Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick's Blog

Normally only my patrons get to vote, but this time YOU can help decide what I write next! Which short story should I release on Patreon in December?



Which one sounds interesting to you? Leave a comment!

Christmas time is here! Okay, so not quite yet. It's still over a month away, but that doesn't mean we can't start celebrating early, right? So today, we're celebrating the release of not one, not four, but eight new Christmas books! All written by Rebekah A. Morris. I'll be spotlighting two of her books today and you can find out more about the others as you follow the tour.

I thoroughly enjoyed both of these short stories and I'm positive you will as well! Check it out...


About the Books
Christmas SmilesThis was Lana’s second Christmas without her parents, who had died in an accident, and she was sure it would bering nothing but tears, because she and her aunt couldn’t seem to get along. When a frightening experience occurs, Lana, her cousin, and her aunt and uncle find unexpected cause for smiles.



Christmas Eve at the Back DoorThe Great Depression is in full swing, and Mrs. Kabrick hopes to make Christmas a special time for her children even though they don't have much. With the back door constantly opening and shutting, time flies bringing cold air, visitors, and a very special Christmas Eve.



About the Author Rebekah A. Morris is a homeschool graduate, an enthusiastic freelance author and a passionate writing teacher. Her books include, among others, Home Fires of the Great War, The Unexpected Request, Gift from the Storm, and her bestselling Triple Creek Ranch series. Some of her favorite pastimes, when she isn't’ writing, include reading and coming up with dramatic and original things to do. The Show-Me state is where she calls home.




Excerpts

Life was certainly a mess. It wasn’t anything like she had read in storybooks. ~ Christmas Smiles

“We may not have much,” Mrs Kabrick had often told her children, “but there are others who have even less.” ~ Christmas Eve at the Backdoor 
Tour Schedule November 13 Bookish
Orchestrations – Introductory PostRead Another Page – Book Spotlight from the authorKaylee's Kind of Writes – Book SpotlightResting Life – Review and ExcerptPerry Elisabeth – Excerpt Rachel Rossano's Words – Book Spotlight and Excerpt
November 14 Read Another Page – Book Spotlight from the authorOdelia's Blog – Author Interview and Book spotlightBryce’s Creative Writing Corner – Author Interview, Review, and ExcerptCounting Your Blessings One by One – Review and ExcerptPerpetual Indie Perspective – Book Spotlight
November 15 Read Another Page – Book Spotlight from the authorWhimsical Writings for His Glory – Author, Review, and ExcerptMaidens for Modesty – Author Interview and ReviewThe Destiny of One – Book SpotlightRebekah Ashleigh – Book SpotlightOnce Upon an Ordinary – Review Stephany's BLOG Snippets – Book Spotlight and Excerpt
November 16 Read Another Page – Book Spotlight from the authorLaurel's Leaves – Author InterviewStories by Firefly – Review Claire Banschbach – Author InterviewKelsey's Notebook – Review and ExcerptJaye L. Knight – Book Spotlight and Excerpt
November 17 Read Another Page – Book Spotlight from the authorRuffles and Grace – Book SpotlightWith a Joyful Noise – Book SpotlightOrdinary Girl Extraordinary Father – Review  Bookish Orchestrations – Closing Post

Well. That felt good!
This morning I hit publish on a short story I pulled from the archives and polished up a bit.

Meet The Art Contest ...




Two days ago, the Nazis rolled into Marie’s hometown. With her mother trapped in the countryside and her father ordered to perform piano concerts for the invaders, the 12-year-old’s life is turned upside down.

When she learns there is more to her pianist father than meets the eye, Marie must work with him to sneak important information past the watching Nazis.

This is short story (approx. 12 minutes average reading time). It contains themes of family, adventure, and trusting God in hard times.


Available now on Amazon.
Coming soon to other retailers.


Review by Steve Mathisen: "The Art Contest is a delightful little story about a French girl who gets a chance to do a little thing to help the French resistance. Told from the girls perspective it is intriguing and imaginative. My only complaint is that there was not more of it."

It’s that time of year. The time for buying presents, making wish lists, and planning New Year’s Resolutions. If any of those activities involve books for you, Indie Christian Authors has a perfect event for you.

From Nov 27 (that’s today!) through Nov 30th, more than 70 independent Christian books are on sale. You can find free shipping, $0.99 ebooks, package deals, and more! And if your budget is depleted from Christmas shopping, they’ve got you covered with some freebies. (Including book 1 of my Kitten Files series!)

Think 70 books is overwhelming? Narrow it down and find the perfect books for you or someone on your Christmas list by using this quiz to generate a customized book list.

What awesome reads of 2015 are you grateful for? What books are you looking forward to reading in 2016?

