Follower Prize Winner

Congrats, Carla Gade! Your name was randomly drawn from all the followers to receive a prize. Email your contact info to heartsongblog at gmail dot com and let us know if you'd like 10 Heart Points or a free copy of either Love Online or A Hero for Her Heart.
 

Follower Prize Friday

If you haven't become a follower already, please do so and invite your friends, too. Check out the followers area on the sidebar on the left. Later today, we'll draw a random name from all the followers to win a prize!

This Week's Winner!

This week's winner is:

MERRY!

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

From The Vault

This weeks featured book from the vault is:

Love Online
by Nancy Toback and Kristin Billerbeck


Heartsong Presents #581
ISBN: 9781586609276

Tom has loved Jessica since high school. And sixteen years later he still does. But Jess sees Tom as her best friend - a chum. Tom is certain she'll never view him as anything else, and he's too afraid of possibly ruining their friendship to tell her how he really feels. As a successful chef in Manhattan, Jessica Stewart has reached her professional goals - but her biological clock is ticking. In need of a husband, Jessica decides an online dating service is the answer. Since Tom knows her better than anyone else does, she seeks his help in completing the questionnaire. Can Jessica learn to trust God - instead of the Internet - for love? Can Tom fulfill his promise to Jessica's father to protect her, even if she's determined to find love on-line? Fall in love with this inspiring love story and our entire collection of Christian romance novels from Heartsong Presents!

For more information on Nancy Toback and her other Heartsong Titles, including this one go to www.heartsongpresents.com

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How many of you married your high school sweetheart or know someone who did?

Guest Blog with Candice Speare & Nancy Toback

My question for our bloggers was how did the two of them work together and achieve success as a writing duo? Below is their response:

Writing a book with someone else is a crash course in learning the other person’s work habits. You don’t really know someone until you’ve worked with them under pressure. And when two writers have very strong, individual voices, not to mention firm ideas about the way things should be, the challenge is doubled. . .okay, quadrupled. . .all right—really magnified. But we’ve managed to work together so far and remain friends, despite the fact that Candice is a stoic German and Nancy is a fiery Italian. That’s probably because we’re both too old to stay annoyed for any length of time.
We’ve worked out a system now for books two and three in this series that is working for us. After hashing out a chapter by chapter together, our books are constructed as if we were building a human body. Candice writes short paragraphs for each scene, like a skeleton. Nancy builds on those, adding the sinew and muscle of the basic story. Candice adds organs—depth of setting and description. And the editing starts here, as well. Then we both do finish work—the skin. Nancy is a true romance writer. She can write an awesome first kiss scene. Candice is good at mystery and setting.
Despite our differences, the things we share are what really make this work. We’ve experienced many similar circumstances in our personal lives, some quite painful, so we pull on those experiences to give depth to our plots and characters.

Candice is a country girl:

I live in Maryland farm country where the D.C. sprawl is beginning to spread its fingers into the forests and fields where I grew up. When I was little, my recreation was swimming in a deep part of the creek, building forts in the woods, and collecting tadpoles and salamanders. While I wasn’t raised on a farm, I was raised country. That’s still what I prefer. Now my folks have cattle—Herefords to be precise, and I occasionally help with them. One of my most vivid memories is from three years ago. I tell my mother it left me scarred for life. I was left in charge of a dead cow while my folks headed off for a cruise. (Yes, a dead cow. I ask you. . .what mother leaves her daughter in charge of a dead cow? Mine.) Anyway, my job was to ensure the man from 1-800-dead-cow came on time to pick up the carcass and was paid. (Yes, that’s the real phone number.) When I was told to put the check in a jar next to the, er, body, I about lost it. Cows are big, but they seem bigger when they’re dead. And there were other. . .unpleasant things. Anyway, I won’t go into graphic description here, although I could since I’m a writer.
I’ve shot ground hogs, driven a tractor, and watched bulls being neutered. I’m not afraid of bugs or spiders or mice. I’m country through and through. And that’s a good example of one difference between me and Nancy. She’ll call an exterminator to get rid of mice. I’ll go to Southern States, get whatever I need, and catch them myself.

