Award-Winning Author, Barbara M. Britton: Bringing Bible Characters to Life

Barbara M. Britton is not your average author. Battling breast cancer at the same time her publishing career was launched is a story of grit, grace, and tenacity. When it comes to war, Barbara knows how to fight. 

Her latest book, Defending David, explores the unlikely friendship between one of ancient history's favorite kings and an obscure Gitite named Ittai. How does a Philistine giant end up joining King David in his later years and support him in battle? Who is this Ittai? Who has heard of him or remembers reading about him?

I had the privilege of spending some time with Barbara chatting about books, King David, and the  trials of this world that fight to silence us. This interview has some fascinating twists and turns. I'm fairly certain that this is the first time that King David and Bob Dylan have been mentioned in the same interview! 

I know you'll enjoy our chat. If you do, please let us know in the comments! What giants have you been fighting lately? Have any become your friends? Weigh in!

Barbara's Website: http://www.barbarambritton.com/books....

Barbara's Website: http://www.barbarambritton.com/books....

Karla's Website: https://karlaakins.com/

Karla's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karlakakins/

Karla's Outschool - I can homeschool your kids! https://bit.ly/kakinsos

Karla Akins is an author, educator, and disabilities advocate. She is the author of A Pair of Miracles, the inspiring memoir of how God miraculously works through the lives of her adopted twin sons with autism. Karla has a Bachelor's Degree in Special Education, a Master's of Education in Learning and Technology, and a Master of Arts in English Language Learning. She teaches children with varying levels of ability all over the world.

Interview with Romance Author, Susan Tuttle

Susan L. Tuttle, Author

ACFW Carol Award finalist, Susan L. Tuttle was born and raised in the Mitten State (Michigan) where she met and married her best friend. A homeschooling mom of three, somewhere along the way she blinked and those three littles aren’t so little anymore. Now she balances their young adult years with directing the women’s ministry at her church, writing, and caring for her parents. She fully believes that God is the biggest romancer in the world and that He loves each one of us lavishly even in all our imperfections—a belief tried and tested by her own misses at perfection. Never having met a cookie she didn’t like, most days you’ll find her enjoying one for a treat between chauffeuring her kiddos around, attempting housework, contemplating exercise, or coaxing her current characters to talk.
 

Connect with Susan at susanltuttle.com or at susanltuttleauthor@gmail.com. 

Join Susan on social media!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susanltuttle5/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Susan_Tuttle5

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18358723.Susan_L_Tuttle

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/susan-l-tuttle

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/susanltuttle/

Karla Akins, M. Ed., is an award-winning author and curriculum designer specializing in stories and resources for families with special needs.

When she's not writing or studying, you might find her riding her motorcycle or teaching online classes. She makes her home in Florida where she lives with her husband and adult twin sons with autism.  

Writing and Life with Sara Beth Williams + a Pre-Order Giveaway

 Welcome back to the Diamond Mine!! We are so grateful for our visitors and hope you have discovered some new authors through us. 

Let's give a warm welcome for our guest this week. Sara Beth Williams is here!

About the Author

Sara Beth Williams is a wife, mother of two daughters, and temporary caretaker of a lovable old lady pit and a spunky Pomeranian-Shih Tzu mix. She lives in Northern California. When she's not held hostage by the keyboard, she enjoys music, teaching, reading and spending time with her family. She is all about connecting with readers! Find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and Bookbub.

Receive a FREE short story when you sign up for her newsletter.

Connect with Sara Beth at: Amazon / Goodreads / Bookbub / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Website / MeWe 

Suzie: Welcome Sarah Beth, and thank you for taking time out of your busy pre-release schedule to sit with us today. Let's ease right into things with a couple of Would You Rather questions.

Would you rather lose your sense of taste or your sense of smell?

Sara Beth: I like my sense of taste :D 

Suzie: I'm right there with you. Besides, there are a few things I'd rather not smell. Would you rather vacation in the mountains or at the beach?

Sara Beth: I love the beach. I don’t go enough. I visit the mountains more often. 

Suzie: What do you when you aren’t writing?

Sara Beth: I love to play guitar, hang out with my family or visit with friends. 

Suzie: How fun that you play guitar, and friends and family are necessary for our sanity. Name three books on your current tbr.

Sara Beth: I am currently looking forward to The Art of Rivers by Janet W. Ferguson, Always you by Jennifer Rodewald, and On a Summer Tide by Suzanne Woods Fisher. All of them sound AMAZING. 

Suzie: Oh, some good choices there. And your next book is coming out next week for the rest of us to add to our TBR lists. How did you connect with your publisher?

Sara Beth: I participated in #faithpitch on Twitter several years ago, (2017?) and from there, an editor contacted me, requested my first manuscript, and fell in love with it. I’m forever grateful! 

Suzie: I've followed #faithpitch for a couple years. There have been a few success stories coming out of it. It's exciting how many avenues there are for authors now. 

Anchor My Heart, your third full-length book, is set to release March 16. What have you learned about writing and/or the publishing industry from your first book to your third?

I sincerely hope I have greatly improved my writing mechanics. I’ve learned quite a bit about how to tighten everything in a story. I’ve also learned about the editing process, and how editing is not simply looking through incorrect words or phrases, but it begins with looking at the story as a whole, then continues to narrow its focus. It’s a fascinating process really. 

Suzie: Writing is a continuous learning curve, isn't it? So many elements come together to create that reader experience. 

Last but certainly never least, how can we pray for you?

Sara Beth: Thanks so much for asking! 