A note on the Ebooks Only page. All books are listed as “Sold Out.” This only refers to paperback copies of these titles. Please click onto the product pages to find descriptions and links to discounted or free ebooks.Acknowledgements: Thanks to Leah E. Good for her work organizing this sale, Gloria Repp for completing the time consuming job of uploading book info to the sale website, and Hannah Mills for her fantastic design work on the website graphics. Hannah can be contacted at hmills(at)omorecollege(dot)edu for more information about her design services.

I'm going to be participating in a HUGE Black Friday Sale with 23 participating authors and 71 books! We have some questions for you readers out there... Share your thoughts?

Loading...

...the cover for a new release by Lauren K. Lotter! It sounds like a lovely story, and I can't wait to read it!


Adah's world is turned upside down by the sudden death of her fiancée. After years of declaring that she will always be single, David broke down her walls and she fell hopelessly in love.
But just three weeks before their wedding, he is killed in a car accident. A happily-ever-after ending becomes a distant dream. Adah is lost without him and she tries to drown her grief in a crazy social life, but finds no peace. In desperation, she heads off into the mountains, searching for a cure for  her broken heart. Her lack of wilderness experience gets her into many predicaments as she attempts to live life as the pioneers did. No running water, no electricity, a rock slide, an uncooperative wood stove and an unexpected late spring blizzard nearly overwhelm her. As if that wasn't adventure enough, a nearly frozen man appears on her doorstep in the middle of the raging blizzard. Adah is shocked to discover a young child cradled in his arms.   While the little girl, Sarah, seems unharmed, Adah works desperately to save the man's life. With limited medical knowledge, she does the best she can, but a high fever and other injuries threaten his life.   The man, whose name is Ethan, regains consciousness and seems to be recovering just as the storm abates. But flooding, mud slides and avalanches force the trio to remain in the cabin for the unforeseeable future. Adah is disturbed by Ethan's talk of God. Raised to be an Atheist, any talk of religion bothers her. But the more Ethan speaks of his God, the more curious Adah becomes. Something about the relationship Ethan has with his God calls to her. It is more than just a religion. Could God be the answer? Can He heal her broken heart? Join Adah in her search for the truth. Will she finally find the love she has been searching for all her life? http://www.heritageliterature.com/

Curious about my design business? Check out my portfolio (http://perryelisabethdesign.blogspot.com) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/perryelisabethdesign).

Tialla was one of my earliest book cover design clients, so when she asked if I'd like to participate in her cover reveal I snatched the opportunity to finally, officially share this design. Sounds like it will be an interesting read (for older readers, obviously)--I'm looking forward to checking it out!



Check out the book cover and trailer reveal for Tialla Rising's upcoming release, Where Shadows Lie, and continue below to enter the giveaway! 

Release date: June 2015

Synopsis via Goodreads:

His dark past haunts him. His new life taunts him.
After twenty years in the gangs and a hefty prison sentence, an early release gives Shawn the opportunity to turn his life around.
But that isn’t so easy when gangs are involved.
Only a year into his fresh start, the gang catches on and makes Shawn’s life miserable. After all, once a gang member, always a gang member. His very blood belongs to them.
Threats become promises. Whispers become actions. Words become bullets. He must fight – not only for his life, but to save his honor, prove his integrity, and protect the woman he loves.
An ember of hope glows in the darkness, strengthening his resolve. Will her support and his determination be enough to dispel the shadows of his past?
A story of discovery and faith, love and perseverance.



BOOK TRAILER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tialla Rising is a Christian young woman living with her family in the mountains of Arizona. She loves to write and will passionately spend hours long into the night developing her stories. Like most writers, Tialla fills her spare time with reading from her favorite fantasy and mystery genres. A good book, a stormy day, and an iced coffee comprise her favorite moments.
www.therubyvial.com 

facebook.com/authortiallarising










a Rafflecopter giveaway

I thought I'd share the design process for one of my latest and most complex book cover designs.

Before:
After:


After Natalie D. Wilson and I had a great, informative chat on the phone, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on her book, Rohan's Choice (available in paperback and ebook).
We needed a vineyard setting...

...with a larger villa...

I also turned the sky pink and added a couple more trees.
Then we needed a big, buff, Rohan character looking off at the villa.
So I found a man who was already looking somewhat the way we needed...
Then I "turned him around" by darkening and blurring. Now he was a semi-buff silhouette that could be facing either toward or away from you. I painted a new hairdo for him, and bulked up his shoulders and arms.
The picture ended too soon, though, so I borrowed this guy's pants...

...and added a sword...

Then all I had to do was work with the title and other text. That was a piece of cake, comparatively.
I had so, so much fun with this cover! 
Want to see more? Check out my design portfolio here: http://perryelisabethdesign.blogspot.com and my gallery of premade covers here: www.selfpubbookcovers.com/perryelisabeth

Earlier this month, E. Kaiser Writes released a trio of new books entitled "Thaw." I haven't read them yet, but they sound interesting. She is here today to tell us about a Tompte, a very important horse in "Thaw."

