HERB OF GRACE - Adina Senft - One Free Book

Welcome back, Adina. God has really been moving in your writing life. What do you see on the horizon?

He has certainly been bringing opportunities my way … and with those comes my gratitude that He also included time management skills in my former corporate life! Right now I’m finishing up the third book in the Healing Grace series, called Balm of Gilead. Immediately after I turn that in, I’m doing a romance novella for one of the Kindle Worlds (Lucy Kevin’s Four Weddings and a Fiasco world). And after that, I’m going back to the Victorian steampunk era for books 7 and 8 in my Magnificent Devices series written as Shelley Adina. That should take me into the early months of 2015 … where in February, book two of the Healing Grace series (Keys of Heaven) comes out. What a crazy schedule!

Tell us a little about your family.

My husband and I just celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary, and we have eleven of what my mom refers to as her grandchickens!

Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

I don’t think writing has changed the way I read … mostly because I see the story in pictures in my head. Of course, since I’m a professional copyeditor, spelling errors and typos will throw me out of a story faster than film breaking and whipping off a projector reel! If anything has changed, it’s the scope of my reading. Most of my friends are authors, so I enjoy reading their work, which has expanded my taste (which tends to mysteries and Regency romance) quite a bit.

What are you working on right now?

I’m in the final moments of Balm of Gilead, which is due in a few days and will be out in July 2015. I’m scrambling to wrap up three separate plot lines, engineer a black moment and a revelation, and wrap up the trilogy in a satisfying and believable way. While I’m doing that, I’m working on the promotion for Herb of Grace, which launched the series on August 5. There are just not enough hours in the day. Yikes!

What outside interests do you have?

Besides chicken keeping, I’m a costumer, a quilter, a teacher, and a copyeditor. When I appear in my steampunk guise, all my costumes are hand made. I have one or two pieces I’d like to work on this winter for an event I’m doing next June. And I absolutely must learn to lace a corset without assistance! In between work sessions on the books, I piece a few quilt blocks at a time. At the moment I’m working on a quilt I’m calling “Chickens in the Yard,” which has 48 blocks pieced to look like adorable chickens, and shading in the background fabrics that makes it look as though they’re enclosed. Then, I’m adjunct faculty in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA program at Seton Hill University, which means I’m thesis advisor to two students.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

For the Healing Grace novels, the choice was easy. I fly out to Pennsylvania every summer to teach at Seton Hill, and Lancaster County is only three hours away down the Pike. So it seemed logical to set my imaginary Amish districts there, somewhere vaguely south of Intercourse and east of Strasburg. When I go there to research, I can actually walk the fields that my herbalist heroine would walk, and smell the scents of elderflower and hay. I can visit the home of my Amish friend who reads my manuscripts, play with her kids, see how she runs her home, and wrap these little details into the story.

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

I would love to talk with Jane Austen. Can you imagine her comments on how life has changed between her time and ours—and how some things never change? Plus she had a really good eye for fashion and I would love to talk dress construction and millinery with her.

What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

I wish I had known that keeping a journal and recording the events of daily life would be so useful. There are details of past careers, vacation locations, and other things that just seemed like so much minutiae … which I could really use in novels now. But the brain just can’t hold everything, can it? That’s why we have paper J

What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

He’s been very faithful in teaching me the unmistakable lesson that I can’t do it all. I’ve had to cut back on two of the three arms of my business because trying to do too much was literally making me sick. So that’s been an important change over the past year.

That’s a hard lesson to learn when you have a lot of interests. This year, He has had me cut back on a few things I really like to do. What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

Don’t get hung up on writing one book and promoting it for the rest of its life. Write the next book. And the next. And the next.

Trust the brain. Every so often I’ll panic about never having another book idea. Then, invariably, in chapter 10 of the current book, the next idea will come sizzling into my head and I’ll have to run for my story journal so I don’t forget it. Hm. Maybe I should amend this to say, “trust the Lord,” since He is the wellspring of our creativity!

