KEEPING SECRETS - LeAnne Hardy - One Free Book or Ebook

Welcome back, LeAnne. Why do you write the kind of books you do?

I write because I believe that story is an effective way to communicate the reality of who God is regardless of where we are in space and time. Facts and statistics can be remote and impersonal. Story makes the reader realize, “It could be me.” In my first book, The Wooden Ox, I wanted to communicate that God is big enough and cares enough to get down and dirty with his children in an African civil war. In my most recent book, Keeping Secrets, it is the reality that 22.9 million people living with HIV in Africa means 22.9 million people like me—sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and their families, desperately in need of a caring community that will show them God’s love.

I have lived in six countries on four continents, so my write what you know is a bit out of the box. My family spent the late 1980s in Communist Mozambique, setting up a theological seminary during their civil war. Later, living in South Africa, I conducted story hours and promoted reading with orphans and vulnerable children. So the things I feel passionate about and want to convey in my stories are not suburban North America, but the truths of who God is are bigger than geography.

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

Probably my wedding day, although the natural childbirth of my two daughters is certainly up there at the top as well. My husband and I recently celebrated forty years of marriage. When we look back on all the places we have lived and things we have done as missionaries involved with theological education and leadership training, we shake our heads and think how different life would have been had we married anyone else.

That is so true. I thank the Lord often for bring my husband into my life. How do you choose your settings for each book?

Most of my books grow out of setting. They couldn’t take place anywhere else. It was the events of the closure of Glastonbury Abbey that inspired the Glastonbury Grail series. The elaborate fifteenth birthday party of my Brazilian neighbor percolated in my brain until my own daughter was approaching that age to produce Between Two Worlds. Even if the story could take place elsewhere, I would choose a place I know intimately. It’s so much easier to modify a real place than to make it all up. I suppose as someone who is into cultures, I love the insider details that make a setting authentic. For one reader of The Wooden Ox, it was toothbrushes stuck in the thatch over the door of an African hut that told him, “This writer knows what she’s talking about.”

How has being published changed your life?

Being published lets me into the advanced seminars at American Christian Fiction Writers! Those are great opportunities to grow. Being published means responsibilities for marketing, something that is hard for me as an introvert. It has also meant opportunities to help others develop their writing. I have taught several writing workshops in Kenya, and it’s lots of fun to hear of my student’s publishing successes and hold the books they are so proud of.

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

I am a perfectionist. It’s hard to call a manuscript finished. I want to keep tinkering even when we are to the proof stage. I’m not as prolific as I might be because I keep going over and over my material. Deadlines and critique groups help, but I’m not sure I have overcome this obstacle.

What advice would you give to a beginning author?

Write what you are passionate about even if it isn’t what is selling in the CBA market right now. You will do your best writing when you care deeply about your subject and your characters.

What are you reading right now?

I just finished Veiled Rose by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. Fascinating fantasy that breaks all the rules of traditional fairy tales. I couldn’t put it down.

What is your current work in progress?

Lena, you recently featured Honddu Vale, the second in my Glastonbury Grail series set in sixteenth-century Britain. I am hard at work on book 3, which promises to be the best so far. Yes, England is one of the places I have lived. These books bring history alive rather than illuminate current social realities, but their primary goal is a vision of the Almighty.

What would be your dream vacation?

My dream vacation involves staying in one place for several days and not living out of a suitcase (the main advantage of cruising as far as I’m concerned). It means getting up close and personal with God’s creation whether that is hiking in the Rocky Mountains or game watching in Africa. Good food in an interesting setting is a plus. I recently ate cuttlefish seasoned with its own ink at a tiny place under the wall of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace in Split, Croatia.

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

Right now I think I would choose to spend an evening with President Obama, to pray with him and listen to his heart, and encourage him to seek God as he attempts to lead our country through challenging times.

What are your hobbies, besides writing and reading?

Figure skating! It started as research for what eventually became Crossovers, and I was soon as addicted as my protagonist. I have taken classes and private lessons and even competed—while taking notes to better understand my characters. Skating is the first exercise I have had to discipline myself NOT to do as much as I would like. My featured book, Keeping Secrets, is not about figure skating despite the beautiful cover by Katy Popa and Kathy Haasdyk. Sindi’s skating represents all that she stands to lose when HIV invades her family.

Tell us about the featured book.

Fifteen-year-old Sindiswe Khumalo is the most promising figure skater the South African Skating Federation has ever had. But at the rink Sindi can’t talk about what’s making her father ill. Even her best friends can’t be trusted. Her friend Mboti lost his job when people found out he had HIV. A girl in her class dropped out of school when the bullies accused her of being infected. Sindi has dreams—Olympic-size dreams. Keeping the secret could cost her everything, but the truth might cost her more.