P: Thanks for coming! I'm curious about this all-important horse. 

E: Okay! Well, you've picked a fun subject today! This is the back info on Tomtpe, the most important horse in the Thaw books. At least he knows that he is. You see, he is not just any horse, but a very special horse. He belongs to a prince of Demargen and that makes him a royal horse. Or a royal's horse, if you want to be picky. Tompte thinks there's not much difference between the two.

P: He sounds like quite the character all ready; tell me more! 

E: Okay, so the quintessential Prince Charming's horse is of course white. Always white.  The war leader's horse is black, and also the bad guys horse.   A lot of time the girl's horse is a yellow or beige color...  But the prince's horse is always a white/gray.
 (For those of you less into horses than some, "gray" is a color pattern that actually isn't gray all the time. In fact a horse that is a "gray" is invariably born dark, (whether that is black, brown or chestnut) and then as they grow their hair "grays out". Different graying-genes have different time-spans; some family lines start going white as young as two years old, while others go slower and so retain some color late in life. These slow-gray-ers make for the gorgeous dapple-grays and steel-grays that will hold that phase of the pattern for several years. In the end, though, they all end up white.  Like a snowy haired old man or woman, "white" horses are rarely born white. They are grays.
  Some slow graying genes can actually hold onto the mane and tail color for a long time, and it is the last to go. On others it goes white right away. The gray gene is probably one of the most baffling and untrackable horse colors for equine geneticists to figure out... and they haven't gotten it coded yet. So it remains in the realm of "horse sense" and those still in the business of buying and selling horses rely on their own experience and the long history of horse-trading stories when dealing with grays.   How long will they hold their color? Will they be dappled? Or that worst of all fates; flea-bitten?  A fleabitten gray is generally a horse that was born chestnut, and even though its hide goes white, specks of if stays red. This is considered among the least attractive of grays, and not at all prized.    There is a stack of horse trading lore dealing specifically with grays, how some unscrupulous traders can "color" dapples onto a white horse to make it look prettier and fetch a higher price, or to make it look younger for the same purpose. 
 But that is not our subject today.)
P: Amazing! I had no idea there was such a science to gray and white horses. 

As we were saying, the Prince's horse must be white, and although at first I thought I might break the mold and give our prince a different colored horse, Tompte soon shook his head decidedly and insisted that he was white. And all white, having grayed quickly and thoroughly, so that although he is still in his prime, (what Tompte considers to be his prime, at any rate; around eight or so) he is pristine-ly white, as befits a prince of Demargen's royal house.
 Because you see Demargen has a reputation to uphold. With twelve dashing, gallant princes ahead of him, all Hess's brothers have set the bar high in military exploits. For though the known world has not had a war in almost a thousand years, the art of war has been kept alive with jousts and robust competitions, which Hess's older brothers loved dearly and did very well in.   The reputation goes back further than that, though, for old King Leopold in his day, was a force to be reckoned with on the field as well.   And so Demargen must keep up its chin and shine its buttons, because even though long ago it lost it's claim to the then empty Noran throne on a battlefield, it is not to be trifled with now. Or ever.
P: I'll be sure not to mess with Demargen!

E: So Demargen cadets train harder than any other kingdom's cadets. Demargen officers salute snappier, and with more meaning, than any other kingdom's officers. And Demargen princes are drilled in the school of honor and ability, turning out thirteen perfectly polished princes to unleash upon the world; which receives them in various ways, but is invariably impressed with their military precision. 
 And Tompte is a part of that, of which he is duly aware.  And though his boy may attend the Noran coronation on his own, he is not alone. For he has a prince's horse, who knows his duty.


P: It sounds as if Tomte must have been fun to write.
 
