A Flower Guessing Game for a Chance to Win a Book

Flower 1

Flower 2                                                                                  Flower 3

The Innocent is Ready for Readers

The Innocent is going out to readers. The internet sites are shipping the paper copy of the book already. It's about three weeks before the official release date, but if the book is out there, that date doesn't mean much. I haven't seen it on a store shelf but where I live, don't many stores have bookshelves. Just our local WalMart Store, but they don't always carry my books. Local connections don't mean much in the corporate world. 


First Review Spotted

But I did just see the first review of The Innocent online and I was happy to see that the reviewer highlighted the spiritual thread in the story. Here's a bit of the review from Jeanette's Thoughts "Keep praying. When you feel like giving up...keep praying. When you are hopeless and scared...keep praying. This book had such a powerful message. Keep praying." 

Pray Anyway

My character, Carlyn, did find out that no matter the circumstances in her life, prayer could help. Perhaps I zeroed in on that theme in this book because I was writing it during those last hard months of caretaking for my mother who suffered from dementia before she passed away. Prayer got us through some tough days. Not only my prayers, but many of you and also my Facebook friends lifted Mom and me up in prayer then and also later when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I have a niece going through cancer treatment and she has prayer warriors making her difficult path of treatments easier. Prayer is powerful.

So it was good seeing that the reviewer appreciated the prayers or need for prayers through my new Shaker story.

Yellow Flower Contest - Maybe Win a Book

I did finally figure out a contest to use my yellow flower pictures. For those of you who don't join the conversation on my Facebook Page, let me explain. For thirty days in May I spotted and posted a different yellow flower every day. Then the thirty-first day came and I hunted but couldn't find a new yellow flower. Since then a few more yellow flowers have popped up for me to spot. The game is to guess which photo of the three above is a new yellow flower that wasn't posted on my FB page. Flower 1, flower 2 or flower 3.

Every guess gets an entry, but if you guess the correct new flower (the one that wasn't posted on my FB page during the thirty day run), you'll get two entries. One winner, chosen by random drawing, will win his or her choice of one of my books. That includes the new one, The Innocent, if that's the one the winner wants. Your comments have to be on here by 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 17 when I'll draw and post the winner on my next blog post. Then I'll put up a new set of flower pictures to play again with the winner posted on the next Sunday. Two winners this week and two winners next. Open to all readers over eighteen. 

So I hope some of you will play my flower guessing game. Thanks for reading.

What Would You Name a Calico Cat?

"I don't want her to have a cat because she'll end up talking baby talk to the cat. That's the way it is, and how can a P.I. do that? (Sue Grafton talking about her character in her alphabet mystery series)

I can understand Sue Grafton's point of view. Every character is different and some need a pet and some don't. As much as I love dogs, I don't always let my characters have one. 

The Dogs in my Books

But then, when I think back I do have dogs sprinkled through my stories. Trouble, Lorena's dog in Small Town Girl. He did get his name changed eventually. Poe, Graham's dog in both Angel Sister and Small Town Girl added to the story and then Chaucer in Love Comes Home. Aristotle made an important appearance in The Believer. And of course, Jocie had the dog hunger in Scent of Lilacs, the first book in the Heart of Hollyhill series, and talked her father into letting her keep a dog she found in the woods. She named him Zebedee, shortened usually to Zeb. 

My new Shaker book, The Innocent, has a dog named Asher who plays a big part in the story. He's a great four-footed character. When I was trying to come up with the perfect name for Asher, I asked my internet friends for suggestions. I got so many great dog names, but Asher, the eighth son of Jacob in the Bible, seemed to work best even though only one person suggested that name. Thanks, Amy. 

My Cozy Mystery Cats

My work in progress is a series of cozy mysteries that have cats. The first three cat characters already have names. There's Two Bits in the first book, Murder at the Courthouse. I also have a gray and white cat named Grimalkin who makes another appearance in the second book which has yet to have an official title. There's an attitude cat named Sandy too who makes a cameo appearance. 

