Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Romance book update

All kinds of news on the romance-writing front!

My newest book, "The Mysterious Amish Nanny," will be released in January, 2023, though it goes on sale in December.

Meanwhile, since I got that six-book contract in July, I've been hard at work with various other stories in the pipeline. The first three books are a related series:

• "The Quilter's Scandalous Past" (even the editors admitted they liked my working title better – The Forgiveness Quilt – but the Marketing Dept. has the final say). I just finished the copy edits for this book, but I don't have any cover art yet.

• "Their Road to Redemption" (working title: The Thomas Redemption) will be released in July 2023. I submitted the revised manuscript a couple weeks ago, so the next step will be the copy edits.

• "Miriam's Story." This story has a strong "Beauty and the Beast" theme. I submitted the proposal (synopsis + three chapters) a couple weeks ago and was awaiting my editor's thoughts. I just launched myself into NaNoWriMo (which starts today, Nov. 1) to write it, in blind hopes the proposal would be acceptable. And – praise God – I just got an email from my editor as follows: "Happy Tuesday! I've had a chance to read the proposal for Miriam and Aaron's story. Oh my word, I love this book idea! This is so great! I love the whole Beauty and the Beast theme, plus heroine works for the injured hero. I don't know, everything is just so emotional and juicy. The chapters are great, and the story looks great too. ... Thanks so much for your talent and your hard work, Patrice. It really means a lot to me." I can't even begin to tell you how much that email meant! Now I can proceed through NaNoWriMo with a light heart.

(Oh, and as an aside, I forward my editor's email to my agent to keep him in the loop. His reply? "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!" – Judges 6:12)

The other three books are still vague and unformulated, though I have a rough idea for one of them.

So that's the latest. These are keeping me busy!

7 comments:

  1. I for one will be disappointed if the quilter's scandalous past isn't as a lap dancer.

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  2. Congratulations, this is great news. (Voting for the lap dancer plot.) :D

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  3. Maybe you could save the lap dancer plot for "Krab Finds A Home". He would make a great character in a book.

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  4. Congratulations on such a wonderful email from your editor. How encouraging!

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  5. I look forward to those first 3 books ! You must really love your inspirational calling to be able to get them ready for the publishing process so quickly. It's such a blessing to find another author committed to building up the hearts and minds of her readers.
    Several years ago I was trying to pare down and spoke to a young minister about donating Christian books to their church library, which years beforehand had existed in my church. I was thinking to donate and bless others, and also could check something out if on occasion it was missed. He turned me down flat. He said people don't read Christian literature anymore and if they want to they can just download it. Once again I felt older than dirt.
    He probably wouldn't have liked Grace Livingston Hill anyway, or some of the others either. But the beauty of Christian literature is that it spans so many age groups and countries and times in history. People have been on this life walk for over a couple thousand years now and literally anyone can join in.

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