KATIE'S QUEST - Lee Carver - One Free Book

Dear readers, Lee is a special friend of mine. I love her stories, both contemporary and historical. Her attention to details of setting make it real to me. And her characters leap off the page and grab my heart. 

Welcome back, Lee. Why did you become an author?

I didn’t see those first steps as “becoming an author.” I wonder if I would have taken them if I had. But after writing as a volunteer and then part of a group of women who put together some fictional stories, my husband and I had the life-changing experience of being volunteer missionaries for six and a half years in Brazil. Many people asked us to write about how that all happened and what we did in the Amazon. Two years after retirement I began to put words on the page. I wanted to show what missionaries and mission service are like. Very good, dedicated (but not perfect) people with a strong calling from God are the modern heroes of the faith, and I dared to try to illustrate their lives in fiction.

If you weren’t an author, what would be your dream job?

I loved teaching high school biology and chemistry, but had serious issues with my vocal cords, probably due to throat surgery when I was ten. My dream job was to be a medical doctor.

If you could have lived at another time in history, what would it be and why?

That’s a hard question, because every era is fraught with special pleasures and difficulties. I used to dream of living in the future, but the world seems bent on a path to become more dangerous and, in my opinion, less godly. I think I’ll just take the era in which God placed me.

Me, too. What place in the United States have you not visited that you would like to?

My husband and I plan to drive through the American northeast this fall, and relish the fantastic colors of creation. I’ve been to those states, but not in that season. We visited Big Bend National Park in the spring, and Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah last fall in conjunction with a trip to the new headquarters of Mission Aviation Fellowship in Idaho. We’ve lived in seven of the states and at least traveled through most of them, including Alaska and Hawaii.

How about a foreign country you hope to visit?

I’ve visited about 49 foreign countries, but I never saw Italy’s Amalfi coast. Maybe someday. At this time, we’re enjoying the US of A.

What lesson has the Lord taught you recently?

We are blessed with remarkably good health and strength while many of our friends are contracting incapacitating or fatal diseases. The Lord is teaching us how to be helpful, comforting, and giving of our time and affection. We’re learning what to say, what not to say, and respect for the privacy of others. A very wise old man once told me, “ALWAYS tell the truth—but don’t be always tellin’ it!

Tell us about the featured book.

Katie’s Quest is the first of a series of three novels with romantic threads set in the Brazilian Amazon featuring missionaries. Here’s the blurb:

Katie Dennis committed to serve as a nurse in the Amazon even after her fiancé died on a training flight. She wouldn’t have lasted through the first mission trip if not for Matt, a pilot born and reared in the jungle. But she’d never fall for a pilot again.

Matt Gibbs, missionary pilot, finally settled on a good choice for a wife, someone known to his family all their lives. Why, then, did the new blonde nurse make him feel like doing barrel rolls in the Amazon sky?

Romance and unforeseen danger flow in the Brazilian Amazon as Katie searches for a fulfilling and meaningful life—one that quickly becomes more exciting than her wildest imagination!

Please give us the first page of the book.

Katie Dennis stepped from the seaplane onto its float with her knees still shaking. Her first flight ever in a light aircraft shook her from her dizzy head to her clenched toes. With the constant motion now stilled she no longer felt ill, and she tried to push away the lingering effects of panic at all the sudden drops and bounces in the air. Her new job as a missionary nurse in the Brazilian Amazon would require many flights like this, bouncing over the dense jungle.

She knew good people died doing this. Knew it too well. This morning’s flight might have been a shortcut to eternity.

“Come up onto the wharf, Katie.” In the deep-water inlet, the pilot, Matt, stood on the rough-hewn planks a foot above her with his hand outstretched. “Quick. The wind’s blowing the plane back.” He’d tied it to a strong post, with some play in the line.

She held her breath, willed her legs to be firm, and locked her eyes on his. Their clear blue beamed assurance at the same moment they caused a new tremor down her middle. In the two weeks since joining Outreach for Christ, she’d decided no missionary should be this handsome.

The distance between them seemed too far a leap, but he looked into her eyes with absolute confidence. If he didn’t think anything was amiss, she had to trust him. He was the one with experience at getting in and out of a float plane. Placing her hand in his, she extended one foot toward the flimsy planks. As she attempted the wide step up, her foot pushed the plane back.

She tried to reach it with her toes. Teetering over the dark water, she stretched uncomfortably. Almost in slow motion, her foot slid on the slick aluminum surface of the float behind her. Her breath caught. In an effort to save herself from plunging into the murky waters of the Rio Negro, she tightened her grip on Matt’s hand and pulled.

His eyes widened in surprise. Instead of tugging her back, he wobbled, flailed his free arm, and plunged forward.

She released his hand and hit the water spread out like a butterfly in flight. The weight of his body crashed onto her back, pushing her deep. Her last-instant half breath wasn’t enough. Unable to see anything and unaware which way was up, she fought the urge to inhale by clamping her hand hard over her nose and mouth.

She kicked, landing blows against Matt, and his shoes struck her shins. Her feet sunk into the gooey mud bottom as his strong arm encircled her waist. Instinctively she pushed back. No. Matt was trying to save her. She forced herself to quit struggling and trust him.

He gave a mighty push off the bottom, and their heads broke the surface at the same time. Katie gasped air, her eyes still shut against the river water streaming down her face.

Beside her, she heard him sucking air. “Can you swim?” His voice came from behind her, right at her ear.

Hanging in his arm, she had no space to dog-paddle. She swiped at water dripping from her hair and cleared her vision. “Yes, but not usually with my shoes on.”

Love it! How can readers find you on the Internet?

www.LeeCarverWriter.com
http://LeeCarverWriter.blogspot.com
www.amazoncurrents.homestead.com
https://www.facebook.com/lee.carver.507

Thank you, Lee, for sharing this book with us. I love the way you take a reader to places we’ve only dreamed about and making it so real to us.

Readers, here are links to the book. 
Katie's Quest (Call to the Jungle) (Volume 1) - Paperback
Katie's Quest (Call to the Jungle Book 1) - Kindle

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