Friday, June 01, 2007

Counting Down Good Beach Reads-

Finally, I have my list of Good Beach Reads for Christian Fiction's Summer Reading Fest. The first book on this list is:
The Elevator
THREE WOMEN . . . ONE MAN . . . A GATHERING STORM
In the path of a devastating hurricane, three very different women find themselves trapped in the elevator of a high-rise office building. All three conceal shattering secrets unaware that their secrets center on the same man.

The betrayed wife, eager to confront her faithless husband, with rage in her heart and a gun in her pocket . . .

The determined mistress, finally ready to tell her lover she wants marriage and a family . . .

The fugitive cleaning woman, tormented by the darkest secret of all . . .

As the storm rages ever closer, these three must unite to fight for their lives in the greatest test of courage and faith any woman could ever face.

Now does that sound like a good read or what?


It is JUNE 1st, time for
the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day
of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book's FIRST
chapter!




This month's feature is:


Rebeca
Seitz


and her book:


PRINTS
CHARMING


(Thomas Nelson Publishers, March 15, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebeca Seitz is Founder and
President of Glass Road Public Relations. An author for several years, Rebeca cut her publicity teeth as the first dedicated publicist for the fiction division of
Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 2005, Rebeca resigned from WestBow and opened the doors of GRPR, the only publicity firm of its kind in the country dedicated solely to representing novelists writing from a Christian worldview. Rebeca has worked with such esteemed authors as:Robin Jones Gunn, Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti, Walter Wangerin, Jr., DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble, Melody Carlson, and numerous others. She has secured coverage for novelists in a variety of media outlets, including The Today Show,USA Today,Chicago Sun-Times, AtlantaJournal-Constitution, Publishers Weekly, Christian
Retailing
, Aspiring Retail, Southern Living,Daystar Television, HarvestTV, WAY-FM, K-LOVE, and others. Rebeca makes her home in Kentucky with herhusband, Charles, and their son, Anderson.



AND NOW...THE FIRST
CHAPTER:



Chapter One

"Girl, where are you?" Lydia tightened her grip on the cell phone as she
wondered anew how any woman could be late to every single thing in her life.
She had thought Jane might’ve changed in the two years they’d been apart, but
Jane was evidently still living up to her old high school nickname of Late
Jane. The woman would get to her own funeral about an hour after they started
the music.

"I’m coming, I’m coming." Jane kept one hand on the steering wheel while
frantically sifting through the things in the passenger seat of her Blazer.
There was a brush somewhere, she just knew it, but finding anything at seven in
the morning was difficult at best. Why in the world she’d allowed herself to be
talked into attending a sale that started at seven a.m. was beyond her ability
to fathom. Finding her shoes had been a reason for cheering. A brush might just
be asking too much.

"Do I need to grab anything for you? This stuff is going fast." Lydia watched a
woman stretch for the last package of Times-style foam alphabet letters and
readjusted her own heavy shopping basket. In the five minutes she’d been in the
store, it had already begun biting into the skin on her arm.

"Nope, I don’t think so. I’ll be there in about two minutes," Jane said, still
searching for the brush while trying not to drop the cell phone from her
shoulder.

"Okay, but hurry. I’ll be over in the baby girl section. I need to find
something for Olivia’s first bath pages and get ribbon for Mac."

"Got it. Baby girl. Be there in a flash."

***

Jane snapped the phone together and slammed to a stop at the red light. Turning
her attention to her still searching hand, she finally grasped the elusive
hairbrush and quickly raked it through her long black hair. She had been
looking forward to this sale all week but, of course, Mr. Wonderful had chosen
to make his appearance a mere thirty minutes before she walked out the door.
They had fought over Wilson. Again. When would the man get it through his head
that Wilson was in her life forever?

She pushed thoughts of her soon-to-be ex-husband out of her mind as the green
arrow finally appeared. Squealing her tires, she tore into the parking lot of
The Savvy Scrapper. Tossing the hairbrush back into the passenger seat, she
threw the car into Park, grabbed her purse, and flung open the door.

"Ouch!"

Jane looked up just as her door collided with the midsection of one very tall
man.

"Ohmigosh. I am so, so sorry. I’m just in a rush. The sale is happening and I’m
late and—"

"It’s okay."
Mr. Tall held his hands up as if to ward off any other car doors she might be
hiding somewhere and she noticed the coffee cup in one hand and bagel bag in
the other. Bagels would be so heavenly right now.

