A TEXAS CHRISTMAS MYSTERY - Anne Greene - One Free Ebook

Bio: ANNE GREENE delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won numerous writing awards. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement will soon release. A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. In 2014 her World War II novel, Angel With Steel Wings, about WASPs, women test pilots will release. She makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Tim LaHaye led her to the Lord when she was twenty-one and Chuck Swindoll is her Pastor. In 1990, Anne graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Literary Studies from the University of Texas.

View Anne’s other books, her blog, Addicted to Excellence, extensive travel pictures, and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Anne is active in ACFW, FHL, Sisters in Crime, The Writer’s View, and the Southwest Chapter of ACFW. Anne loves to speak to book clubs, libraries, and conferences. Her  love of sailing, horseback riding, history, and art, as well as her Citizens Plano Policy Academy training, and military life sometime figure in her books. She maintains a web site, two blogs, and judges the Rita, Golden Heart, and Book of the Year, but she’s never too busy to talk with her fans.

Her highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus.

Why do you write the kind of books you do?

I write inspirational fiction because I want my readers to find meaning in what they read. I want readers to finish my books with a happy sigh and say “I didn’t know that. What a great book.” I really want to touch readers’ hearts and pray that the Holy Spirit will lead them into new discoveries—into a deeper spiritual life. I also love to plunge my readers into a different, exciting world where they meet characters they love and cannot forget.

Besides when you came to know the Lord, what is the happiest day in your life?

Finding the Lord when I was twenty-one was by far the happiest day of my life and nothing comes close to comparing with it. Being a mother, the birth of my daughter and son were the second and third happiest days of my life. Perhaps the next happiest day occurred during a tornado. My dear husband and father of my children had died several years before, and that day I married my second husband.

How has being published changed your life?

I don’t think my life has changed at all. I’m elated, of course, to see my work in print because one of my highest goals is having others read my books. But I have the same friends, attend the same activities, and love the same people. Sometimes speaking in front of groups takes me out of my comfort zone for a while, and other times I’d prefer to be enjoying outdoors rather than sitting in front of my computer, but I’m still the same me.  

What are you reading right now?

I’m about to start a book by one of the other writers in the new book series I’m contracted with B & H Publishing Group. I like to see how her writing complements mine and mine hers. I’m also reading a dozen research volumes for my same book. I usually read for research and seldom have time to read for pleasure, though sometime pleasure and research do coincide. There are seven authors in our World War II series – Anne Greene, Cara Putman, Sarah Sundin, Tricia Goyer, Eric Wilson, Eva Marie Everson, LeAnn Harris, and Jeanne Dickson.

What is your current work in progress?

I’m doing edits for my new Scottish Historical, MARRIAGE BY ARRANGEMNT which will soon release. And I am three-quarters finished with the first draft of my World War II book about WASPs—women test pilots, with the working title ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS. 

What would be your dream vacation?

 I’ve been blessed with travel. My dear husband just retired as a Special Forces Colonel from the Army, and we have visited twenty-seven foreign countries. Plus, we both love travel. I just returned from three weeks in Israel where I was baptized in the Jordan near where Jesus is said to have been baptized. You can find pictures on my website, AnneGreeneAuthor.com. It’s hard to beat that vacation. But I truly enjoy each place I visit at home or abroad.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

Great question! Some I’ve chosen from my travels. I fell in love with Scotland and several of my other books are set in other foreign countries. I never write about a place I haven’t spent enough time in to pick up the ambiance and peculiarities. I’m such a visual person, often the different settings resulted in a book. Several of my books are set in my hometown McKinney, Texas. My current book, Angel With Steel Wings, resulted from visiting the Confederate Air Force Museum in Harlingen, Texas. My dear husband was in the air show there and first jumped from American planes and then turned around and jumped from German planes. In the museum I saw pictures of WASPs who’d flown during World War II, and I became totally intrigued with those brave women. The story percolated for a number of years because no publisher was interested in World War II until recently.  

