Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt ~ Stop #17

Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt ~ Stop #17

by | Oct 20, 2021 | Scavenger Hunt

Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt Stop #17

Welcome to the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be sure to start at Stop #1, and collect the clues through all the stops, in order, so you can enter to win one of our top 5 grand prizes!

  • The hunt BEGINS on 10/21 at noon MST with Stop #1 at LisaTawnBergren.com.
  • Hunt through our loop using Chrome or Firefox as your browser (not Explorer).
  • There is NO RUSH to complete the hunt—you have all weekend (until Sunday, 10/24 at midnight MST)! So take your time, reading the unique posts along the way; our hope is that you discover new authors/new books and learn new things about them.
  • Submit your entry for the grand prizes by collecting the CLUE on each author’s scavenger hunt post and submitting your answer in the Rafflecopter form at the final stop, back on Lisa’s site. Many authors are offering additional prizes along the way!

Hello! I’m Roseanna M. White, author of several dozen historical romances (most of which are set in Edwardian England), a few biblical fiction love stories, and in my (ha!) spare time, a cover designer. I also run (along with my amazing husband) the WhiteFire Publishing Group. And my most recent venture is the Bookish Things Shop, right here on my website! (Where I have not only stuff relating to my books, but also things for EVERY book lover!) So…you know, pretty busy around here! You can find me everywhere @RoseannaMWhite (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest).

My most recent release is a historical romance set in 1906 on the gorgeous Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall…full of the search for pirate treasure, mistaken identities, and lots of adventure to go along with the romance.

Lady Elizabeth “Libby” Sinclair, with her love of microscopes and nature, isn’t favored in society. She flees to the beautiful Isles of Scilly for the summer and stumbles into the dangerous secrets left behind by her holiday cottage’s former occupant, also named Elizabeth, who mysteriously vanished.

Oliver Tremayne–gentleman and clergyman–is determined to discover what happened to his sister, and he’s happy to accept the help of the girl now living in what should have been Beth’s summer cottage . . . especially when he realizes it’s the curious young lady he met briefly two years ago, who shares his love of botany and biology. But the hunt for his sister involves far more than nature walks, and he can’t quite believe all the secrets Beth had been keeping from him.

As Libby and Oliver work together, they find ancient legends, pirate wrecks, betrayal, and the most mysterious phenomenon of all: love.

Isn’t that book cover (just below here) just GORGEOUS?! I was so excited when I saw it—my one request had been that my heroine, Libby, be in a purple dress (key to the story), and I was so excited when I saw it! Then my excitement grew even more on release day, when I received the most unexpected of comments on my social media posts about the book…

MEETING THE FAMILY OF
AND MODEL FOR A BOOK COVER!

 

Release week is always fun and exciting, but I was so surprised when I saw a couple comments from the grandmothers of the cover model on The Nature of a Lady! They were tagging each other, full of glee at seeing their sweet granddaughter on the cover. I reached out to one of them to say what a wonderful job she’d done at capturing Libby’s sweet spirit, and she was quick to tell me how sweet the model, Ashton, is in real life too.

Over the course of the day, I learned that Ashton, a professional model, and her husband live in the same city as my publisher, and how they are the hands and feet of Jesus in their neighborhood, which was in the heart of the riots last year. I learned how they seek God first and foremost. And I learned that this proud grandmother had been a reader of my books already, so to have her granddaughter on the cover of one was a treat for them as well. I was so excited that we were soon conspiring together to send her granddaughter a special surprise package to thank her for doing such an amazing job being Libby.

I’ve had many covers before, and a few times I even learned who the models were…but this unexpected connection was the sweetest release day surprise!

Here’s the Stop #17 Basics:

If you’re interested, you can order The Nature of a Lady on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBook, signed from my shop, or at your local bookstore!

Clue to Write Down: book

Link to Stop #18, the Next Stop on the Loop: Tamara Leigh’s site!

My Giveaway!

I’m excited to be able to offer one lucky winner $20 in credit to the Bookish Things shop here on my website! That will allow you to get a book or any number of other products. Do feel free to browse the shop and make a wishlist so that if you win, you’re ready (extra entries for that)! LOL.

Just enter using the Rafflecopter form below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Word of the Week – Demon

Word of the Week – Demon

by | Oct 18, 2021 | Holidays, Word of the Week

We’re continuing our October look into spooky words today…with demon. I don’t know about you, but for me, this word conjures up a WHOLE different level of fear. Ghosts and spooks are words assigned to human spirits, but demon…that’s a whole different supernatural level, and one that invokes evil.

Right?

Um…well…if we’re looking at the history of the word, it actually isn’t so cut and dry!

The English word demon, which dates from 1200 as “an evil spirit, a malignant supernatural being, a devil” is taken directly from the Latin and Greek daemon, which means ANY spirit, good or bad, and sometimes used to describe human souls as well. So how did the English come to associate it solely with the evil side?

It’s because the Greek daemon is the word used in the Bible for “unclean spirits,” and Jewish authors also used it in Greek versions of the Old Testament books for “false gods.” Though Greek speakers never would have ONLY used it in this sense…we weren’t Greek speakers, LOL. So demon came to be applied solely to the evil side of the supernatural.

Occasionally writers or academics will want to use the word in the original Greek or Latin sense, especially when translating, so will interject that extra ‘a’ into the word and make it daemon to differentiate.

Introducing the Bookish Things Shop!

Introducing the Bookish Things Shop!

by | Oct 14, 2021 | Announcements, Bookish Tees and Totes, Books, Holidays, Sales

Okay, guys, I am sooooo excited to tell you about this today! For the past month-ish, I’ve been working on expanding my shop, and finally, the results are ready to show you!!

