Interview with author Jean Pike!!

Today we welcome author Jean Pike to The Diamond Mine to promote her new book, Super-Heroes!

Hi Jean!!

Tell us a little about your book, please.

Thank you for having me today, Nancy. I'd love to!

It all started with a prayer...

After a lifetime of of being controlled by her parents, and most recently by her ex-fiancée, Abby Callahan has had enough. She moves out of her parents' home and into a rented motel room a few towns away, where she takes night classes at the community college, finally free to pursue her dream of becoming a music therapist.

From now on, she will live her life her way, answering to no one except God. She is done letting her parents make her decisions. And she is done with men. Until she meets Rory St. George.

Growing up on the wrong side of town,  Rory has worked hard to claw his way out of poverty. He has a good job as assistant manager at the local feed store, a good church, and a few close friends. He thinks that's all a man can ask for in life. Until he meets Abby.

Their fragile relationship is tested from the start with missteps and misunderstandings, but their genuine attraction to each other and their faith in God hold them together. Until disaster strikes. Can their newfound love survive being tried by fire? And can the power of love turn ordinary people into superheroes? 

This sounds wonderful, Jean! How did you get your idea for this story?

Reading the daily news can be both depressing and uplifting. The ideas for many of my stories stem from things I've read about that have either filled me with wonder or filled me with sadness.

The world is full of stories of ordinary people performing superhero acts--- A volunteer firefighter who risks his life to rescue a family from a burning house. A man, fishing on the bank of a river, dives into deep waters to save a drowning child. Heroism is also found in a hundred small, everyday sacrifices made in the name of love.

A new romance can be so much fun!  Picnics and hikes and bouquets of flowers' just because! But when things get hard and life turns messy, few have what it takes to keep the flame burning. To stay in it for the long haul, even when it costs something precious. The truth is, one never knows if they have what it takes to be a superhero until they have no other choice.

Superheroes is a story about everyday heroes who love in the most extraordinary ways.

Wow! How could I not be interested in a story like that?

Do you have any underlying themes that you want your readers to come away with?

The underlying theme in Superheroes is that God is sovereign over His creation. God is still God, even in hard times. 

There is a verse in Job that I've always loved: But He knows the way that I take: when He hath tried me. I shall come forth as gold. (Job 23:10 KJV)

Bad things happen in life, but God can use them to refine our faith and make us more like Him. This story seeks to showcase His great love for us, and hopefully, point the way  to the greatest Superhero of all time, our Lord Jesus.

Well said, and I found your words very touching. I'm sure your story is, too.

I'm curious-- Do your characters ever surprise you?

Oh, all the time! I'll usually do a rough character sketch before I start any in-depth writing, a few sentences about who each of the characters are and what they want from life. Many times the characters turn out to be something quite different from what I first imagined. I like to think that's a combination of God's direction and my crazy, overactive imagination, lol.

In Superheroes, Olly was originally going to be Rory's youngest brother, heading down a wrong path that Rory would have to try and correct. But something as small as a typo changed my mind. Instead of writing the word coffee, I accidentally wrote coccee. Which is exactly how my special needs nephew, Michael, pronounces the word. I have always wanted to include a special needs character in one of my stories, but I struggled with how to do so with grace and dignity. As I started to look more closely at Olly's character, he and Michael began to merge together, and I knew the time had come to honor this lovely, complex young man. Hence my dedication: For Michael, a superhero indeed.

Tell us how you incorporated Olly with Michael.

First, as I said, Olly's character is based on my nephew. Michael is a young man with special needs who loves pink shirts, orange shirts and coloring books. It may not always seem as though he is paying attention, but he is! He notices the birds that come to his mother's feeders, and all the pretty colors of the flowers in their garden.

He notices who is in church each week, and who is not. On Sundays, after lunch, he makes a card for each person on the prayer list, using construction paper and pictures colored and cut from his coloring books. His favorites are the superheroes, whom he makes up his own names for, names that make sense to him.

Michael has a stubborn streak as wide as the Ohio river, but oh, he has a heart filled with love and compassion that often astounds me.  He uses what he's been given to lift others up. I gave those same traits to Olly. 

 

Michael sounds like quite a work of art, as well as being an artist himself.

Do you have a favorite character in any of your other books?