At the end of 2011, 5.6 million people in South Africa were infected with HIV—as much as forty per cent of fifteen- to forty-nine-year-olds in some regions of the country. Families suffer emotionally because of stigma. Whole communities suffer economically as wage earners sicken and die, afraid to seek treatment. But Keeping Secrets is not just about HIV. It’s about how we all cut ourselves off from support when we are afraid that people will learn the truth about us. It’s about how the church of Jesus Christ needs to become a safe place where we can tell the truth about where we hurt and know that we will find grace. My character Sindi is fifteen, but this is not just a YA book; it’s a book for all of us.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Prologue

I remember what it was like Before. I flew over the ice like a swallow on the wind. Music filled my whole body, and I soared like a bird above the city of Johannesburg—eGoli—place of gold. I dreamed of gold medals and going to the Olympics someday.

But that was Before.

I was too young to know that life can collapse as fast as a skater can lose an edge and tumble to the ice. It hurts to fall, but you get up; you keep skating. You smile for the judges, and you don’t let them see the pain. That’s what winners do.

But sometimes, the hurt is too much, and you can’t get up. You can’t keep skating.

Then you lose.

Chapter 1

The pounding pulse in my ears threatened to drown the announcer’s voice on the loudspeaker. “Please welcome our next skater, representing the Skating Federation of South Africa—Sindiswa Khumalo!”

“You’ll do great, Sindi,” my American coach, Trevor MacDonald, murmured beside me. “Just relax and have fun.”

Relax? Not likely with all those people watching. If they knew the truth, would they still cheer? I shook the tight, beaded braids that covered my head and tried to absorb the calm in Mac’s eyes.

Breathe, Sindi. Breathe. Don’t think about home. Forget your parents. Focus.

I pushed away from the gate. My arms spread wide to receive the cascading applause as I skated a broad arc toward center ice. Mac’s voice sounded in my mind. Smile for the judges. Even he didn’t know my secret. I stretched my lips into an expression intended to sparkle.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

Bio and book information are on www.leannehardy.net

YouTube channel for book trailers and a few old skating videos.

www.Facebook.com/BirchIslandBooks

Here are links to the books:

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H00524W

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keeping-secrets-leanne-hardy/1117531391?ean=2940148953449&itm=1&usri=2940148953449#

Print: http://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Secrets-LeAnne-Hardy/dp/0615928897/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385832992&sr=1-1&keywords=keeping+secrets+hardy

Ben Bradley, the protagonist of my other figure skating book, Crossovers, is a minor character in Keeping Secrets. Crossovers will be only $0.99 for both Kindle and Nook this week in honor of the release of Keeping Secrets.

Thank you, LeAnne, for sharing this new book with us.

Readers, leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. US winners will have a choice of ebook or print. If the winner is outside the US, the book will be an ebook. 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 Google +, Feedblitz, Facebook, Linkedin, 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

HONDDU VALE - LeAnne Hardy - One Free Book or Ebook

Readers, here's another author, who is new to this blog. I first met LeAnne on the night at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference when we could dress like one of the characters in our books. 

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

Who was it who said, “Writing is easy; just open a vein and bleed onto the page”? I think all authors put a lot of themselves into what they write. Some of my early characters were consciously autobiographical. My family lived in Mozambique during their civil war. When I wrote The Wooden Ox, about a family kidnapped by rebels during the war, I was very much thinking, what if this had happened to us? How would I feel? How would I react? I am the mother in that book. I’m also the daughter who questions God. And part of me is the wounded little boy acting out what he has experienced. For Between Two Worlds I drew on my own feelings about moving between cultures as well as my teenaged daughters’ experiences trying to fit into my home culture in the US. The Glastonbury Grail series is told from the viewpoint a young man in the sixteenth century. My life experiences have been very different from his, but that doesn’t mean I’m not feeling his emotions as I write and wrestling with issues of guilt and God’s silence along with him.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

I’m weird in so many ways. I had my babies in Latin America. I hauled them off to Africa in the middle of a war. I worked on an archeological excavation in Israel. We once swam in a river within sight of alligators. I took up figure skating in my 40s and won my first adult competition. I made a sixteenth century costume for my recent book launch (and wore it at ACFW!) Oh, yeah, and I write fiction. If that isn’t quirky, I don’t know what is.

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I was in my mid 40s. I had this day-dream about a figure skater that kind of took over my mind. I actually wondered if I were going crazy until I found out that making outlines and writing character sketches were things that writers do. That original file is still password protected in my computer; I was so afraid someone would find out what I was doing. Then I got up the courage to share my outline and a few scenes with my kids. “Mom, this sounds like a real book. You should write it!” So I did. Learning to skate started out as book research before it became an addiction. But then addiction figures into the story of Crossovers too.