If you could spend an evening with one person who is currently alive, who would it be and why?

Years ago I was privileged to sit in an auditorium where Corrie Ten Boon spoke, and I was overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit emanating from her. Then a few years later, I was a counselor at the Billy Graham Crusades and in that huge arena experienced the same anointing coming from Billy Graham. Being near the anointing presence of the Holy Spirit was such an enlightening experience for me that I’d love to meet another person so totally anointed by God.

What are your hobbies, besides writing and reading?

I love to travel. My husband and I go whenever we have the time and the money. I love being with my family. I sing in a wonderful one hundred fifty voice choir. I do a little oil painting. And I would love to learn how to play the harp or the violin. I enjoy spending time with friends. And I share my husband’s passion for movies. We also take a lot of photographs.

What is your most difficult writing obstacle, and how do you overcome it?

 I love writing the first draft and finding out what my characters are going to do. I love rewriting and working with words. I love signing contracts. But I find keeping up with social-media a bit of a problem. Just as I learn one new venue, a new one arises. I’m just not very techno-savvy, and feel pulled in too many directions. The publicity now expected of writers takes me out of my comfort zone. I’ve started a teaching ministry and think I will enjoy it, but until I’m up in front of the audience I find it difficult getting over the pre-speaking jitters.

What advice would you give to a beginning author?

Be certain God has called you to write. Unless you’re one of the handfull of big name writers, you can make more money doing almost anything else for the amount of time you put in. You face a lot of rejection before you gain acceptance. It takes time to learn the craft. But God’s calling is sure, and if He called you, He will do it. In His time.

Tell us about the featured book.

A lady Coastguardsman searches for a killer. An oil rig troubleshooter accused of murder races to clear his name. The murderer strives to silence them both.

Amber Meredith needs to solve her first case. But the handsome Cajun suspect makes her heart race and her toes tingle.

As Amber seeks to arrest Derrick, sparks fly.

Derrick Darbonne worked all his life for his high-paying, adventurous job. When his past threatens his future, will he endanger the woman he loves?

Please give us the first page of the book.  

Galveston, Texas

                                                                       

Only one thing scared Derrick Darbonne. He had no fear of fire, hurricane, sabotage, high seas, drunken roughnecks, reckless roustabouts, brawls, or hard work. But losing the job he’d slaved all his life to obtain terrified him.

He’d worked himself up from oaks draped with Spanish moss, murky alligator-filled water, and a tiny cabin on the banks of the bayou with no running water or electricity. He’d finally gotten to where he wanted to be. And now someone was trying to pin a murder on him. Some Christmas present.

Derrick crushed the schematics he’d been scanning and jammed them into his pocket. He braced his legs wide on the steel floor of the oil rig and raised the binoculars. A Coast Guard cutter slashed a white wedge through the sparkling Gulf waters straight toward his oil platform.

His jaw tightened, his spine stiffened, and he swallowed.

Standing beside him, Joe Bridges, the Man in Charge, swore.

If Derrick had been a swearing man, he would have joined Joe. Instead, he gripped the Navigational Binoculars tighter. “Third time this week. If I had anything to hide, I’d jump ship.” He smacked his hard hat so thoroughly his ears rang. “Thought so! That guardsman is a female.” Here was a Coastie bearing down on him with the authority to shut down the operation. The men would be out of work just in time for Christmas. What pretense to investigate the murder was the Coast Guard using this time?

Derrick lowered the binoculars and frowned. “She looks familiar.”

“Ever since you arrived for the routine inspection, Cajun, the Coast Guard’s been on our backs.” Scowling, Joe thrust out a hand for the glasses. “Then there was the murder. That’s the reason the big boss’s keeping you out here again, so long.”