I enjoy creating all of my characters, but some stand out for me because their parts are just so much fun to write! But with all of the time and effort spent developing my main characters, it is often the secondary characters that seem to grab my readers' hearts. In The Little Things, it was a grumpy senior bulldog named Gus. In King of Hearts, it was forgetful, lovable Aunt Clara.  As the reviews for Superheroes began to come in, it was clear that in this story, it was Olly that readers loved the most.

I can see why!

So, what are you working on now?

I was four chapters in to a new Redford's Crossing Romance when a coworker made a statement that brought all work on that story to a screeching halt. We were talking about relationships, and how, as a widow, she feels she is "done." 

And then she said, "But my mother thought she was done, too. She just sat in her porch rocker day after day, waiting to die. And then a man pulled in the driveway and asked if he could pick from her blackberry bushes. They've been together forty years."

Wait, what?

An opening sentence immediately popped into my mind: Norah Sutton was sitting in her porch rocker, waiting to die, when the red pickup truck pulled into the driveway...

And Blackberry Summer began to take shape. :)

Sometimes, that's all it takes for inspiration to hit: a typo, a passing comment, and the whole direction of your story  takes a different path.

Thank you so much for this interview, Jean. I have completely enjoyed hearing your answers.

And readers, here are some links for Jean, and her books:

https://www.amazon.com/Superheroes-M-Jean-Pike-ebook/dp/BOCYPSLQ5D/

https://pelicanbookgroup.com/ec/index.php?main page=product info&cPath=3746&products id=1711

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/superheroes-m-jean-pike/1147169381?ean=9781522305064

https://books.apple.com/us/book/superheroes/id6744548266

Jean's blog:

https:// jeanpike.wordpress.com/

Interview and Giveaway with Amy Anguish!!!

Today we welcome Amy Anguish to The Diamond Mine!! She is offering a free copy of her book in a giveaway drawing. In order to be in the drawing, please leave a comment and include your email, and you'll be entered! And here we go to Amy's book:

It’s not every day you bring a boyfriend 

back as a souvenir.

 

Katie Wilhite is ready to settle into her new job as a librarian now that college is through, but friends Bree and Skye want one more girls’ trip, and when Bree insists this is her bachelorette fling, Katie agrees. What she didn’t agree to was allowing fun and flighty Skye to dictate the itinerary or for her anxiety to kick in harder than ever ... right in front of a cute guy.

 

Camden Malone had no idea when he agreed to be the voice of reason on his cousin Ryan’s vacation that the trip wouldn’t stay in New Orleans as planned. But when Ryan plots with Skye so that the guys can tag along with the girls all week, he isn’t nearly as upset as he should be. Not with Katie’s fiery temper and flashing eyes intriguing him more by the minute.

 

Can Katie relax enough to trust Camden and a possible future, or will she continue to push him away as only a vacation fling? And can Camden move past a rocky history of his own to be able to jump into a better future? For a trip that was supposed to be all about fun, there’s a lot of romance going around.

Wow!! Sounds like a fun story!!
Can you tell us a little more about your book?

 

Destination:Romance is a “roadtrip romance,” which means the majority of the story happens on vacation. Three college friends set out for one last girls’ trip after graduation. The very first night, they meet two boys who decide to tag along. Chaos and romance ensue.

This is the first book in my first-ever series, and will have two more to join it in the next year.

 

Great!! 

How did you get your idea for this story?

 

A long time ago, when I was in college, I went on a trip with two other friends. It was Spring break and we headed to my friend’s home in Florida. On the interstate, we kept passing another car that had cute boys in it. Nothing happened on that trip, but the idea was planted—what if they met and started to get to know each other? Would it be enough for a romance to form?

 

I'm glad you decided to write it. What made you decide to be a writer?

 

I’ve always loved story. I started dabbling with writing down some of my own early on, but nothing serious. Then, in eighth grade, my English teacher was also a published author. And it hit me, “this is a real possibility.” Before then, authors seemed so unreachable and above normal people like me. In college, I majored in English so I could have the skills needed to try and do something with the stories in my head.

 

And now, here you are! A published author! What was your first story?

 

I obviously don’t remember the first story I ever wrote, since it was in elementary school. The first story I remember writing was called “Mi Vida Loca,” though I can’t remember what it was about—just that I drew a girl exploring a cave on the front. My first story to be published was An Unexpected Legacy. It’s about a guy and girl who start to fall in love, but then realize her mom and his dad dated each other in college.

