashes, literally and emotionally, God’s love is available and human love finds a way to express itself.

In writing the series, I began my research by reading James Mitchner’s Hawaii, many other fiction and non-fiction books, and searched the internet. The more I learned, the more there was to learn. This place of incredible beauty was also one of constant change and turmoil. Should I write about the eras of early missionaries, difference between myth and faith, numerous nationalities, royalty, whaling industry, ranching, or sugar production? What time period should I use since I’d have to work around, or include events like tsunamis, volcano eruptions, annexation into the U.S., and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Then there was the problem of communication not only between Hawaii and the U.S. but also between the islands. I had to learn when travel changed from 5-6 month voyages to shorter periods, and when horses were replaced by automobiles.

Carmen said Hawaii had cowboys before the U.S. I found the idea of a Hawaiian cowboy intriguing and decided to set my story primarily on the island of Hilo in 1889-90. My American characters had to travel by ship for five months from the U.S. to the island. For Aloha Love, I developed a Hawaiian rancher as my hero and included royalty and religious myths, as well as Christianity that had been taken there by missionaries.

The era of picture brides occurred in the early 1900’s when Hawaii’s main industry was exporting sugar to many countries. Thousands of Japanese men had traveled to Hawaii for work on the plantations. There were no women for them so the immigration office arranged to send their photos and information to Japan. A matchmaker paired them up with women who then traveled to Hawaii to be married as soon as they docked. I began to plan how an American woman could become symbolic of a picture bride. Picture Bride features the matchmaking process and sugar plantations, again with Hilo as the primary setting and includes some of Aloha Love’s characters.

I wanted to set the third novel, Love from Ashes, in 1946 after WWII. I already had a fair knowledge of the Pearl Harbor bombing but needed to research the effect it had on the people of Hawaii and how the thousands of Japanese there would be involved and treated. Since my readers would be familiar with the setting and my continuing characters from the first two books, I wanted this one set in Hilo too. However, I discovered a tsunami had destroyed much of Hilo, so I needed to work that into the story.

These books, which I thought would be my easiest to write, required more research, reading, studying, thinking, and work than any of my others. But I am pleased with what I learned and how the books turned out. Recently I heard from several readers who loved the stories. One was reminded of her sister’s Hawaiian wedding. The books reminded another of “the good old days.” Another said she skips paragraphs when reading, but didn’t skip a thing in the Hawaii books. Encouragement like that keeps me researching and writing.

Thanks to all my readers. I appreciate you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to each of you.

Yvonne

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Your dream wedding...in an exotic locale or in your hometown?

Love From Ashes - Excerpt

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Matthew 13:45-46

An exerpt from Love From Ashes

He could think of nothing more to say than thank you again.

Her brief nod resembled a bow, then she walked with graceful steps out the door and along the hallway.
Standing with his back against the closed door, Luke stared at the tray, smelled the aroma of that rich, dark coffee. It beckoned him. But a realization kept his feet planted to the floor.
That woman was the wife of Pastor Jacob Grant. And she was unmistakably Japanese.
That meant Amelia Grant Thurstan, the lovely young woman with black hair pulled back in a thick roll, olive skin, deep brown eyes was...part Japanese.
The girl Joe wrote about was Japanese.
He could not tell his mother.
It would kill her.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Coconut. Love it or Hate it?

Love From Ashes by Yvonne Lehman

Love from Ashes by Yvonne Lehman
HP 884
ISBN 978-1-60260-686-9
HISTORICAL

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Amelia’s secret is catching up with her.



For almost five years, Amelia Thurstan has lived a lie, believing her parents faced enough grief with the loss of their son during World War II and the death of her love, Joe, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But that was before Joe’s brother showed up in Hawaii, filled with questions she never wanted to answer.

Luke Thurstan is a former marine battling to bring peace to himself and his parents after World War II. When he lands in Hawaii, the revelation that his brother married a woman who is half Japanese is disturbing enough. But events quickly force Luke to confront the bitterness that has sprung up within him as a result of the war’s devastation.

When Amelia’s secret is finally uncovered, will it be one more blow to two families overwhelmed by grief? Or will love rise from the ashes on wings of healing?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

YVONNE LEHMAN is an award-winning, best-selling author of 42 books, including mainstream, mystery, romance, young adult, and women's fiction. Founder and director of her own writers conference, she now directs the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference held annually at the Ridgecrest/LifeWay Conference Center near Asheville, NC.

QUESTION FOR YOU: Do you ever dream of strolling a beach in Hawaii?

This week's winner!

This week's winner of one of the following prizes

• 1) TEN Heartpoints to be applied to future shipments of Heartsong Presents Romance books OR
• 2) A copy of Patterns and Progress OR
• 3) A copy of Promises, Promises
• is
• CHARITY!

Charity, please email us at heartsongblog at gmail dot com to claim your prize.

And thank you everyone for your support of Heartsong Connection. The community is growing every day.

From the Vault

Today's treasure from The Vault is:

Promises, Promises by Amber Miller (Stockton)
Heartsong Presents #784
ISBN: 9781597899390

Raelene Strattford knows God has promised never to leave or forsake her. But after the catastrophic deaths of her parents, she doesn t believe it. What kind of God would take a girl's family and leave her alone in a wild land where women have no voice?

Gustaf Hanssen has admired Raelene from afar for a while, but his poor attempt at courting her in the past has made him unwelcome in her life. When Gustaf promises Raelene's dying father that he will take care of her, he finds himself bound to her happiness, her success, and her well-being in ways he never imagined. To keep his word must Gustaf really oversee all of Raelene's affairs, find her a husband, and maintain her farm, while she does nothing but scorn him?

Can God reach through Raelene's pain and self-centeredness and give her the love that awaits, if only she will accept His will?


A little exerpt from Promises, Promises


"Take care of her," her father had said as Gustaf placed Duncan’s broken body into the back of his father's wagon.

Duncan had placed his hand on Gustaf ’s arm and implored him with his pain-filled eyes. "She's headstrong, but she needs a friend....Please...promise me."

Gustaf had. Now what was he going to do? He would have to talk to Raelene sooner or later. As his three brothers and two sisters, along with his father and mother, stepped away, Gustaf drew near.

Words failed him. The intensity of the pain clouding Raelene's sapphire eyes struck him. But the unwavering jut of her chin told him the fight had not yet left her. She didn't want his comfort any more than she had wanted him. After all, he was just a farm boy. Worse yet. A son who would never inherit the family land once his father left this world.


For more information on Amber Stockton and her other titles, including Promises, Promises, click HERE.

QUESTION FOR YOU: Now that we're deep into winter, how do you break up those cold-weather/cabin-fever blahs?