"I’m fine, really." He set the bag down on the ground and brushed the dust off
of his olive-green sweater, then looked at her. "I know how women can be when
there’s a sale involved." He grinned as he knelt to pick the bag back up.

She tried hard to ignore his sexist statement and not remind him of how many
guys camp out at golf stores before a sale or sleep in the parking lot to get
tickets to a concert.

"Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I have insurance and we can call somebody."
Jane forcefully tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to focus on
the problem at hand rather than the sale happening about ten yards away or the
way her stomach was now grumbling for coffee and a bagel.

"Really, go ahead. I’m fine."

"Okay, thanks." She turned and made her way around the back of the car.
"Really, I appreciate this. It’s just that this only happens once a year and my
friend is waiting . . ." She stopped on the far side of the car and looked at
him. He could sue if he was really hurt and her luck with men right now meant
he would definitely sue and she would surely lose. "You’re absolutely fine?"

"Go." He made a shooing motion with the bag. "Happy shopping."

Her mother always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth and this was one
time Jane would be obeying Elizabeth rather than giving in to her own desire to
argue. She practically sprinted to the front door of The Savvy Scrapper, yanked
it open, and burst inside.

***

"Jane!" Lydia was in the front corner of the store, surrounded by pink, yellow,
blue, lilac, and pale green. She waved a die-cut of a bathtub and bubbles above
her head. "I found the perfect stuff for Olivia and Oliver’s First Bath page."

"Great." Jane joined her, looking a bit frazzled but otherwise okay.

"Okay, here’s the deal." Lydia turned toward the back of the store and pointed.
"All the Times letters are gone, the vellum is quickly going, and the dog
section is getting riffled through as we speak. Where do you want to start?"

"Dog section, definitely." Jane stuffed her keys into her purse. "I took great
pictures of the ex this morning picking up Wilson’s poop while stepping in
another pile."

"You are so gross. What was he doing there?"

"Trying to get me to give him Wilson again." Jane scanned the rest of the
store, making a quick plan to get the most stuff. "He’ll get the picture one
day, just not today. He’s insane if he thinks I’m letting my puppy come live
with him while he’s spending all hours online with his e-mistress."

"Okay, that still sounds so weird." Lydia’s eyebrows rose as she gave Jane a
disbelieving look. "E-mistress? Really? That’s what we’re calling her?"

"E-mistress is the only thing I could think of that’s fit for public
consumption." Jane grimaced. "Anyway, forget her and him. I’m here to shop,
honey."

"Right. Go on over to the dog section. I’ll come over there when I’m finished
here. Can you grab me that new paper with the red stripes and dark-brown bones?
I’ve got some pictures of Otis with Olivia and Oliver from last week."

"Dale let that pug get near his precious twins? I thought you said the only
thing he cared more about than SportsCenter was those babies."

"Dale hasn’t seen the pictures yet. He never comes in my scrapbook studio. Says
it’s my workspace and that I spend too much money on all this junk as it is."
Lydia waved her hand to encompass the store. "He’s probably right."

"Oh, please. Men are never right," Jane said and turned toward the dog section.
"Dogs, on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful companions who never cheat
and can’t even turn a computer on."

Lydia laughed and turned back to the wall of baby-themed paper in front of her,
leaving Jane to take care of the dog paper. Stripes or flowers? She didn’t want
to make the scrapbook too babyish, but she also didn’t want it to look too
grownup. The papers were all on sale, so maybe she would just get both. Dale
would never know since he didn’t come into her studio anyway, and she could
give some of it to Mac for Kesa’s baby book. She took two sheets of the
pink-and-lime-green-striped paper, then two of the blue rosebud ones.

"Men are never right," she muttered under her breath. Maybe Jane had a good
point.



Prints CharmingRebeca SeitzCopyright © 2006 by Rebeca
Seitz.

