✅ Long Time, No See, & Regrettably … Long Time, No Write!
✅ BUT … Winnie is FINALLY Here!
✅ Christian Fiction Reading Challenge!
✅ Upcoming Contest: Win a $50 Gift Card!
Read my prior blog including 1st excerpt from Winnie’s story HERE!
Yee-Haw! Back in the Saddle Again …
Or More Appropriately … Back on the Deck Again!
Praise the Lord and pass the chips — I’m back in the saddle again and getting ready to release my first novel in three years (hard to believe, I know, at least for me!) and my first book in two years following my memoir devotional, What’s the Story, Morning Glory: A Memoir Devotional with a “Novel” Approach to Practical Christianity. And let me just say right out the chute — it’s been a rough, rough ride! For my writing that is.
For my life? It’s been sheer heaven to move closer to our daughter, SIL, and two grands in Birmingham, Alabama, and on a lake, no less!! Needless to say, it’s been crazy busy with staging/selling our house at Lake of the Ozarks, moving to Alabama, and getting resettled again. But the best part has been spending time with my daughter, SIL, and two grands in what is for me, truly a dream house on a lake! We miss our family and friends back in Missouri like crazy, but we LOVE “Bama” and the people here — truly Southern hospitality at its best! And don’t even get me started on the crape myrtles, which bloom from late May to September! Alabama is SUCH a beautiful state!
One thing I did have to get used to, however, are the tremendous amount of bees, wasps, ants, and bugs that love Alabama too! I didn’t know why till ChatGPT told me that it never gets cold enough in Bama to kill off the last crop of bugs and insects like it does in Missouri, so there are far more here, especially since our yard is loaded with flowering plants, bushes, and trees.
But Keith and I are acclimating quickly and actually having fun with our Bug Assault guns which shoo flies and wasps away with salt. The bees don’t bother us at all since they stay around the flowers, and there are butterflies galore, something I seldom saw in Missouri. And the wildlife is WONDERFUL! We have our cove egret, Charlotte, who hunts for fish right off our boardwalk and a lazier guy we named Charlie, a blue heron who spends most of his time airing his wings.
Plus … now that I am back to writing again — THANK YOU, JESUS! — I love Alabama even more! And speaking of writing …
Whoo-Hoo! Winnie is FINALLY Here!
Okay, let me go on record right now to say that this is one of the hardest novels I’ve ever written, not only because I hit the wall for two years, but because I wasn’t crazy about the heroine in the beginning.
But once I started writing again, Winnie grew on me — like Charity had to grow on a lot of you — and by book’s end? I hope you will love her as much as I do.
And the hero? St. Beckett “Gorgeous” Campbell? He carried me through this book like he carries Winnie through their story, a true “saint” and gorgeous as well. So I KNOW you are going to love him and hopefully Winnie too.
Here’s the jacket blurb:
She’s a former orphan
desperate to protect her heart.
He’s a best friend
who protects her from the start.
Till prayer protects them both
from a true love torn apart.
Discarded like so much trash on the steps of an orphanage at age two, seventeen-year-old Winifred Dennehy thinks God has it out for her. Abandoned by abusive parents and born cross-eyed to boot, she spent the first four years of her life battling bullies and verbal abuse. Deliverance came in the form of one Beckett Campbell, the ten-year-old orphan who became her best friend and guardian angel for life, along with an orphanage volunteer by the name of Mrs. D. When Mrs. Charity Dennehy adopts Winnie into her family, has her crossed eyes fixed, and arranges for Beckett to be adopted by elderly neighbors down the street, Winnie figures her luck has changed. But instead of attributing it to God like Beckett does, she’s inclined to believe it’s her own grit, charm, and spontaneity that has paved the way.
From the moment twenty-four-year-old Beckett Campbell saw the tiny, cross-eyed orphan who reminded him of the sister he lost, he wanted to love and protect her forever. Best friends from the start despite over five years apart, Winnie’s naïve spontaneity for wild hairs and whims keeps Beck’s mature responsibility busy and happily so. Until the little girl he wanted to protect suddenly becomes the young woman he wants to love. When Winnie insists on protecting their friendship from the fear and risk of anything more, Beck has a decision to make. Friendship forever … or a life apart from the best friend he loves. Praying that Winnie will change her mind, Beck doesn’t hold out much hope for that day. But when an unexpected turn of events alters both of their lives, it puts “a whim and a prayer” on a collision course that just might make a way.
And guess what? You can order the e-book TODAY at a reduced pre-order price or wait to order the paperback on the release date of SEPTEMBER, 8, 2026.
PRE-ORDER E-BOOK HERE!
PAPERBACK ON SALE SEPTEMBER 1ST
And to get ready for Winnie’s story, you might want to start at the beginning of The Cousin O’Connor Series all over again if you’ve already read it, just to refresh. Especially since book one in that series — A Wing and a Prayer — is The Christian Fiction Reading Challenge book for September, where you can win a $50 gift cards. See details below.
The Christian Fiction Reading Challenge!
You are cordially invited to join me and eleven other bestselling and award-winning authors for a year of great reading and great discussions via Zoom.
Each month, we dive into a novel by many of your favorite Christian authors, and there will be plenty of variety! Romance. Heart-pounding suspense. A visit to 1970’s London. Even a princess in search of true love.
This month’s chat is with award-winning author Denise Hunter regarding her fabulous novel, More Than Friends, so if you’ve read it, be sure to sign up for the Zoom HERE, then come by for Denise’s Zoom chat TOMORROW, Tuesday, July 28 at 6PM CDT … or, if you haven’t read it, come on by anyway because Denise is one of my favorite authors!
NOTE: My month is September for a Zoom chat on A Wing and a Prayer, so I hope you’ll consider joining us for that one in particular (see sale info below and info on winning a $50 gift card!).
Some books have strong Christian content. Some are clean reads but written from a Christian worldview. No matter which of those describes the book of the month, we hope you’ll love it.
Again, to join, just go to the website at Christian Fiction Reading Challenge HERE. Read the information about when and where and how it all works, then drop your name and email address into the signup box. You’ll receive the important information each month via email (the book everyone is reading, the day and time of the Zoom chat). And if you can’t make the Zoom, don’t worry. The video will be uploaded so you can watch later.
We can’t wait to see you!
CONTEST: Win $50 Gift Card!
Guess what? September is my month for the THE CHRISTIAN FICTION READING CHALLENGE, so I hope you will join me for a Zoom chat on A WING AND A PRAYER on Tuesday, September 29, where you can ask me questions AND be eligible to win a $50 Amazon gift card.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
1.) Just sign up for THE CHRISTIAN FICTION READING CHALLENGE HERE.
2.) Read A WING AND A PRAYER (will be on e-sale for only 99 cents on Sept. 1) or maybe reread it if you already own it.
3.) Simply post a question in the chat during the Zoom on September 29 (details automatically will be sent to you after you sign up for the challenge).
4.) Then after the Zoom, just send me an email at CONTACT JULIE with your full name and the question you asked, and I will enter you in the drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card.
WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN MY NEXT JOURNAL JOT BLOG. HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!
Hugs and Happy Summer!
Julie