Love what you’re doing. Don’t write to the market or because someone says that’s what they want to see for your next proposal. Readers have infallible love-detectors. They know when something really matters to us—because we’ve made it matter to them.

Tell us about the featured book.

Medicinal herbs have been part of the human experience for thousands of years, as evidenced by the multitude of folk names some of them have collected. When I was researching the Healing Grace novels, I realized that people often summed up some spiritual property in certain herbs through the names they gave them, and the idea for this series was born.

In each novel, the folk name reflects a healing property in the herb itself. But going a little further, it reflects God’s healing process in the spirit if we only allow Him the time and the room to do it. So, in Book 1, “herb of grace” is the folk name for rue, a bitter and astringent herb used in small quantities for ailments of the digestive system. And as we know, rue is also a verb meaning to be sorry for something one has done in the past. But there is a world of difference between ruing one’s mistake and coming to that place of repentance where God’s grace can begin its healing work …

Herb of Grace

Amish widow Sarah Yoder has been struggling to raise her two teenaged sons and provide a home where family and members of her Old Order Amish church can find fellowship and friendship. Though she is close to her in-laws, lately it feels like her relationship with her boys is splintering. Her stepson Simon wants to move out west to find work. And her youngest, Caleb, is spending far too much time over at the tumbledown home of a man who left the church long ago. Henry Byler only returned recently to Willow Creek when he inherited the family farm—under protest—and now seems caught in a struggle between the faith of his childhood and the world he’s come to know.

Ruth Lehman, the local Dokterfraa, believes Sarah should use her gift for growing plants to become an herbal healer, too. Sarah is reluctant, however, uncertain if caring for others will take her away from her family—the place where she believes God wants her. But when she feels called to help members of her community, she soon discovers that the heart can be scarred as deeply as the body. As she compiles her herbs, she waits for God to do his healing work in a man who rues a harsh decision, in a lonely prodigal who has lost everything, and maybe even in a herbalist-in-training who firmly believes she will never love again.

Please give us the first page of the book.

When Sarah Yoder ran the quilting needle into her finger—again—the women of her family who were gathered for sisters’ day exchanged glances of sympathy, and her sister-in-law Amanda got up to fetch a Band-Aid strip and some cold water. Everyone in her own family and that of her in-laws knew that God had not given her a gift with needle and thread. But Sarah knew they’d never say a word—except perhaps for Ruth Lehman, who had come down from Whinburg on this windy March day to visit.

Ruth was blessed with the happy conviction that when God put a thought into her mind, it was His will that she pass it along. “Sarah, you were gripping that needle too hard. Stop fighting the thimble and it will go easier. You don’t need ten stitches to the inch. Seven or eight will be just fine.”

Sarah took the cloth from Amanda and dabbed carefully at the droplets of blood that she’d got on the blue border of the quilt. “I’m just grateful you include me in your quilting frolics. I’m a terrible quilter—whether the tourists at the quilt shop know it or not.”

“You’re a good piecer, though.” Corinne’s voice was gentle where Ruth’s had been gruff. “Look at these pinwheels you made for the border, all color coordinated and so pretty. My section looks as though it came straight out of the ragbag.”

Corinne clearly had an obedient, color-coordinated ragbag. But Sarah appreciated the encouragement from her mother-in-law all the same. Amanda wrapped her finger as tenderly as if she were three years old, and took the cloth back to the sink.

“I like piecing,” Sarah admitted, picking up the needle. Maybe she ought to put Band-Aid strips on all her fingers, just in case. “I like putting colors together and making designs. But colors and designs don’t keep the boys warm at night—or Englisch tourists, either.”

“Do they put them on their beds?” Amanda wondered aloud as she took her place and picked up her own needle. “Or do they hang them on their walls instead of using them?”