“Don’t I know it! And now I’m looking for a saboteur as well. Probably the same guy.” Derrick slapped the binoculars into Joe’s hand and tried to lighten his foreboding with a jabbing tease. “Now I’ve got to get the Coast Guard environmental crew out of your hair.”

“Rib me, will ya?” Joe repositioned his yellow hard hat over his bald head and shook a stubby finger. “I’ll bet you I can get that Coastie to go for me and my shiny head before she goes for you and that Cajun accent of yours. Loser pays a hundred bucks.”

“You want us to distract her with our masculine charm so she won’t sniff out any violations that could shut us down?” Derrick surveyed the rig’s two-hundred-foot deck looking for any OSHA or EPA trouble the Coast Guard might cite them for. Sunlight slanted off the metal plates causing enough glare to hurt his eyes. He didn’t like Joe’s plan.

“You got it.” Joe grinned.

Derrick gave a tight smile. His gaze slid to the roughneck inside the glass-enclosed room, jiggling the joy sticks and pushing the buttons that worked the rig’s floor. The big man hooking a new drill in place beneath the five-hundred-foot drilling tower wore his safety equipment. No problem there.

Derrick’s gaze flicked over the new hire, the eighteen year old from Galveston. The kid’s long blond hair straggled from beneath his yellow hard hat. He was bent over washing sludge and mineral oil through sand to clean out the last drop of hydrocarbon before reusing the sand. Kid was a hard worker, already adept at his job. No laws broken. No environmental procedures shortcut.

The rest of the crew, roughnecks and roustabouts, worked steadily. None violated safety measures. No oil spills or pipe breaks had occurred. The hole drilled through the sea bottom was clean and not yet exceptionally deep. They should hit oil soon. Joe Bridges had a salty vocabulary, but the boss man ran a tight rig. So why suddenly all the anonymous phone calls about regulation problems? Had to be the murder.

Derrick had to come up with answers.

“Alamo Oil pays you a hefty salary to make sure things run smooth on all two hundred of its rigs.” Joe’s voice sounded more than a little jealous.

“Don’t I know it.” Derrick ran a hand over the stubble already growing after his close morning shave.

“Alamo doesn’t want to fork out any stiff fines or lose any drill time because of environmental pollution, safety violations, mismanagement, or accidents. So make sure she’s distracted.” Joe winked. “And don’t mention the murder. We’ve trampled that ground too many times with the Coast Guard already.”

“Right.” An uneasy feeling nagged Derrick about the murder. Nothing he could put a handle to, but—too many clues led directly to him. Once the Coast Guard put the puzzle together, they’d come looking for him. He grunted. How had his personal helmet wound up grasped in the dead kid’s hand? Fortunately, he’d stumbled over the body before anyone else, and since the evidence had been planted, he’d had no qualms about removing the hard hat before he called the Coast Guard.

Joe swore loud enough that the crew cleaning sand looked up. He lowered his voice. “That Coastie’s gonna cause trouble. I feel it in my bones.” His eyes, shadowed under his hard hat, looked wary. “We gotta keep her thinking about us, not her job.” He handed the binoculars back.

Derrick frowned. “I think you’re just hard up for a date. You want a girl friend to share Christmas with.”

“Whatever!”

As the Coast Guard cutter pulled alongside their offshore rig, Derrick focused on the trim figure in her blue uniform. He’d not seen many women in the Guard, and none that looked so curvy…wow, hotter than a Louisiana mudbug boil. Dread inside his gut heightened. Sweat beaded his forehead. He got tongue-tied around women. “Can’t be good!”

“Yeah. The broad’s probably a—”

“It’s Amber Meredith!” Derrick fumbled the expensive binoculars, made a grab for them, and caught them just before they hit the deck.        

How can readers find you on the Internet?

http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com. You can purchase my books at Amazon and http://www.PelicanBookGroup.com.

Thank you, Anne, for sharing this interesting story with us.


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A Texas Christmas Mystery (Christmas Holiday Extravaganza) - Kindle


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