SECRET PLACES REVEALED - Paulette Harper - One Free Book

Welcome, Paulette. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

I do use my personal experiences in life to write from. When I’m writing a nonfiction book, I reflect on my own life’s journey and how it can relate to the subject matter and when I wrote my inspirational novel, I incorporated some of my personality in to one of the characters.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

The quirkiest thing I’ve ever done was walked into work with two different color shoes on. Funny how getting dress with not a lot of light makes black and blue look identical.

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I was in my early forties when the Lord first spoke to my heart about writing. That was a few years ago and six books later.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

I enjoy reading Christian fiction, inspirational fiction, nonfiction, and contemporary fiction.

How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

Pray, pray, pray. LOL. That’s a loaded question. But truthfully it’s with prayer and being organized. There are times when I feel overwhelmed by the pull to do everything else but it’s in those moments that I take a step back and tell myself to relax because God is in control.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

Secret Places Revealed is my first full novel. So with his particular book, I wanted to use a man’s name that was strong Aaron, and the female character Simone, I wanted her name to show her true gentle spirit.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

I believe the accomplishment that I am most proud of is the fact that I’ve enrolled in school to obtain a BA in Business Management.

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?

If I were an animal, I believe I would be a horse. Horses are resilient, beautiful, and can run in the wild.

What is your favorite food?

My favorite food would be seafood. That would include crab, shrimp, and lobster.

What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

My greatest roadblock was keeping focused and not allowing distractions to pull me way from writing.

Tell us about the featured book.

My featured book Secret Places Revealed is an inspirational romance novel. The hero and heroine have come out of relationships that have hurt them tremendously and are not looking for love. But are trying to put pieces of their lives back together. But fate and divine providence have other plans for them.

The blurb:

A broken man, a woman on the run, a love that won’t be denied.

Single—and very content—real estate developer Aaron Blackman is determined not to become involved in another relationship. He’s experienced enough drama to last a lifetime. The only thing garnering his attention now is his growing business. And he plans to keep it that way. Then Simone Herron waltzes into his life, beautiful and confident. Fighting to keep his promise to himself—to remain single—he soon discovers that when it comes to love, some promises must be broken.

After losing her fiancé in an untimely death, Simone Herron relocates. She desperately needs to put the past behind her and start a new chapter in her life. While love is the farthest thing from her mind, she experiences an attraction to the handsome Aaron Blackman that frightens her. She's built a wall around her heart, but can she find the strength and courage she needs to welcome love again? To do so, she must conquer her fears and allow God to put all of her broken pieces back together.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Simone Herron wanted to escape from the pain, and from life. At this time of the year, she always felt utterly lonely. It was like being in the middle of the ocean surrounded by only the waves. This was year number two without Joshua. Simone had family and friends, but it wasn’t the same.

As if she weren’t already miserable, the holiday season had arrived, with all of its cheery fanfare. She wished she could skip over November and December and head straight into January.

Pensive, Simone stared out her Fifth Avenue office window in the center of Manhattan, New York—the city that never slept. She could imagine that below her hordes of people bustled to and fro, arms laden with shopping bags, and tourists gawked at the beautiful and spectacular views from The Empire State Building to Times Square. Who wouldn’t love it? But her heart was no longer enraptured by its beauty; the Big Apple wasn’t the same anymore.

Simone turned away from the window. Even the busyness of the city and all it had to offer could no longer mask her restlessness. Something was missing. Could a move be the answer? A new locale would distract her and keep her mind off her personal life.

Sitting in the leather chair at her desk, she mindlessly shuffled the papers. When had her life fallen into this monotonous rut? For the past couple of years, she’d spent her Thanksgivings serving dinner at Shepherd’s Gate, a women’s shelter. Christmas was spent singing carols with her church at Faith Bible Center. She enjoyed those things, but she wanted more.

Maybe her boredom stemmed from the fact she’d buried her fiancé a few months before their marriage. But that was two years ago. She should have been enjoying life, but Joshua was gone and she was alive and still trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other.

People told her time would heal her wounds and it would get easier day by day. And they were right—some days. People also told her never to question God, but those who knew her were aware that that was like asking an artist not to paint. There were days on which she felt she’d moved on, but others when the feelings in her heart and her dreams of him were as real as the love they’d once shared.

She couldn’t understand why God had taken the only man she’d ever truly loved. Joshua had been her soulmate, her friend, the love of her life, her future children’s father. The more she got to know him, the more she realized that meeting him had been something divine. He’d felt the same way.

There was an undeniable connection between them the first time their eyes met on their college campus in Manhattan. She wondered what their children might have looked like. Would they have had his dark eyes and curly black hair, or maybe brown eyes like hers?

The idea of not having a family hurt her to the core. Her parents were married for decades before her father suddenly died from a heart attack. They cherished one another and that’s what she wanted for herself. For now, her dream of falling in love and having a family was tucked away somewhere in the back of her mind, preserved in the faint hope of a second chance.

Simone wasn’t sure she believed there was such a thing as getting back to a normal life. She accepted what life had dealt her and was allowing her circumstances to bring her to a place of surrender. She learned to accept that when life brought pain, God would give her the strength to go through it.

Simone became teary-eyed as questions swirled around in her head. Why, with all of her great accomplishments—she was a paralegal for a prestigious law firm, Armstrong and Armstrong; she worked with some of the most gifted and intelligent lawyers in the city—did she

How can readers find you on the Internet?

Readers can connect with me on the following social media networks.

Website www.pauletteharper.com

Blog: http://pauletteharper.blogspot.com/

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pauletteharper

Amazon: http://amzn.com/e/B004FEJKCQ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5824102.Paulette_Harper

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauletteharper1/?hl=en

Buy links for the book:
Paperback - https://amzn.com/0989969150 
Ebook - http://a.co/7DiBAAd

Thank you, Paulette, for sharing this new book with us. I'm sure my readers will be as interested in reading it as I am.

Comment conversation starter questions: Have you ever had a secret that affected all of your life? Have you had a revelation from someone else that shocked and affected you?

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