Labels

"hold out" (1) 1question (4) 1questionMay (2) 1questionspring (3) 1questionsummer (2) 1questionwinter (7) 2011 (2) 30 Days to Build a Better Blog (5) 30 Days to Build a Better Book Blog (17) 9/11 (2) a good man blog watch (2) aaliyah (2) about me (1) Academy award (2) acfw-vip (2) Africa (1) african america (3) african american christian fiction (19) african american history (8) altartainment (1) amazon (9) american heart (1) american idol (1) amish (4) amy grant (1) Amy wallace (1) andrew carroll (1) angela bassett (1) Arts (2) atlanta (3) atlanta journal (1) atlanta tornado (1) audition (1) authentic creation (1) author (1) author interview (12) author read-in (3) authors (6) authors read in (2) authors read-in (1) awards (11) barbie (1) Basketball (1) bath luxe (2) bational wear red day (1) bbaw (1) bea (2) best of (8) bestsellers (2) bethany house (4) bible (3) bible study (3) bill gates (1) billie jean (1) birthday (3) black authors (2) black authors network (1) black christian novel (1) black christmas plays (4) black hawk down (1) black history (1) black in america (2) black men in america (1) black spiritualism (4) blacklitchat (2) blog alliances (1) blog talk radio (22) blog tour (14) blogalicious (2) blogcatalog (1) bloggers unite (9) blogging (7) bloglight (1) blogtalkradio (6) blythe (1) book (3) book arts (1) book awards (12) book blogging (5) book chat (3) book club (6) book cover (4) book deals (1) book events (9) book fun (2) book marketing (51) book pick (1) book pr (1) book preview (9) book promotion (7) book proposal (2) book release party (2) book review (52) book review submission form (5) book signing (4) book tour (4) book trailer (21) bookbyte (3) bookclub (2) books (3) brook promotion (1) bubble bath (1) bynum (1) c.s. lewis (1) camy tang (2) career (1) carl weber (1) carleen brice (1) casting call (9) cba (2) cfba (4) children books (7) chip macgregor (2) choir (1) chris well (2) christian (2) christian comedy (1) christian detective novel (1) christian ethics (7) christian fiction (13) christian fiction blog alliance (2) christian fiction news (28) christian fiction online magazine (26) christian living (2) christian movie (1) christian novel (4) christian publisher (2) christian retailing (2) christian romance (4) christian summer book (9) christian writer's carnival (1) christian writer's guide (1) Christianity (4) christmas (14) christmas story (14) Christy Award (4) christy awards (3) chronicles of narnia (2) chuck holton (1) chuck palahniuk (1) church news (1) cindy (1) cindy woodsmall (9) civil rights (1) claudia burney (10) clown girl (1) cnn (2) coco brother (2) contest (20) contests (6) controversy (1) convention (3) copyright (1) craft (1) creston mapes (1) cupcakes (2) cyndy salzmann (1) darfur (2) dargur (1) david c. cook (4) David Talbert (1) deanne gist (2) deborah raney (1) decaturbookfestival (1) dee and marina (4) dee stewart (19) dee stewart hezekiah walker (1) dee stewart linda beed (1) deegospelpr (11) dekker (5) denzel washington (1) denzel washington. (1) Derek Fisher (1) designer shoes (1) devotions (1) DiAnn Mills (1) digital publishing (2) disney (2) domestic violence (1) don hoesel (1) doodle (1) dwan abrams (2) e-reader (4) e. lynn harris (1) Earth day (2) eartha kitt (1) easter (4) ecpa (1) editing (2) ella curry (2) England (1) eric wilson (1) essence magazine (3) ethics (3) excerpts (9) facebook (3) faith and fiction retreat (11) Faith anf fiction retreat (1) faith*in*fiction (3) fashion show (1) father's day (1) fictin in rather short takes (1) Fiction (1) fiction in rather short takes (33) flag of our fathers (1) followthereader (1) fox faith (1) frank peretti (1) friday afternoon club myster (1) friday afternoon club mystery (1) friday fest (8) fuge recipes (1) genesis awards (1) George Jackson (1) giveaway (8) Golden State Warriors (1) good reads (4) gospel dream (1) gospel fiction (3) gospel music (19) gospel play (13) Grace (1) guestblog (9) haiti (1) haley kilpatrick (1) hank stewart (1) harper collins (1) Harriet Beecher Stowe (1) harry potter (2) Hawaiian Islands (1) heart disease (2) help wanted (1) historical (9) hope for women (1) horror (3) house of faith (1) human trafficking (1) I Dream of Jeannie (1) ibook (2) imprints (1) inciting incident (1) infuze magazine (1) inspirational monday (2) inspys (1) interviews (12) iThink (1) itw (3) jeanee damoff (2) jeff gerke (1) jena 6 (3) jill