I've been inclined. . . .

Whenever I see the cover of Sweet Caroline, my good friend Rachel Hauck's newest book, I start humming the Neil Diamond classic and I just can't stop. (I was a huge Diamond fan in high school - had no idea what a cracklin' Rosie was but I loved that album where Caroline and Rosie debuted).

Well, today, Rachel stops by the Edge so we can chat about this new release, which earned a whopping 4½ stars from Romantic Times Book Reviews right from the starting gate.

What's Sweet Caroline about in a nutsell?

For most of her life, Caroline Sweeney put the needs of others before herself. When her friends went off to college and exotic European cities, she stayed home in Beaufort to look after her Dad and brother, and whoever else needed her help. At twenty-eight, she’s invited to embark on her own adventure when a friend offers Caroline an amazing job opportunity in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, her home town is calling her to stay. Unexpectedly, Caroline inherits the run-down, money-pit Frogmore Café. Caroline must choose between a Beaufort treasure, the Frogmore Café, and the unusual Barcelona adventure. If that’s not enough, Caroline finds herself torn between two loves - a very hunky deputy Sheriff and a returning hometown boy, a country music star. In the midst of her trials, Caroline shares a lot of laughter with her friends and discovers the sweet fragrance of Jesus as He pursues her heart.

Here's what Romantic Times Book Club wrote about Sweet Caroline: 4.5 Stars – “Hauck's adorable novel contains the multi-layered character readers have come to expect from her books. The enjoyable story and unpredictable ending entertains and offers much to think about.”

Hey, Rachel, Where did this story idea come from?

The final product is a long way from the original story idea. Several years ago I had a thought, “What if a girl ended up hosting a TV cooking show, but she couldn’t cook?” I had the title Sweet Caroline and knew I wanted to write a book set in the beautiful South Carolina lowcountry, so I tried to put my cooking show story in Beaufort. But it didn’t work on a few levels, and I added the element of Caroline working at the Frogmore Café. In the end, I had to cut the cooking show story line to focus on Caroline’s life in Beaufort.

I also wanted to write about a woman who willingly set aside her life for others. Yes, she struggles with esteem and fears, but she is also confident enough to venture out if the right opportunity came along. But she’s content to stay home, meet the needs of others.
At the story opening, Caroline doesn’t know God or that He has a plan for her. Yet she’s spent a lot of time talking to “whoever’s up there, if anyone.” One evening Jesus introduces Himself to her. While most of us meet Jesus through hearing and watching others, Jesus is able to touch our hearts in many non-traditional ways. I opted to show that with Caroline. It was fun.

Lovely Rachel is a multi-published author living in sunny central Florida with her husband, Tony, a pastor. They have two ornery pets. She is a graduate of Ohio State University and a huge Buckeyes football fan. Rachel is past President of American Christian Fiction Writers and now serves the organization as an Advisor and she's a LOT of fun to be around.Visit her blog and web site at http://www.rachelhauck.com/.

And hey, if you like stories with lots of romance threads, check out the The Christian Authors Network (CAN) online book club, You've Got Books. We've got an excerpt of Susan May Warren's Taming Rafe this week, which also earned 4½ stars from RT. Check it out.

One more hey: Anyone else watching the Jane Austen movies on Sundays on PBS? Mansfield Park was last night. Loved it, loved it . . .

My heart came away moved

Lisa McKay's My Hands Came Away Red was the first 2008 To Be Read title chosen from my enormous TBR stack, and I can tell you the bar has just been set pretty high.

This debut novel by a native Aussie now living in the US reads like it's real. You don't want it to be real - hands that are red from spilled blood horrify us - but McKay takes you and your five senses right there to the jungles of injustice and you travel the same road of fear and doubt that her young protagonist travels. It doesn't seem to matter that the narrator is a restless 17-year-old just out to take in a short term mission trip; there is no generation gap to bridge. It reads like the girl relating the story still has the stained hands to prove it all really happened. You don't have to be a teenager to appreciate what she and her companions went through. You only have to be human.

The premise of the book is this: A group of half a dozen teenagers - all with their own set of personal challenges - head to a remote Indonesian island on a short term mission trip. Within days of building a church, they watch in shock as it burns. Muslims and Christians alike have begun to kill each other in neighboring villages. A news team might've called it sectarian violence, though it was simply people killing people, young, old, male, female - it didn't matter - based on nothing more than ethnicity. The people in the village where the teens were staying were summarily slaughtered and the teens escaped into the jungle with a young native and his baby sister.