Nancy is a city girl:

I now live in South Florida but was born and raised in Manhattan; specifically, Germantown. I know nothing about cows except what I learned from the steakhouse menu. And let’s not even discuss the scenes with Allie atop a horse in A Hero for Her Heart. I’ve been on horseback twice—the second time only because a friend convinced me that horses “really don’t bite.” When Candice told me the heroine was a farrier, I thought she meant furrier. Then she taught me that horses wear shoes? I loved growing up in the concrete jungle, sitting on the “stoop” with the neighborhood kids, and cooling off in the “Johnny pump” on really hot days, but my life experience wasn’t much help in our Walla Walla, Washington setting. I’m grateful for the experience of co-writing with a country girl who’s not afraid of rodents and bugs, though I suspect Candice owns a BB gun and she’s not afraid to use it. Me, I just scream bloody murder if I find anything with more than two legs in my house.
Candice and I had as many laughs as we did virtual knock-down, drag-out fights writing this series, but with all our differences we’re forever friends.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you ever tried to do a solo activity with a partner and how did it go?

A Hero for Her Heart - Excerpt

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Phillipians 3:13 NIV

Excerpt from A Hero For Her Heart:

“Shannon is right.” Allie interrupted his thoughts. She refolded the check and held it tightly in her hands, then looked Derrick squarely in the eyes. “You are a hero.”
Hero? “Could be because you’ve known me less than fifteen minutes.”
Danny hopped from one foot to the other. “That was cool, the way you caught Aunt Allie. Where did you learn to do that?”
The force of the boy’s enthusiasm was irresistible. Pretending solemnity, Derrick glanced around as if to make sure the coast was clear, then leaned down and whispered, “I learned it in hero school.”
Danny’s eyes widened. “Is that where your face got hurt?”
“No, but it does make me look more heroic. I graduated at the top of my class.” He straightened and glanced at Allie. “And because I’m a hero, I insist I walk you to wherever you’re going while I carry your tools.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she said quickly.
“Oh, but I do.” He lifted his eyes to the summer sky and scratched his chin as though he were thinking hard. “See, it’s rule number. . .um. . .twenty-one, I think. ‘After saving a damsel in distress, always see her safely home or to her vehicle, whichever applies.’ ” He crossed his arms. “I scored a perfect hundred on that test. Of course, I stayed up all night cramming. And it’s been a while.”
Allie’s lips twitched. “How does one study for a hero test?”
Derrick placed his hand on his chest as though making a pledge. “Sorry, I can’t reveal the secrets of a hero. It’s in the rules. Number one, and I quote, ‘No method, secret, rule, or procedure shall be revealed to anyone at any time.’ ” He paused and winked again at Danny. “And number two says, ‘No hero will ever be caught bragging on exploits, whether his own or those of a fellow hero.’ ”
The boy’s wide smile brought cheer to his heart, but it was Allie’s grin that made his insides warm. He’d have to be careful. Old flirting habits died hard, and he couldn’t afford the complication of an attraction. He had information to gather, then he’d be gone. Most of all, she could never know why he was here.
“All right, Derrick Owens, hero extraordinaire,” Allie said, unaware of his turmoil, “you may walk us to my truck.”

Question of the Day: What makes someone a hero to you?

A Hero for Her Heart by Candice Speare and Nancy Toback

A Hero for Her Heart by Candice Speare and Nancy Toback

HP 885

ISBN 978-1-60260-701-9

CONTEMPORARY

 

Allie just wants the truth.

When Allie’s brother and sister-in-law die in a car accident, Allie is left with the care of their adopted son, Danny—and enormous debt. Now she’s forced to sell part of the farm to make ends meet. Still reeling from her broken engagement, Allie has no interest in men—especially those who lie.


Derrick is on a mission. His dying sister’s last wish is to know her son is happy with his adopted family, so Derrick hides behind his job as Realtor to investigate Allie and Danny. But soon his reconnaissance mission turns into much more when his feelings grow for Allie and the nephew he’s never known.


Will Derrick’s half-truths spin a destructive end? Or can Allie and Derrick overcome a web of deceit to finally see the truth and admit their love?


About the authors:


CANDICE SPEARE lives in an old farmhouse in Maryland with Winston the African gray parrot and Jack the dog.


NANCY TOBACK was born and raised in Manhattan and now resides in sunny Florida.
Her passion for writing fiction began way back in grammar school. If there's spare time after being wife, mother, grandmother, writer and avid reader, Nancy is a watercolorist and charcoal artist and enjoys gourmet cooking.


Question for you--Have you ever had someone fool you with only half the truth and how did that make you feel?