Jenn Faulk's Blog

Hey, friends!

Just wanted to let you know that starting today, I’m having a 99 cent sale on ALL of my books! (Excluding the books I wrote with L.N. Cronk and Jaycee Weaver.) This is your best opportunity to load up on some books for your summer reading. The sale will end on June 1st, so make sure and get your books before then! You can find links to all of them by going here.

Happy reading!

Jenn

Hey, friends!

I have a new book out! Forever is now available on Amazon. Here’s a little more about it…

Bethany Botha is hurting from a loss that she can’t even bear to speak of, choosing instead to manage her pain by starting a new season of her life in a new place. Nick Huntington is hurting from wounds that he’s never properly dealt with, burying himself in work and the future of his business. When the two of them are unexpectedly reunited, they find that God is just beginning the work of healing in their lives and that He has a beautiful forever in store for them both.

Forever is available for just $3.99 or free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription. You can get your copy here.

Happy reading!

Jenn 

Friends, I have exciting news! I’ve just released TWO new books!

As a disclaimer, I want you to know that one of them is what you’ve come to expect from me – Christian romance. The other is a non-fiction book about life in ministry. Each one is just $3.99 on Amazon or free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Here’s a little bit about each of them…

Simon Davis is moving home. In an effort to be closer to his aging parents, he’s transitioning from a lucrative career to semi-retirement in his forties, thankful that the opportunity presents itself just after the dwindling of a romantic relationship that he hoped might lead to more. Will he meet someone new in this changing season of his life? Simon’s sure he’d never be that lucky.

Jenny Thompson has finally found a home. In addition to her dream job as an elementary school PE teacher, she has a fulfilling ministry where she’s able to make a difference for Christ in the lives of those who are struggling through financial hardship. She has it all, she’s convinced, until a friend suggests that maybe God just might bring the right man to her after all of this time. Jenny’s sure she’d never be that lucky.

Lucky is a lighthearted story about the joys of ministry, the power of mercy, and the way that God blesses us with some of life’s greatest surprises.

You can get your copy of Lucky here.

Called is a collection of thoughts and reflections on ministry life from Jenn Faulk, Christian romance author and pastor’s wife. This book was compiled upon request by some of her readers who couldn’t access all of the articles from her personal blog. These entries tell the story of fifteen years of pastoral ministry – both in the States and abroad – from the perspective of a pastor’s wife and the mother of two pastor’s kids (kids who go from newborns to teenagers over the duration of the entries included). While most content can be found on Jenn’s blog, there is also new, original material here as well. May it be an encouragement to you as you follow God’s calling for your own life.

You can get your copy of Called here.

Happy reading!

Jenn

It was a stupid idea. Really.

Last spring when Covid-19 reached the US and we all went into this strange season of quarantine, social distancing, and sanitizing literally everything (if we were lucky enough to find sanitizer!), my husband told me that I should write a book about a couple falling in love in the midst of all of this insanity. “The guy could have some hideous scar or something,” he told me. “Something underneath his mask that she never sees as they’re falling in love. You could call the book Unmasked!” I told him that no one would read a book like that and that I had no interest in trying to write it anyway.

But you know, the idea stuck with me. And as time went on… well, I started thinking that I just might do it!

So, it happened. Here’s a little snippet about (yes) Unmasked…

He’s wounded and broken. But the mask keeps her from seeing who he really is…

Will Jones is teaching high school in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Navigating the Covid culture, while challenging and ever changing, is bearable thanks to the school nurse, Cora Franklin, and the friendship that she and Will begin to share as they work side by side.

Cora is a single mother who loves the Lord and is trusting Him for the future. As she begins to have feelings for Will, she begins to imagine him as part of her life for the long term, yet still finds herself wondering at the distance he keeps, as he’s always wearing a mask in more ways than one.

Unmasked is a sweet story about faith and love in the time of coronavirus. While Covid itself is a very serious matter, this story is lighthearted, chronicling the stranger parts of quarantine, social distancing, and all the ways that life changed in 2020.

Unmasked is available on Amazon right now for just 99 cents or for free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription. 

I hope you love it!

Jenn

Hey, friends!

I have a new book out! Here’s a little bit about it…

Even with their hearts full of difficult questions, maybe they’ll help one another to find something like peace.