 

What an interesting premise! Do you write from an outline, or just from inspiration, or both?

 

When I first started writing, I never used an outline. Since my life has gotten busier and since I’ve learned a ton since then, I use a rough outline now. Mostly just little phrases to let me know I wanted to write a scene about xyz somewhere close to this point in the story. Every now and then, I jot down a piece of dialog or something I’m afraid I’ll forget before I get to that point in the story—because I make myself write a story in order for the most part.

 

Do you have any underlying themes that you want your readers to come away with?

 

In all my stories, I want people to see that even when someone is a Christian, they can still have struggles. But with God, it can all work out well. A lot of my stories also focus on “home” and what that means in all its various ways.

 

Do your characters share any traits with you or someone you know?

 

Probably. But not by intent. I pull from real life because it’s what I know, but for the most part, I don’t set out to make a character exactly like anyone in my life.

I will say, some of my characters have pieces of my own history in theirs. Faith in Faith & Hope struggles with infertility and has a lot of the thoughts and feelings I did when I went through that. And Adrian in No Place Like Home is a preacher’s daughter and dealing with a lot of the baggage that comes from her history—a lot of which was directly from mine.

 

I do the same with my characters! Do your characters ever surprise you?

 

ALL THE TIME. I’ll be writing along and comment, “Well, I didn’t expect him to do that.” My husband gives me this funny look and I explain my character just made a decision I didn’t expect. He doesn’t understand. But when you create these characters and give them their own personalities, sometimes those personalities take over.

 

That is so true!! Do you have a favorite character in your books?

 

So far, all my books are stand-alones and have different characters in every single one. And I love pieces of all of them.

 

What are you working on now?

 

I am finishing up a novella to release next February, planning a story I want to write in July during Camp Nanowrimo, and need to tackle my content edits for the second roadtrip romance which comes out in December. It’s a lot, but I seriously feel like I’m living the dream right now.

That's wonderful! I've really enjoyed getting to know you. Thanks so much for the interview, Amy!! 

Now, readers, here's a bit more about Amy, along with her links. And remember to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing to win a free copy of Amy's book!

Amy R Anguish grew up a preacher's kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a bossy cat or two. Amy has an English degree from Freed-Hardeman University that she intends to use to glorify God, and she wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

 

Follow her at http://abitofanguish.weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/amyanguishauthor

 Or https://twitter.com/amy_r_anguish

 

Learn more about her books at:

320 My Books ideas in 2022 | watermelon quilt, julie klassen, tracie peterson

Welcome to the Remodeled Diamond Mine!

Welcome to the Newly Remodeled
 Diamond Mine of Christian Fiction

The Diamond Mine of Christian Fiction crew has new members...and a new schedule! I'd like to introduce you to the entire crew, but first, we must say farewell to Misty Wilson. Her sense of humor and fun interviews will be missed. Rebekah Millet leaves as well...but not until July. They may move on to different caverns, but these wonderful ladies will always be Rough Diamond Writers.

Please welcome Joi Copeland, Gail Kittleson, Tracey Lyons, and Peg Phifer. Each of these writers offer their own unique writing talents to the Mine. They join us...old...(shh, stop laughing!) Miners, Renee Blare, Nancy Bolton, Rebekah Millet, Peggy Trotter, and Suzie Waltner.

The Blog Schedule:

I'm sure everyone is wondering about the blog schedule. That's the best part!
Beginning in February, we'll be increasing the blog schedule to bi-weekly posting (Wednesdays and Saturdays). This will continue until the end of July. Take advantage of these extra posts while they last! After July, we will return to normal weekly posting.


Genres:

Did you notice the new genre we've included on the Diamond Mine? Amish! We interview the gamut of Christian Fiction authors. From Amish to Science Fiction and Dystopian, we welcome all writers to our blog as long as they strive to spread the Word of God. Don't hesitate to check out our calendar and see we have a spot for you! If so, shoot us an email.


Thank you for your support and enthusiasm through the years. Hold on to your hats, folks, 2016 looks to be an exciting one!

In Christ,

The Rough Diamond Writers

Nancy Shew Bolton Debuts with her First Novel!!!