Now I'm working on book three and have invited a new cat character into the story. This is a calico cat, so a female since most calico cats are female cats. She is an independent cat who lives by her own rules. She simply showed up on the doorstep of an elderly character one day and that character gave the cat a name and told her she could stay if she wanted to. 

So What Would You Name Cat Character Four?

I've already tried out three or four names but nothing seems quite right. So what would you name a calico female cat named by a woman around eighty. It makes a difference - the person doing the naming. That's why Poe was the perfect name for Graham's coon dog in my Rosey Corner books. That's why Two Bits is the perfect name for a barber's cat. 

So what do you think? What's my independent calico cat's name? 

And come back Wednesday. I'm going to do some kind of flower game to let some of you win a book or two. Just got to figure out how to make it work. Until then, I'm ready for your cat names.  

Prayer - A Matter of Faith

Prayer is simply talking to God like a friend and should be the easiest thing we do each day. (Joyce Meyer)

Prayer - a Matter of Faith

Do you believe in prayer? I'd guess that most of you who stop by my blog here do. You've probably had plenty of times when your prayers were answered. Sometimes just as you hoped while other times you may have had to wait for an answer or accept an answer different from the one you sought.

On Facebook, we see plenty of requests for prayer when our friends or someone in their family has some sort of crisis - medical or emotional. You may wonder about whether our prayers in those cases really make a difference. But the Bible says prayers matter. That they not only matter to us, they matter to God. The Bible tells us He wants to hear from his people. 

Pray Always

In my book that releases this summer, The Innocent, prayer is one of the recurring faith themes. My character's mother has continually admonished her to pray in all situations as Corrie ten Boom suggests in the following quote. 

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. (Corrie ten Boom)

Prayers Answered

In the last couple of weeks, I've seen prayers answered on Facebook and down here on the farm. On Facebook prayers were requested for two youngsters involved in accidents. One a near drowning. The other a child finding and swallowing prescriptioin medication. Both children were in dire conditions with worries they might not come out of the experience. Both children, on last report on-line, were playing and back to their normal selves. I didn't know either of these families or children, but along with other concerned friends of friends, I prayed. Prayers answered.

Pinpoint Prayers

I've been dipping into a book titled The Power of Praying Boldly by Will Davis, Jr. In one section, he advises not making general prayers asking to be blessed in a vague way, but to send up pinpoint petitions asking for just what you need or want. A good way to pray that helped my husband a week or so ago.

He had a problem here on the farm with his cattle. Nothing earth-shaking, but a definite concern. He needed to get his bull up but the animal refused to go into the barn. This went on for weeks. Either the bull would not go in the corral or if he did, he would calmly find a way to push out. My husband was frustrated to the point of arranging to tranquilize the bull. But then after pinpoint prayers from him and from me, the bull went in the barn. Problem solved. The Lord to be thanked.

Another prayer story from the last week is about my niece who is taking treatment for cancer. Things are often hard for her when she goes for the chemo. Last week, the technician wasn't able to get blood for a test before the chemo. It looked like Julie would have to go to a different part of the hospital, go through the process of registration again and have a perhaps more difficult procedure to get the necessary test results before her chemo. But she asked the technician to try one more time, that she had asked her friends, via Facebook, to pray. Friends had prayed. The hospital worker said she had prayed too and was willing to give it another try. Julie says the blood flowed easily. Prayers answered. 

Several years ago, I was in a low place with my writing. Nothing had sold. I wondered if I should quit. But I wrote one more book and prayed for the story. Prayed for myself as a writer. That book, Scent of Lilacs, found a publisher and gave me new hope and purpose as a writer. Prayers answered.

But if we have doubts about some of what we consider impossible prayers being answered, we are not alone. Think about the story where Peter's friends and family were have a prayer meeting for him because he was locked up in jail. And yet, when the Lord led Peter out of the prison and Peter went to his house where the people were praying, it took a while for his friends to believe the servant girl who told them Peter was at the door.

Powerful Prayers

Indeed, prayers are powerful. May we always be ready for the joy of the answers to those prayers.

Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. (Mother Teresa)

Have you had a time when a prayer was answered in an amazing or perhaps an everyday sort of way?

We Have a Winner of the Roses are Red Contest

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I have so much fun
With my giveaways too.

I used a Random Number generator online to pick the winner of my Roses are Red Giveaway. I wish I could send you all a prize because you make my contests such fun, but alas, I'm not Bill Gates. I do appreciate you throwing your names in my drawing hat when I do have a giveaway. And I'll be having another one here on my blog in a week or so. Plus, come June I'll have a giveaway to celebrate my new book, The Innocent, releasing July 1. I'll have to come up with something neat for that. Maybe some Shaker prize since I go back to my Shaker village of Harmony Hill for this story. If only brooms weren't so big, I could give one of them for a prize. The winner could make a "clean sweep." But I'd best think smaller packages to mail. 

Oh, I guess you want to know who won. :) Pam W. is my 1st place winner. She won the necklace and one of my books. Then just because, I decided to pick a 2nd place winner. That's Cheryl H. She gets her pick of one of my books. I've sent the two winners e-mails. If I don't hear back from them by Sunday, I'll pick new winners.

Both Pam and Cheryl joined in my poetry fun with their entries. You didn't have to send a poem to enter but many of you did. So glad you had fun with the poems. 


Here's Pam's poem.
Roses are Red. 
Violets are Blue. 
My grandchildren love to read 
And I do Too! 

Isn't it great having grandchildren who love books? I'm so glad my own grandchildren love stories and books. 


Cheryl's poetry entry:
Roses are red. 
Violets are blue. 

It’d be so cool

to win a book by YOU!

And so she did. 

Thanks again to all of you who entered. A special thanks to those of you who joined in the poetry fun too. It was so sweet of some of you to make liking my books part of your poem. 

Did you ever write those Roses are Red kind of verses in those little autograph books when you were a kid? I did. The one I usually wrote in other people's books was "Yours till Ivory soap sinks." That tickled me for some reason.

Need a Few Influencers for a New Shaker Book

"The people who influence you are the people who believe in you." 
    ~Henry Drummond





I am blessed by the influence of so many people who have believed in me through the years. My mother, first and foremost, always believed I could do whatever I set out to do. That's not to say she might not have been a little surprised when I had the dream to be a writer and actually publish books. 

Sometimes when I think about that, I'm a little surprised! Not that I wanted to write, but that I do have books published that people like you actually read. That is a blessing I don't take for granted. I'm grateful for every reader. I'm thankful every time any of you tell one of your reading friends about my books. I appreciate every time you read my this-and-that blog posts and when you leave comments here or play my guessing games. (I'm still smiling about finally getting a mystery photo that stumped you last time. I'm also trying to come up with something new that might be fun.) 


Many of you who read my blog are also faithful readers of my books and have followed me from Hollyhill to Harmony Hill to Rosey Corner and to 1855 Louisville. I love how you've been willing to read my different types of stories. 

This summer, I'm going back to my Harmony Hill Shaker village for a new book, The Innocent. That's why I posted this with a Shaker house picture. I really didn't think I'd write another Shaker book, but then these characters came to mind and it seemed like the thing to do. I guess I'll see if it really was come July when I find out if readers are ready to go back to Harmony Hill too. The book is already available for pre-order on Amazon. 

So now I'm looking for ten or twelve readers who might like to be what is called "influencers" in the publishing business. These people get a hot off the press copy of the book and in return perhaps talk about the book to their reading friends and suggest it to their book clubs or libraries. They might post reviews on internet sites or their own blogs if they have blogs or talk it up on other social media sites if the story is one the reader liked. Word of mouth really is the best advertisement a writer can get. These are just suggested things. There is no obligation to do anything if you don't want to other than receive the book and promise to give it a read. 

If any of you would like to give this influencing bit a try, just let me know. If I get more people who would like to be on my influencer list than the list can accomodate, I'll draw out twelve names. You can leave your e-mail information here in a comment or e-mail me directly at annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com. 

And thanks so much. I am blessed to have you as reading friends.