Sunny Takahashi has gone to Okinawa, Japan to spread her grandfather’s ashes and to tell him goodbye. Her faith in Christ leaves her with doubts about her grandfather’s eternity, her entire family’s standing before God, and what her place in God’s will for them should be.

Ryan Botha is running his own tour company in Okinawa, doing all that he can to make his business successful. An unexpected text from a stranger in the US, combined with all that Ryan is struggling with regarding his own faith, leaves him out of sorts when he picks up his newest tour group from the airport, only to find that the group is just one young woman with a box of ashes.

Maybe is a love story about knowing God, about trusting Him with everything, and about finding peace, even when doubts arise.

You can get your copy of Maybe on Amazon for $3.99 or for free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription. Just check it out here. (There’s also a paperback edition available!)

Happy reading!

Jenn

As most of you already know, the Faulk family got a special gift this Christmas. Yes, we all four got Covid-19! What fun!

We’ve all seen all kinds of stuff all over the internet about Covid-19 all year long, and I know for me personally, I was always looking for real answers from real people who had experienced it. Unfortunately, there seems to be a stigma attached to this virus, and we’ve found that a lot of people who’ve had it are hesitant to say much of anything about it for fear of being shunned, shamed, or having an exorcist sent to their home. How do I know this? Because when we first said that we’d caught it, we got private messages and texts from these people, telling us that they’d been there done that way earlier in 2020. Really? Yes! Everyone out there who keeps saying “I don’t know anyone who’s had Covid” – guess what? You probably do! They just haven’t been talking about it and letting you know what it’s like, what it could be like for you.

So that’s what I’m here to do for you. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. I’m not an EMT, a biology expert, or a health care worker. I write Christian romance novels, which is not at all helpful when it comes to fighting a pandemic or creating a vaccine. But I’ve had Covid-19, everyone in my house has had it, and we’ve come out on the other side. I only speak from my experience and not from my expertise. Okay? Okay!

We’ve done our best since March to practice social distancing, and we wear masks any time we leave our house. We took a couple of road trips this summer and were in areas that were high risk – the San Antonio Riverwalk, restaurants in Houston, Walt Disney World – and we traveled to Colorado in November. We go grocery shopping and go to church, have been to a lot of football games this fall, and have eaten at a few local restaurants over the last few months – all while wearing masks and social distancing. Our girls have also been going to school in person since September. We’ve been living our lives as normally as possible, knowing that it wasn’t a matter of if we caught the virus but when.

Emma started complaining of a headache on the evening of December 11th. I checked her temperature, and it was normal. I chalked it up to a busier than normal time at school preparing for tests and studying at home and sent her to bed after giving her some Tylenol for the headache. Wes and Ana left the next morning for our church’s Christmas Toy Shop, and I let Emma sleep in. She woke up much later than normal and came into the living room complaining about not feeling well. I checked her temperature, and she was at 102 degrees. I couldn’t get her fever down with medication and was already thinking ahead to church the next day. I took her to an urgent care clinic for a Covid test, thinking that she’d test negative, which would clear Wes to go to church as normal. Unfortunately, she tested positive. I asked the doctor if we’d all need to be tested if we came down with symptoms, and he told me that we could just assume we were positive if/when we came down with symptoms and to only go to the doctor if we started having serious problems. He told me that we all needed to stay at home for the next ten days (which we would do) and to quarantine poor, pitiful Emma with her now 103 degree temperature away from the rest of us (which I wouldn’t do).

“You win!” I told Emma as I drove her home. “You’re the first one of us to get it!” We speculated on where she could have picked it up, and she told me about one classmate who sat at her desk who had gone home sick the week before. The school does a great job of sanitizing and keeping to the protocols, but some things are inevitable. I got Emma home, and we started the countdown. Emma’s fever climbed to 103 degrees, and I couldn’t leave her by herself. I just couldn’t. I slept in her room that first night so I could check on her during the worst of the fever, and I woke up with her breathing and coughing right in my face. Awesome.

“It’s only a matter of time now,” I told Wes. And sure enough, he and I both started showing symptoms on December 15th. The countdown started again. And despite our best efforts and all the praying she did, poor Ana started showing symptoms on December 23rd. The countdown started yet again at that point.

