TRACES OF VIRTUE - Robin Patchen - One Free Book

Welcome back, Robin. What are some of the spiritual themes you like to write about? I find myself writing often about a person’s identity in Christ. I think it’s easy for us as believers to forget who we are—completely forgiven, completely accepted, completely loved by our Creator. I love to write stories about people who are grappling with self-worth, to show them coming to terms with their own value.

What other books of yours are coming out soon? My latest book, Traces of Virtue, released October 19. My next will come out this winter.

If you could spend an evening with one contemporary person (not a family member of yours), who would it be and why? What a fun question! My son is a missionary with Youth with a Mission, the largest missionary organization in the world. I would love to meet the founder of YWAM, Loren Cunningham. He’s been to every single nation in the world. I can’t imagine the stories he has to tell.

We’ve had a very close friend who served on the very first YWAM mercy ship. What historical person would you like to meet (besides Jesus) and why? I think my answer to this question would probably change daily. Today, I think it would be really amazing to meet Benjamin Franklin. He was such a unique individual, flawed and brilliant. Again, I think he would have some great stories to tell. (Maybe I’m just in the mood for great stories today!)

How can you encourage authors who have been receiving only rejections from publishers? This writing thing is much harder than it looks. Keep writing. Most writers never get their first books published—I know I didn’t! I have multiple unpublished manuscripts in the proverbial drawer. But good writers keep writing, and their writing improves, and their storytelling abilities get better, and eventually they write something that makes editors—and readers—take notice. Don’t give up. Maybe you’ll get book number four or five or six published, and then you’ll be able to get the earlier books into the hands of readers after that.

Tell us about the featured book. Traces of Virtue is book four in my Coventry Saga. It mostly takes place in Boston, but the characters spend some time in Coventry, New Hampshire, and they even manage a trip to Nutfield (the setting of an earlier series of books.) Here’s the blurb:

When doing what's right goes terribly wrong... 

From her deathbed, Carly Garcia's mother asked Carly to look after her stepfather and stepsisters. Carly is trying to keep that promise, but now she has a new life to protect, this one innocent and vulnerable. She visits her ex to tell him a truth he doesn't deserve to know... and witnesses his murder. Now, Carly's on the run from killers whose faces she never saw. 

Braden Reilly is building a career in Coventry, New Hampshire, happy to put the drama of his crime-ridden Boston neighborhood behind him. When a woman he's spent years trying to forget shows up on his doorstep, his first instinct is to turn her away. But the wounds on her arms and the fear in her eyes have him offering sanctuary. The story she tells makes his blood curdle. 

Join Carly and Braden as they seek to discover who's behind a murder nobody believes occurred before the killers catch up to Carly and her unborn child. 

Please give us the first page of the book.

Carly Garcia’s choices had dwindled to two—a lifetime of hell or an eternity there.

When she was a little girl, back when home meant the scent of tamales and the sound of lullabies sung in lilting Spanish, back when she was the only daughter of the most generous, most beautiful woman on the block, Carly had thought the world a magical place. She’d believed in laughter and beauty and angels. She’d believed in goodness. She’d believed in God.

She still believed in God. Everything else was gone.

She shoved the offensive plastic stick with its two blue lines back into the packaging, then wrapped the whole thing in toilet paper and shoved it deep in the trash can. Nobody would discover it there. It wasn’t as if it would occur to her stepsisters to take out the trash. And her stepfather’s contribution to the household included the paycheck that barely covered the bills—and little else. He was skilled at home improvement. At least he could do that—fix a running toilet, repair a gouged wall, paint. He’d even tried to teach her some of his skills, but she wasn’t dumb enough to take those lessons. Whatever she learned to do would become her job, and the last thing she needed was to take on more responsibility around the house.

How can readers find you on the Internet? Readers who subscribe to my newsletter will receive a free full-length, award-winning book, Finding Amanda, at https://robinpatchen.com/subscribe/.

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Thank you, Robin, for sharing this story with my blog readers and me. I’m eager to read it.

Readers, here’s a link to the book.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Traces+of+Virtue+Robin+Patchen&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

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