I am so stinking excited! Nancy Bolton is one of the first of our group to see her words in print! Somebody scrape me off the ceiling, 'cause I can't hardly contain myself. I'm so honored to be the one to interview her! We here at the Diamond Mine are all so incredibly proud of Nancy, and delighted to be part of her journey to publish. We knew this story when it was yet a tiny babe.  And now it's blossomed into a full-blown novel. All right, enough gushing for one day. On to the fun.

Nancy, we're all so excited for you! How does it feel to actually get your work in print?

Words fail me. Pretty sad for a writer, isn’t it? I think I could express it better if I were a bird and could fly around singing, or if I were the horn section of an orchestra! As it is, I’ll say I’m amazed and thrilled. Very much so.

So let's delve into how this all began. What started you on this writing path, and how did you reach this point in your writing career?

Ever since I learned to write, I’d jot down thoughts, poems and lines of inspired sentences on various subjects that struck my interest. As a teen and an adult, I branched out into song lyrics, poetry and essays in college. Then around 2007, during a very hot, humid stretch of summer, I was emailing with a friend about the beauty and silence of a winter night in the country, and how welcome those temperatures and conditions would be right about then. I realized that for a brief time, it had felt as though I were really there. Though at the time, I was writing a non-fiction project, somehow, that short, intense experience gave me the incentive to attempt a fiction novel. And here I am!

Was there anyone who influenced you or inspired you?

As far as influence, my father kept urging me to write the story of how my husband and I moved out onto undeveloped land with five small boys. Kind of a modern-day pioneer story, as we had no electricity or running water out there. This was my first book, and I put it aside when I started with fiction. However, I’m now editing the final version of it and hope to see it published. As far as inspiration, I’d have to say the encouragement of family, and a life-long voracious habit of reading works by numerous incredible authors. Also, life inspires me, with all its challenges, struggles and delights.

How does your faith play a part in your novels and is there an underlying message?

For me, my faith is my heart, the foundation of my life and thoughts, so in my writing, I explore this internal relationship in the lives of my characters, and try to show how faith determines actions and reactions. I am endlessly fascinated by how a relationship with God transforms a person.

Where did the idea of this book start?

Well, my husband and I worked in a family-run doughnut shop for a few years, and I remember how the workload really took over our lives. When you’re that busy, your life mainly consists of work and sleep. That reality formed the catalyst for the dilemma of my main character, Ann. And it grew from there!

What can we expect next from Nancy Shew Bolton?

I have a novella set in the later dust-bowl years, which will come out next spring with Prism. I also have two other fiction novels I’m working on, as well as two others I’ve completed and submitted. Now I’m waiting to see if they are picked up for publication! I also have two creative non-fiction novels, and I’m knocking around with a children’s book, as well. I love writing, even when it drives me nuts! One of my prayers is that my husband will collaborate with me on one of these projects. He has a wonderful, quirky sense of humor that I think would fit really well in a children’s book. So maybe one of these days, you’ll see a book written by John and Nancy Bolton! It makes me smile to think of it!

Nancy, it makes us all smile to see this story come to fruition! All of us couldn't be more pleased than the proverbial punch. (Tropical, please, with fresh pineapple juice!)

And here is the cover reveal, and a little 'taste' of Nancy's confection, The Right Ingredients! 
Catch it on Sept. 24th!

Missing the right ingredients for a life of joy, a young baker learns lessons in the true recipe for love. 

   Ann’s hectic work responsibilities demand all her time and effort, and what was once a useful, satisfactory life has become a burden. Her bakery partner Susan has lost none of her enthusiasm for their business, and Ann can’t understand her exuberance, or her friend’s Christian faith. So she trudges along, hiding her dissatisfaction from Susan, resigned to a life of work, sleep and problems.

   Unexpected comments offered by two different people cause a crack in Ann’s armor and her thoughts careen into unexpected directions. Attention from a young widower with a son challenges Ann’s resolve to stay safe and uninvolved. Susan’s example of faith through trial furthers Ann’s curiosity about God. Ann must choose to step toward the unfamiliar freedom of giving and receiving love, or stay in the shadows, stuck in the grip of past hurt and long-standing barriers.

Leave a comment for Nancy and you are entered to win a copy of her debut novel, The Right Ingredients!

You can find Nancy's debut novel on: Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks, and Prism Book Group.