I’ve heard a lot about Covid and how it affects people. I’ve heard that it doesn’t affect young people as much as older people. I’ve heard that if you have the right blood type, you’re not as much at risk. I’ve heard that you lose your sense of taste and smell when you’ve got Covid. I’ve heard that it’s like a bad flu. I’ve heard that taking vitamins keeps you from getting it. Well, every theory that attempts to put this virus into a box was blown into bits by the four of us and our vastly different experiences with it.  Here’s a bit of background on us all…

I’m 42. I have no health issues. I don’t take any medication for anything. I take a daily multivitamin and run five miles every weekday. Wes is 39. He has no health issues. He takes an OTC allergy pill for seasonal allergies. Despite a foot injury that has kept him from regular cardio exercise, he still has excellent blood pressure and heart health because of his history as a triathlete and marathon runner. Emma is 13 with no health issues, and Ana is 14 with no health issues. Both are active, regular teenagers. We all have O+ blood type. None of us are overweight or under a doctor’s care for anything.

That said, this thing kicked our butts. Well, it kicked three of our butts. (More on that to come later.)

Emma had a high fever for two days straight, and ibuprofen and Tylenol only brought it down to 101. (Which is still a high fever!) She was congested, had a runny nose, had all kinds of tummy issues, and slept most of the time for the first few days. Even now that those symptoms have abated, she’s still easily exhausted and spends the evenings lying around, which is out of character for her.

I never ran a fever but had headaches that were so extreme that I felt them in my teeth and couldn’t stand for the lights to be on. I had one night where my heart raced and I felt like someone was sitting on my chest as breathing was more difficult than normal. I’ve been exhausted, and my digestive system was all out of sorts for about five days. I never lost my sense of taste and smell. I’m still getting headaches, two weeks after showing my first symptoms.

Wes has had it worse than the rest of us. He’s had chills, body aches, headaches, a cough, and digestive issues. While he would tell you that the exhaustion has been the worst part, I would argue that his breathing and the way that the sound of his cough kept changing there in the middle of all of this was more worrisome. We kept him on cold medicine and decongestants around the clock, praying that nothing would settle on his lungs. He preached virtually on Sunday, and afterwards, he was wiped out for the rest of the day. The exhaustion has been unsettling, and he’s still dealing with it. He was the only one of us who lost his sense of taste, but he only noticed it with some things. He couldn’t taste Dr. Pepper, and that was probably the only time that the gravity of all of this got to him, lol!

And then, there’s Ana. Ana, who had a fever for just one day. That’s it. Just one day of fever. That’s all that she had. She was back to normal less than twenty-four hours later.

All that said, the most bizarre thing about Covid for us has been how one day we’d wake up feeling okay, which would make us question if we really had it. Then a few hours later, it would have us laid out again. I’ve had the flu before, and this wasn’t the flu. The lows were more extreme, and the unpredictability of it all was surprising. None of us had the exact same symptoms, and none of us could have predicted beforehand how our bodies would handle it. There’s no rhyme or reason why I had a racing pulse and no one else did or why both girls had such high fevers and Wes and I stayed at our normal temperatures. There’s certainly no explanation behind why Ana is better off than the rest of us even now or why Wes was the only one whose sense of taste was off.

Covid – who knows?

So maybe all of this wasn’t helpful at all, lol! But I think the greatest takeaway from our varied experiences is this – you have no idea what Covid is going to do to you until you get it. And while all of us had very mild experiences compared to most, we can affirm that it’s real, that it’s not just like the flu, and that it’s not something that you want. And, yes, we were wearing masks and still got it. But our prayer and our hope is that because we were wearing masks, we didn’t pass it on to anyone else after we were unknowingly exposed.

Thank you so much to all of you who checked in on us, fed us, and prayed for us. We’re coming out of quarantine soon and can’t wait to gather with the church again.

I have such exciting news!

This past year, I got the opportunity to work on a project with the very talented Jaycee Weaver, author of the Everyday Love series. We had so much fun working together, and our book, Becoming Us, is now available for preorder on Amazon!

Here’s a little bit about it… 

He’s easy-going and charming. She’s hot-tempered and tightly wound. Can they become better together than who they are apart?