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

I grew up on Lewis and Tolkien and still listen to the audio book of LOTR (Lord of the Rings) once a year. That love extends to all the British fantasies and histories. I’m a huge fan of Mary Stewart’s Arthurian series, Rosemary Sutcliff’s early Britain, and Edith Pargeter’s medieval historicals as well as the Brother Cadfael mysteries she wrote as Ellis Peters. I enjoy modern thrillers and mysteries as well, as long as they don’t involve putting children at risk. I get too emotionally involved in those! I don’t do horror (other than the classics of Frankenstein and Dracula) and avoid romance unless it’s written by a friend. (Or Jane Austin. I’m sure she would have been a friend if we had lived in the same century.)

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

I live on a lake in the woods, and avoid the run, run, run as much as I can. When I’m stuck on a scene, I go for a tromp to let my subconscious deal with the problem. I also make it a point to focus on time alone with God first thing every morning. I bring a cup of tea back to bed, read my Bible, and pray through a list I have collected over the years. I find that if I get dressed first, my mind has moved on to what I need to do that day and I can’t get that quiet fellowship back.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

I don’t choose my characters’ names; they tell me.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

Raising two lovely daughters who are great moms to my grandchildren and delightful company to me.

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

We have a set of carved napkin rings from Kenya. I’m the giraffe. I’m not tall, but I’m thin. I might have chosen the impala, but it was already taken by my daughter.

What is your favorite food?

Raw veggies. That’s why I’m thin. No credit to me. Green salads are my favorite food. I have recently discovered the joy of twenty-five-year-old balsamic vinegar. Try it on greens with a chopped pear, crumbled blue cheese, and a few toasted walnuts. Yummm.

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

“Write what you know” is everyone’s advice. The problem is that what I know is not mainstream America—where most inspirational fiction is sold. I returned from three years in South Africa doing story hours with at-risk children to learn that being previously published was not an asset. I didn’t have the sales figures the publishers were looking for. No one wanted my novel about a promising African figure skater afraid people at the rink would find out her father has HIV. Glastonbury Tor had been a finalist for a Christie award, but I couldn’t find a publisher willing to do the sequel because the first book had not sold well. It was a major agent at ACFW who encouraged me to self-publish. It has been a long learning curve, and I will not get rich from it, but I have the satisfaction of having my work available to the fans who have been asking for it.  Keeping Secrets, the story about the African figure skater, will be out December 1.

Tell us about the featured book.

Honddu Vale is the second book in the Glastonbury Grail series. In it, Colin Hay returns home from Glastonbury to reconcile with the father he blames for his mother’s death. But he finds Sir Stephen in the arms of a bewitching young woman with designs on more than a place in Sir Stephen’s bed. Belle covets the ancient olivewood drinking bowl that Colin brought with him when the abbey at Glastonbury was closed by King Henry VIII. Yet the cup, which once showed such supernatural power that some whispered it was the Holy Grail, now lies cold and empty in Colin’s hands. Were the glorious promises of God’s presence nothing more than a dream?

Please give us the first page of the book.

Chapter 1

November 1539

I came over Offa’s Dyke, that crumbling line of ancient earthworks that once marked the border between England and Wales. The valley where I had been born twisted below me, a green serpent resting between the bracken-covered slopes of the Black Mountains. A thin trail of smoke rose from the stone chimney of Cewi Glen, my father’s manor. It carried a few bright orange sparks that the rain quickly extinguished.

“Seventy times seven,” a child’s voice spoke in my memory, reminding me why I had come. Forgive, the Bible commanded. Not seven times, but seventy times seven.

“I can’t,” I whispered, though there was none to hear. I had been gone from Honddu Vale for more than a year, my hands stained with my father’s blood. He had lived, though ’twas no fault of mine. I fingered the scar his sword had left on my wrist as the old feelings of inadequacy and resentment closed over me. There was no sound on the mountaintop except the dripping of fine rain on heather and my breath entering and leaving my lungs as my chest heaved with half-forgotten emotions.

I felt frantically in the breast of my tunic for the cup wrapped in old wool. It was there. Safe. I clutched it and murmured a quiet prayer for strength. Slowly my breathing steadied, and I knew what I must do.

“God, help me,” I said and started down the hill.

***

A sliver of light slipped into the shadowed valley through a gap in the lingering clouds before the sun disappeared behind the western ridge. The man-at-arms standing guard at the gate of …

How can readers find you on the Internet?

www.leannehardy.net You can see a slideshow of the Welsh setting of Honddu Vale, information about my books, discussion guides, and more. I hope to see you there.

Thank you, LeAnne, for spending this time with us.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.
Honddu Vale (Glastonbury Grail) (Volume 2) - paperback
Honddu Vale (Glastonbury Grail) - Kindle

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. Winners in the US will receive a choice of a print or ebook. If the winner is from a foreign country, an ebook will be given. 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 Google +, Feedblitz, Facebook, Linkedin, 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