It started when we were on vacation. For us, “vacation” is really just the best brainstorming of the year. 😉 As we were walking on the beach and chatting, one of the topics was how to make even more cool stuff available in my store. I had tons of ideas…but of course, the problem is that I only have so much time. So I can’t just make everything I think of (never mind that I don’t have the skills, LOL). So I decided to look some things up. And next thing I know, I’m hours into browsing products by other individuals and artisans and I have found SO MANY that are a perfect fit!

And that’s what I’m about to show you! I’ve put together a ton of cool stuff. Some of it ties directly to one book of mine or another…some of it appeals to a general bookish audience. A few are especially for writers. I have some Christmas merch too, including new designs I just unveiled this week! A few highlights:

    • Journals and notebooks
    • Pens
    • Book lockets and pendant necklaces
    • Nature-themed jewelry and goodies
    • Christmas ornament
    • Book socks
    • Book light
    • Book earrings

AND…I also just added a wishlist button to the site! So if YOU are the book lover in your life and want to drop a few hints to your loved ones for the next holiday, I’ve totally got you covered. When logged in, you can create as many lists as you like, make them public or private, email them to people, you name it! (If you don’t log in, it will remember you for 30 days as long as you’re on the same device.)

So are you ready to see some of the cool new stuff?? I’ve divided them into a couple different categories–the images below are just a few of them! Check out the full shop HERE.

(All the old stuff is still there too, don’t worry! I’ve just built out new pages and taken new product images in some cases.)

Would you like to see a tie-in item that I don’t currently have? Just send me a note through the contact form with your suggestion, and I’ll see what I can do. =)

Bookish Gifts

View All Bookish Gifts

Bookish Jewelry

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Christmas

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Word of the Week – Spooky

Word of the Week – Spooky

by | Oct 11, 2021 | Holidays, Word of the Week

It’s October! So I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the words you’re going to be encountering in this season. Whether you celebrate Halloween or just the harvest (or nothing at all), I think you’ll agree that the etymologies this month are interesting!

Today we’re taking a look at spooky . . . which means really, we’re taking a look at spook, since that’s what it’s a form of. Spook dates from 1801 and is taken from the Germanic. The fun thing is that pretty much all Germanic languages have a work very similar to spook, but the meanings include not only the primary “ghost,” but also, “scarecrow” and “joke.”

In 1942 it began to be applied to spies–presumably because of their abilities to appear and vanish again.

Easy Answers…or Deep Questions?

Easy Answers…or Deep Questions?

by | Oct 7, 2021 | Thoughtful Thursdays

When a family is made up of a novelist wife and her publisher/filmmaker husband, there are a lot of conversations in the house about story–what makes them powerful, what makes them fail. What makes them lasting, what makes them forgettable.

A few weeks ago as David and I were chatting about some books and films we were reading and watching, we were musing about what the problem was with a certain one, and David said, “I think it’s that it just gives us the answer. The writers didn’t set out to explore a topic–they set out to give a canned answer. But that’s too easy, and ‘too easy’ doesn’t ever ring true. That’s why it’s a fail.”

Over the decades, I have heard Christian fiction called “preachy” soooooo many times–by fellow Christians. At first this puzzled me. I mean, I would get it if non-believers were turned off by any faith message and called it “preachy.” But fellow Christians? Why would they toss a book aside in disgust because it was “preachy”? They like preaching! They go every week for a dose of it, right? LOL.

Then I began to really pay attention to what stories earned that label and why. Sometimes it was that there were literally sermons in the novels that weren’t really necessary…but that was rare. Sometimes it was that a character seriously preached at another character…but that wasn’t always it.

Many times–perhaps even most times–it was exactly the thing my husband pointed out in our conversation. It was that the whole book seemed to be just handing us an answer–a pat, cliche, easy answer.

Life, faith, truth, though…those aren’t easy. They’re complicated. They’re involved. They’re DEEP. So shouldn’t our stories about them be too?

When I enrolled at St. John’s College (The Great Books School), I remember the first day of science lab. Our tutor (professor) said that the goal of the class was not to learn facts. The goal of the class was to learn how to ask good questions. In many ways this is the main goal of the entire St. John’s education. When it was put into words like that, though, I know very well I frowned and looked over at the students next to me. Learn how to ask questions? What was this guy talking about? We ALL know how to ask questions!

Half an hour later, I realized I didn’t. My education had never taught me that. My education had simply taught me how to absorb facts and spit them back out on a test. Not how to discover. Not how to explore a topic. The example from that first lab class was this: go outside. Sit in front of something growing. Now start describing it. We began with, “It’s a tree.” To which our tutor replied, “Is it? How do you know? How do you know it isn’t a bush instead? Or an herb?” And so on it went, not just in that class, but through four years of classes on all subjects. We learned that answers are only part of learning. Just as important, if not more important, are the questions that lead us there, and that lead us onward. To the next discovery. The next Truth. The next good question.

And the stories that really resonate do the same thing–they don’t just lay out a quick, easy answer to some topic that the author wanted to hammer on. No, no. Good stories–whether non- or fiction, book or film or article–ask questions. They make us ask questions. Good questions. DEEP questions. They invite us to ponder, to view a subject from a perspective we’ve never considered before. They make us sit back and go “Huh. Wow.” They open our minds and our hearts to new possibilities.

That’s the magic of story. More, it’s the importance of questions.

Try it in your own conversations or studies sometime, I dare you–it’s so much fun, and so enlightening! Instead of a Bible study being all about the presentation of facts, start with an “opening question,” like we did in each class at St. John’s. And then explore it. See where it takes you. See what amazing thing the Lord reveals through delving past the accepted and expected, past the pat and easy answers. See what depths you discover. And see how much closer you draw to Him and how much richer the world looks when you do.

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