Working through the disappointment of a teaching career that isn’t what he expected it to be, Mason Hayes’ otherwise cushy life gets turned upside down by the sudden loss of both parents in a car accident, leaving him with no one in the world. Until, that is, a half-sister he never knew existed shows up.

Hailee Miller-Garcia would do anything for Gina Bennett, including make a trip to meet the brother Gina’s never known – despite the issues Hailee’s having with her mother and little brother. As Mason’s life becomes entangled with her own, his laidback approach challenges her to reevaluate her own ways of dealing with the past, the present, and her dreams for the future.

Delving past friendship and growing into deeper feelings, it’s clear Hailee and Mason are better together. But the road ahead may be rocky and full of unexpected detours, challenging each of them to draw closer to Christ, work through their issues, and dream of a different future for themselves as they become more than a you and a me – they become us.

How fun is that?! And if you’ve read any of Jaycee’s books or my books… well, you just might recognize Mason and Hailee.

You can preorder Becoming Us by going here. The book will release on December 1st, when it will also be available on Kindle Unlimited.

Happy reading, friends!

Jenn

My book, All I Ever Wanted, is FREE today and through this weekend! Here’s what one reader had to say about it…

“I absolutely love Jenn Faulk’s books, I have read every single one of them! I started with Resolutions and moved on to a couple of others. When I realized most of the characters are connected somehow, I looked her up on Google, found her website, and found the list of her books in order. I have officially read all of them now, and I plan to go back and re-read them. This book is a prequel to all her others. It sets the stage beautifully if you’re starting out, or if you have read her books, gives a lovely backstory to a family you are familiar with. I love her overarching themes of redemption, forgiveness and living for Jesus. Her characters are so relatable and encouraging, and I love how she incorporates the gospel message into every story. I appreciate how this book discusses the drug/alcohol recovery process, and how God works to bring healing and sobriety. It’s also really nice to read a romantic story that doesn’t get sexual – there is some kissing and looking forward to the marriage bed, but Jenn doesn’t take it too far IMO. Seriously, love these books, I plan to reread and review them as I go along!”

You can get your free copy by going here. Happy reading!

Hey, friends!

My newest book, More, has just released on Amazon! It’s only $3.99 on Amazon and FREE with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Years ago, Andrea Walton kept a secret from Jackson Lawin.

She’s been living as a single mother ever since, doing her best to raise her son to be everything that she dreams he can be. Even as she sees him growing into a young man of great capability, both of them content in the life that she’s created for them, she has a sense that something is missing.

When she unexpectedly runs into Jackson and her secret is revealed, both of them struggle to make peace with the past and with what their choices now mean for the future.

Will God make what was wrong into something right for both of them? And will they discover that there’s more in store for their lives?

You can find the book here. Happy reading!

Jenn

Hi, friends!

My newest book, Mine, just released! You can find it here on Amazon for just $3.99 or FREE with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Here’s a little more about it…

Two hurting people. Two continents. Two countries. And the same God, who sees them both and calls them to more.

For years, Quinn Cullen has overseen the panda conservation program in Houston, dreaming of an even greater future for the zoo and its research work. When she’s told that she’ll have to send her most beloved panda, Jin Bao, to China so that he can enter the breeding program in Chengdu, she’s both distraught and angry about the loss. To make matters worse, she’s been told that once she’s home from China, she won’t return to the same job position and that her wealthy father, the panda conversation program’s main donor, has other plans for her. She finds herself at a crossroads, fully feeling the emptiness in her heart and a hopelessness that leaves her breathless.

Hudson Robinson has spent the majority of his life in China and the last several years in Chengdu, leading the breeding program at the panda base there. His life in China isn’t just about his work, though, as he spends a good portion of his time and his efforts sharing Christ with those around him and leading a secret house church. He’s confident that he’s given everything to Christ – his work, his ambition, and his life choices – but still, there’s conflict in his heart over past hurts that have left him wounded. As his breeding program readies itself to welcome Jin Bao to China, Hudson is clinging to his own self-sufficiency and ability to handle anything, never guessing that God is about to change everything.

Mine is a story about love, loss, and letting God have everything.

Head on over to Amazon to get your copy. Happy reading!

Jenn