E: This horse turned into quite the character as I was writing, he just sort of developed his own "voice" even though of course he can't speak. But looking back on it, I realize that the horse from my past that was channeling onto the page was just such a beastie... a half Welsh, half Percheron that was 13 hands tall, mostly white and as full of importance as a horse can get.  His name was "Buddy", which if he would have understood English he certainly would have objected to. He probably would have insisted on being named "Prince" or at the very least "Duke".  Perhaps "Charger" would have been a better name for him, since there was nothing that could stop him.  He rode and drove, and pulled a wagon as if he'd been born to it. (Which of course he partially had, on his Percheron half.) He had a hitchy little trot that just wouldn't give up, flicking his white feathered hooves with each step, he looked the part of a proud harness horse. He was just about six inches too short to be the sort of impressive he was aiming for!  But he was cute as a bug... with a deep, Percheron jaw and a nice Welsh muzzle... arched white neck with thick wavy white mane flowing over it. 
 But he was a good horse.  At eleven years old, I learned to ride on Buddy, and even though he had all the heart in the world, his pulling horse build wasn't designed for speediness. My brother would race away from us on his Arab mare, and Buddy and I would be left loping along in the dust. And then we'd run out of dust, for even that had settled by the time we came along.  But I was never worried with Buddy because he never bucked, didn't spook... he was so solid and confidant he never met a worry. And he always knew the way home, even if I didn't.
   He was so coordinated he could stand on an ice-slicked sloping path... and run in place to keep from falling down. Seriously, this was actually witnessed one winter... he just moved his feet so fast he didn't have time to slip, until he could edge himself off the icy patch. This degree of dexterity is referenced in Prince of Demargen when Hess asks Tompte to jump back over a wall onto the road toward him, and Tompte does so from a standstill. It takes great coordination for a horse to do that, not to mention great back muscles.
P: What skill--in both the real and fictional horses!
 
E: Buddy could gallop away fully hobbled; tie his front feet together and he'd simply left them both of the ground at once and hop off like that. Pretty soon he was literally galloping around doing that, so the decision was made to side hobble him. Most horses move their lateral feet in opposite directions and so tying left hind to left front effectively stops them from going too far. Not Buddy. He took maybe half a day, and then figured out how to "pace", moving both laterals forward at the same time.   We liked to keep him in the yard where we lived at the time in the mountains, so he could eat the grass down. But he kept turning mobile on us, until we finally ended up tying his front feet and a hind foot.  That kept him restricted... poor Buddy. Not even he could figure out how to lift all three feet of the ground at once. Though he did try for some time, just in case.
 His antics were so amusing and impressive, that we soon let him go completely, where he could charge about the place as he liked. He enjoyed this very much, and the sight of the little white horse grazing tranquilly along the creek-bed below the house was like something out of a fairy-tale. Then he'd get the notion to gallop up the trail to the barn, all rounded neck and floating mane and rat-a-tat-tat thundering hooves on the forest path. He seemed to enjoy showing off his freedom to the other horses in the pens.
  Buddy is a memory horse that will not be forgotten... and his indomitable spirit, good looks, physical prowess, and quirky character lives on in Tompte, (who is taller, like a riding horse should be.) But he too would make a white vision of loveliness grazing lush spring grass along a gurgling creek in a tiny mountain valley.
  And there the both shall ever live in our dreams.

P: What a beautiful picture! And what a great story of the inspiration for Tompte! Thanks for joining me today. I look forward to learning more about your new books. All the best!

(Not in chronological order)I'M EXPECTING A BAAAAABBBYYYY!!!!
Yep, that's right! Little Person #3 is due July 4th (unless that date ends up adjusted later) and we couldn't be more excited! It's going to be so fun to see if I'm on a roll with boys or if I'll get to have a little me. Either way, it's going to be awesome because babies are just--awesome!
I'M EXPECTING A BOOK
Sounds weird, I know. What sounds even weirder is that I'm going to say it's halfway arrived. I released the Kindle version of my 5th book (second in the Kitten Files series) on Black Friday. The print version is following shortly on its heels. Meet "The Case of the Missing Hero":
I'M A BOOK DESIGNER!
The book cover design requests (and lots of promo design work, too) have been coming in steadily. It's great fun! See some of my latest...


I'VE BEEN VISITING WITH FAMILY
'Tis the season! Plus, my family of origin is moving out of state, so I'm trying to soak them up while I've still got 'em!
I HAVE A 2-YEAR-OLD
'Nuff said. ;) He's a good, super fun kid, but very busy...
I HAVE PEOPLE ASKING FOR WRITING FEEDBACK
You know who you are, yes I still remember you, no I haven't forgotten about you, no your writing doesn't stink. Yes, I've been busy, busy, busy. (See this post.)
I EAT LIKE A TEENAGE BOY
I'm serious. This could technically go under the pregnancy headline, but it's such a significant part of my day, I've given it its own section! I'm also nursing my 9-month-old, so it takes a lot of food to keep me going!
I REALLY LIKE TO HANG OUT WITH MY TYLER
I try not to "work" when he's home. Cuz he's my bestest friend.
I SOMETIMES CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY
I know, this one's a real shocker for anyone who knows me well. If this were a socio-economic-political ranting blog, I can safely say there'd always be something for me to say. But it's not. And sometimes I just have writer's blog writer's block.
I READ TOO MUCH
I have read so many Kindle books lately. At a disgustingly fast pace. It's just something I do when my brain feels like a limp noodle and the rest of my body feels the same. I guess I could be blogging. Of course, there's no guarantee anything I said would make much sense...