elizabeth nelson (1) job announcement (1) juanita bynum (3) juanita bynumemkm (1) juneteenth (4) karen kingsbury (3) kathy herman (1) kim brooks (1) kim cash tate (1) kimani press (1) kimberla lawson roby (2) Kindle (1) kristy dykes (2) laura bush (1) lent (11) leny (1) librarything book reviews (2) lifetime tv (1) lifeway (2) linda hargrove (2) links (1) lisa samson (3) literacy (1) literary agent (3) Literature (2) love (1) M M (1) madea girl talk (1) marcher lord press (1) marilynne robinson (1) marilynnn griffith (5) marina woods (2) marines (2) marketing (5) marketing christian fiction blog (1) marriage (1) mary demuth (1) mary hart (1) media candy (10) medical fiction (2) melody carlson (2) meme (1) Memorial day (3) michael jackson (1) mike duran (1) ministry (3) miranda parker (26) mochareaders (1) mombloggers (2) mommyfest (5) monday mention (3) monika drake (1) morgan freeman (1) mothers (3) motivationmonday (6) movie (14) mtv awards (1) myspace (1) nanowrimo (7) Nat Turner (1) National Basketball Association (1) national book month (1) NBA (1) networking (1) New York Times (1) Newsletters (1) nicole seitz (5) non-fiction (2) novel (2) novel writing (10) ny times bestseller (1) obama (14) off-topic Thursday (3) offf-topic Thursday (2) olympia vernon (1) online bookstore (5) oprah (2) ott (2) Pacific War (1) pam perry (1) parenting (2) party (1) pat simmons (1) pay it forward (2) Pearl Harbor (1) people magazine (1) Philippines (1) play (2) plug and play (1) po bronson (1) politics of the mass media (1) poll (1) prayer cell (4) prayer request (3) preorder pick (2) prince caspian (1) princess dominique (1) publishing (14) race and religion (3) radio (1) radio talk show (4) rawsistaz (4) reading series (4) rebeca seitz (1) reflections (1) relief journal (1) Relief Journal christian writing (3) Religion and Spirituality (3) renovating becky miller (1) reshonda tate billingsley (5) retreat (1) rhonda bowen (5) rhonda mcknight (9) richmond (1) romance (6) romantic times (2) romantic times magazine (8) rt convention (2) saint patrick's day (1) sally e.stuart (1) saturday christian carnival (3) Science fiction (3) secret life of bees (2) selah (3) self-publish (2) shana burton (8) sharon ewell foster (6) sharon hink (3) shawneda marks (1) shelfari (1) sher (1) sherri lewis (12) shine in 09 (5) shoes (1) Shopping (1) short story (2) Sidney Sheldon (1) single women (1) sistahfaith (1) skype (2) Slave ship (1) social media (7) social network (2) social network problogger (7) social networking (2) social networkingh (1) sormag (1) South Carolina (1) specfiction (3) speedlink (8) spiritual autobiography (3) Sports (1) spotlight (2) stacy hawkins adams (6) star wars (1) steeple hill (1) storytellers (3) stranger than fiction (1) sudan (1) summer (8) sunrise (1) survey (2) sxsw (1) t.l. hines angela hunt (1) tavis smiley (2) tavis smley (2) teen (4) the first lady (3) the master's artis (2) the master's artist (56) the masters artist (6) the shack (2) the spirit of your story (1) the stones cry out (1) the trouble with publishing (2) theology (2) thomas nelson (7) thriller thursday (7) tia mccollors (1) tiffany warren (7) titletrakk (1) to (1) tolkien (1) top ten (25) tosca lee (1) tours (1) trailer park tuesday (61) trailer park tuesdaycngdkvb (1) travis Hunter (1) tribute (12) tricia goyer (4) tuesday (2) tv (1) twitter (22) ty moody (3) tyler perry (55) tyler pery (1) tyler play (1) United States (3) urban christian book (5) Utah Jazz (1) utterz (10) valentine (2) vanessa davis griggs (1) vanessa miller (2) veteran's day (2) video (2) wachooreading (2) walmart (1) wanza leftwich (1) warren buffet (1) WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group (1) weakend read (2) wedding (1) wednesday wrap (11) weekend chat (29) weekend chatter (17) weekend read (11) westbow (1) what i'm reading (3) what's done in the dark (1) why fiction matters (9) widcard (1) wiki (1) wild card (12) wildcard (32) Wings of Glory (1) womanist thought (1) women (1) women of faith (2) women's ministry (1) workshops (4) world aids day (1) World War II (1) write-or-die chick (3) writer's call (3) writer's conference (8) writer's prompt (2) writing (4) writing conference (8) writing contest (8) writing journey (2) writing life (38) writing opportunities (2) writing project (5) writing tip (3) writing workshop (2) x-files (1) yolanda king (1) young adult (5) youtube (4) zondervan (5)