“As long as they’re able to buy them, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Barbara Byler, who was Corinne’s oldest daughter and married to one of the three Byler boys, who were now in their forties but who were still referred to as boys. “It’s nearly time to plant the peas, and I don’t know about you, but the seed catalogs eat more of my money at this time of year than I do the vegetables at harvest time. I need the money the quilts bring in.”

Now here was a topic where, unlike quilting, Sarah felt right at home. But even the idea of her garden was edged with anxiety about money, because while the garden was a big one even by Amish standards, it still wasn’t enough to support her and the boys. Despite the fact that they both worked hard and Simon gave her nearly all his wages, they still could not completely make ends meet. Somehow she had to come up with a plan to keep body and soul together before her house payments to her in-laws got any further in arrears.

Involuntarily, her hands tightened on the needle, she rammed it against her thimble, and it slipped down and into her knuckle. Tears welled in her eyes. With a mumble of apology, she left the needle stuck halfway through the top, batting, and backing, and fled Corinne’s big front room. When discouragement found its way past her defenses, there was only one thing to do—go outside into God’s creation and look for His comfort.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

I love visitors! You can find Adina Senft here: http://www.adinasenft.com, and Shelley Adina here: http://www.shelleyadina.com.

Thanks for having me over, Lena!

It’s always a pleasure to host you, Adina/Shelley.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.
Herb of Grace - Christianbook.com
Herb of Grace: A Healing Grace Novel - Amazon
Herb of Grace: A Healing Grace Novel - Kindle

Christian Book Store

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THE WOUNDED HEART - Adina Senft - Free Book

BIO:

Adina Senft grew up in a plain house church, where she was often asked by outsiders if she was Amish (the answer was no), she made her own clothes, and she perfected the art of the French braid. She holds an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania, where she teaches as adjunct faculty. 

Writing as Shelley Bates, she was the winner of RWA’s RITA Award for Best Inspirational Novel in 2005, a finalist for that award in 2006, and, writing as Shelley Adina, was a Christy Award finalist in 2009. Three of her books have shortlisted for the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Carol Award for book of the year. Of her fiction, publisher and industry blogger W. Terry Whalin has said, “Readers will be lost in the vivid world that [she] paints with incredible detail and masterful storytelling.” 

A transplanted Canadian, Adina returns there annually to have her accent calibrated. Between books, she enjoys traveling with her husband, playing the piano and Celtic harp, and spoiling her flock of rescued chickens. These days, she makes period costumes and only puts up her hair for historical events and fun.

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

LOL! This is a difficult thing to detect—sometimes friends have to tell me, and sometimes I can recognize it myself. In The Wounded Heart, I share Amelia’s independence of mind, and I also share her struggle in submitting those unruly thoughts to God. In The Hidden Life (June 2012), Emma, the heroine, is a writer. When she needed a typewriter to work on, I wrote my manual Smith-Corona into her story … and FaithWords subsequently put it on the cover!

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

Most of the quirks my husband has to put up with come about during research. I learned to ride a motorcycle and have a Class M license. I play the Celtic harp. I rescue chickens (you’d be surprised how many need rescuing here in Silicon Valley). But I suppose the oddest is that I have to be able to wear the clothes of a character in order to write her properly. When I was researching a Regency romance, I made a couple of Regency gowns. When I wrote steampunk, I made a Victorian gown, complete with petticoats, bustle … and goggles. And now that I’m writing Amish women’s fiction … well, let’s just say it’s amazing what you can buy on eBay!

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I was eight. I wrote a school composition at Halloween about a ghost in a graveyard, and my teacher wrote on it that I’d scared her. She was probably just being kind, but I realized for the first time that I could change how people felt through writing. That was the beginning.

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

I’m a very eclectic reader. And I can’t read in the same genre that I’m currently writing in, either. So when I write YA, I read Amish fiction and romance. When I write Amish fiction, I read science fiction and mystery. My current favorites are historical mysteries, which I love. I’m so glad I have no inclination to write them, because then I wouldn’t be able to read them!