I am going to be losing my main income in a few weeks as the school I work at goes into hybrid learning. I cannot continue to work on campus because my youngest daughter who is in kinder will be remaining in distance learning through the rest of this year. So it’s a bit nerve-wracking but my husband and I are as prepared as we can be. I currently work as a freelance publicist and am hoping to expand more into freelance marketing and publicity, so if you know anyone interested in hiring someone, please visit my website for more information which is listed in my bio. I would greatly appreciate prayers for financial stability and God’s guidance and direction. 

Suzie: We will certainly keep you in our prayers. Thank you so much for sharing with us this week. I am looking forward to reading Anchor My Heart. 

Readers, keep scrolling for more about the book as well as how you can enter Sara Beth's pre-order giveaway, and be sure to give her a warm welcome to the mine.

More About Anchor My Heart

In the aftermath of tragic loss, worship leader Matt Lawson is grappling debilitating anxiety. The blessings he’d taken for granted—a dream job, a woman he couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with, and his God-given musical talent—have crumbled at his feet, leaving him reeling in despair, unable to face the wreckage of the life he’d envisioned for himself.

 Tara Pierce is ready to put past hurts behind her as she prepares to graduate college and take a leap of faith in her career. When Matt’s grief causes him to isolate himself from everyone he knows, she refuses to stand idly by and do nothing. She has traversed similar terrain before. No one deserves to travel that road alone.

 Unexpected attraction flares as Tara reaches into the sea of Matt’s grief and helps ground him in reality. But Matt’s not ready to give himself away again. Can Tara risk her heart and their friendship and let God step in to heal where she can’t?

Amazon | Goodreads | Print | BookBub

Pre-Order Giveaway

Enter to win a grand prize pack full of books and bookish swag. THREE winners will be chosen in all. All chosen winners will be invited to join me on a Zoom coffee or tea date

Pre Order Anchor My Heart HERE: 

Click here to find out all the info you need to enter to Win

Dawn Crandall Returns to the Mine

Earlier this year, Dawn Crandall visited with one of my Diamond Mine co-bloggers. Now she's back (sort of) to share about her newest book in the Everstone Chronicles. Keep reading to learn how you can win a copy of The Cautious Maiden.

About Dawn Crandall:

Dawn Crandall is an ACFW Carol Award-nominated author of the award winning series The Everstone Chronicles, which consists of four books: The Hesitant Heiress, The Bound Heart, The Captive Imposter and The Cautious Maiden.

Apart from writing, Dawn is also a mom of two little ones and serves with her husband in a premarital mentorship program at their local church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

A graduate of Taylor University with a degree in Christian Education and a former bookseller at Barnes & Noble, Dawn Crandall didn’t begin writing until 2010 when her husband found out about her long-buried dream. It didn’t take her long to realize that writing books was what she was made to do.

Dawn is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, the secretary for the Indiana ACFW Chapter (Hoosier Ink), and an associate member of the Great Lakes ACFW Chapter. She is represented by Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary Agency.

Connect with Dawn

Website: http://dawncrandall.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DawnCrandallWritesFirst/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dawnwritesfirst

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dawnwritesfirst/

Are you wondering about that "sort of" comment earlier? Dawn and I set up this interview months ago. Before a summer field with change for Dawn. She gave birth to her second son, moved, and released a new book. On top of all of that, her computer crashed and she has very limited internet service so keeping up with email and all things online has been a bit of a challenge for her. 

But I've gotten to know Dawn a bit better over this summer via social media and her blog and figured I'd just share what she's shared over a few months in one consolidated place.

• After struggling with not having children, Dawn began to write The Hesitant Heiress (book one in The Everstone Chronicles). Two years and two books later, she signed a book contract and got pregnant within six months of each other.

• Skip ahead a couple years to 2016 and Dawn gave birth to a second baby boy and her fourth book was published.

• Dawn recently learned her new home is in an “unserviceable area” for public libraries. She lives so far on the line between counties and towns that no one claims her and she has to pay an annual fee in order to use the library.

• Each book in the Everstone Chronicles is written from the heroine's point-of-view. Dawn says she chooses this method of writing to allow the reader to fall in love with the hero right along with the heroine.

• Dawn's book outlines start basic with the place, what's going on, and why it's important to the characters. Once that is done with every chapter of the book, she adds layers to each chapter outline. Her outline for The Cautious Maiden was ten single spaced pages and took three months to write.

• Another fun fact about The Cautious Maiden: Dawn mostly wrote it on her phone.

• And she never had a favorite hero in her first three Everstone books but Vance Everstone in book four took that title.

• While Dawn started writing because she wasn't getting pregnant, she doesn't plan to stop now that her family has grown. In fact, she's got plans to write some stories about other characters readers have met in The Everstone Chronicles (these won't technically be a part of the series, though)

Want to win a copy of Dawn's newest release? Here's a little bit about the book.

The Cautious Maiden

Violet Hawthorne is beyond mortified when her brother Ezra turns their deceased parents' New England country inn into a brothel to accommodate the nearby lumberjacks;but when Violet's own reputation is compromised, the inn becomes the least of her worries. In an effort to salvage her good name, Violet is forced into an engagement with a taciturn acquaintance,Vance Everstone. As she prepares for a society wedding, Violet learns that her brother had staked her hand in marriage in a heated poker game with the unsavory Rowen Steele, and Ezra had lost. Now Rowen is determined to cash in on his IOU. With danger stalking her and a new fiance who hides both his emotion and his past, Violet must decide who to trust and who to leave behind.

Available to order here.

Enter to win a paperback copy of The Cautious Maiden by leaving a comment below. In order for the contest to be valid, we must have five entries (comments left by five different people).