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

The chickens. I have twelve rescue hens at the moment, and there’s nothing like mucking out a chicken coop to ground you. They’re sweet, affectionate companions, and the whole world just has to go on hold for a moment when one of them tugs on my pant leg with her beak and asks for a cuddle.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

It depends. Amelia came to me already named in The Wounded Heart. Sometimes I want a name to have a specific meaning. I go to baby name books and websites to look up names that reflect a facet of my character’s personality. Now that I’m writing about the Amish, the pool of names is somewhat limited (you will not find an Amish teen named Madison or Courtney, for instance). On my last trip to Lancaster County, I dropped into a tiny, out-of-the-way Amish bookstore and picked up a copy of the Old Order Amish Directory 2010, which has tons of names currently in use for all generations.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

Winning the RITA Award for Best Inspirational in 2005 for Grounds to Believe, the book of my heart, which was written as Shelley Bates.

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

Ha! I would be one of my own chickens J They have all the food and water they want, and the run of the yard, plus the neighbors bring them watermelon and corn in exchange for eggs. La dolce vita!

What is your favorite food?

You would ask me that an hour before supper. I like food, all kinds of it. But on a stormy night in November, you just can’t beat a pot of pierogies, slathered in sour cream and sprinkled with bacon and onions.

And I don’t even know what pierogies are, but I looked them up. They do sound delicious. What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

The first 100 pages are the most difficult for me. It takes a while to get deep into the characters and get some traction with their emotions and desires. Once I pass page 100, a switch seems to click in my head and it’s smooth sailing from there.

Tell us about the featured book?

The Wounded Heart was inspired by a couple of my friends who struggle with chronic disease. One of them nearly died, until she found out that what she thought was fibromyalgia and/or MS was actually something completely different—something curable. That triggered the idea, and setting it in the Amish culture, which has a different system of health care from ours, was a way to increase the conflict. The trilogy as a whole centers around three Amish women who are best friends, and throughout the three novels, they’re working on a quilt. My editor suggested that we include instructions to make the quilt in the back of each book, so that readers could make it along with the characters. So needless to say, I’m making it as I write! I really hope that people will post pictures of their quilts in the “Post Customer Images” section of the book’s listing on amazon.com. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Please give us the first page of the book.

Every piece of fabric held a memory.

Amelia Beiler paused in her sorting of scraps to finger a piece of purple cotton. Sometime last spring in a moment of resolution, she’d cut it up into squares, but she knew every mark. This piece had lain under Enoch’s suspenders—the cotton was worn down to the weft threads and half the dye had rubbed away. It had been his favorite shirt—the one she’d made for him in the weeks before their wedding ten years ago. The collar had never sat properly around his neck, so he couldn’t wear it to church, and the side seams had a maddening way of twisting to his left. But every time he put it on he’d kissed her and said, “You’ve wrapped me in love, Liewi,” and worn it to work in the pallet shop.

She’d learned a thing or two about sewing since then. And about love.

Her lips wobbled and, swallowing hard, she set the scrap aside. It was really only good for the rag bag. But maybe she’d make a quilt just for herself out of such pieces. After all, the things in the rag bag tended to be what you loved the most and wore out, didn’t they? Then she could be wrapped in love, too.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

Come and see me at www.adinasenft.com, or stop by my blog, “A City Girl’s Guide to Plain Living,” at www.adinasenft.com/blog .

Thanks, Lena, for inviting me over!

My pleasure. We need to have you back with the other two books.



Readers, here's a link to the book. By using it when you order, you help support this blog.

The Wounded Heart: An Amish Quilt Novel


Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. Please tell us where you live, at least the state or territory. (Comments containing links may be subject to removal by blog owner.)

Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.

The only notification you’ll receive is the winner post on this blog. So be sure to check back a week from Saturday to see if you won. You will have 4 weeks from the posting of the winners to claim your book.

If you’re reading this on Feedblitz, Facebook, or Amazon, please come to the blog to leave your comment if you want to be included in the drawing. Here’s a link.
Http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com