No one knows they are alive. No one knows where they are. No one can explain to them how Muslims from one village can take a machete to Christians in another village, nor how Christians from one village can slaughter Muslims in another. The story of the teenagers' survival is the story of seizing hope though it elude you like a golden Snitch.

I especially liked that McKay didn't end her story with the teenagers on a plane back to the States, safe and sound. Rescue doesn't always translate into all is normal again. Actually, it probably never does.

To say more might ruin it for you. It's a great read by a fresh, new voice. Highly recommended, Edglings. . .

Once upon a text screen

I don't text.

I have a cell phone and I use it to make phone calls but I don't use the text message feature and it's not because I don't know how. I just don't want to.

I have this thing about typing a message on itsy bitsy little keys when I can leave a voice mail and be done in nano seconds. Or just talk to the person. The tiny keys frustrate me. It takes too long. My voice is instantaneous. And I guess it might also be because I'm not in my teens or my 20s and I've not made the jump.

So imagine my disdain when I read that in Japan, people are writing novels on their cell phones and they are actually selling like hot cakes (do hotcakes really sell?) as soon as they are printed onto paper. According to this article in the San Diego Union Tribune, five of Japan's 10 bestselling novels in 2007 were originally written on cell phones. Cell phones. And get this, most were love stories written in short, choppy text-message lingo; a sub-language all its own which makes grammarians everywhere howl in pain whenever they see it.

But wait. There's more. Three of the 10 were written by first-time cell phone novelists during snatches of their free time. Those snatches of story, written without literary finesse, were uploaded, dumped onto paper,bound and sold on the street to readers all over Japan. One such story sold 400,000 copies. Nearly half a million books.

That makes me howl in pain.

Can you hear me now?

Truce and consequences

Okay, so I am not trying to make something overly insightful of the writer's strike and the awards ceremonies, 'cause truthfully, it really doesn't matter to me. (I feel like I need to say that upfront because I am about to post another comment about it and that usually suggests personal and impassioned interest.)

But here's the thing. The Golden Globes ceremony was axed because of the writer's strike but the Oscars will go on as planned no matter what happens between the writers and the people who pay them. I read it in today's paper. The show will go on, strike or no strike.

It's because the Oscars are big. Money-big. The writers will bow to tradition and call a one-night truce. They will lay down their signs, abandon the picket line and allow the Academy Awards ceremony to be brought to the masses in all its pomp, excess and, as at least one Edgling would say, cleavage.

Roll out the red carpet.

The next day, the writers will pick up their signs and be back at it. The one-day truce will dissolve and the war of wills shall resume.

This may sound really off the wall, but this whole scenario reminds me a tad of the famed Christmas Eve in the World War I trenches when soldiers on both sides of the battlefield began to sing Silent Night together, and then proceeded to lay down their weapons and wish each other well.

"Merry Christmas. I'm not going to kill you tonight. But I might tomorrow."

Is there really such a thing as a temporary truce? If you can find the courage and resolve to be fair, wise, and prudent at the time of your choosing, why can't you choose it every day? The war could've ended on that Christmas Eve if everyone had chosen to do the fair, wise and prudent thing on Dec. 25.

The comparison is not strong enough to stand at full view of course. In the trenches, both British and German soldiers laid down their agendas in the interest of peace. In the current situation, it appears only the writers are willing to sing Christmas carols.

It just seems kind of preposterous, lying down the picketing posters on Oscar Sunday only to pick them back up again on Ordinary Monday. As if neither day matters very much. The strike either matters or it doesn't. You can't eat fruitcake and drink schnapps with the guy on the other side of the battlefield on Tuesday and then point a gun at him on Wednesday.

I fear I'm stumbling around in a cafeteria of foggy thoughts. Time for bed. Sweet weekend dreams, everyone. . .

Time for some new carpet

I admit I am a little disappointed the writers' strike is still going on. And I am sad that there are writers who want to be writing but are not.

But I am also sad that my writing colleagues in the film industry currently earn less than a nickel on a DVD sale. It's incredible, really. The DVD you buy for $17? The writer gets something in the neighborhood of four cents. That's just not right. So I understand why they are on strike.

And yet I am itching for the impasse to pass. I'd like The Office to come back and I'd like a full season of Lost. And I would have watched the Golden Globes had the ceremony aired but I am not overly disappointed there was no red carpet yesterday. The awards were still given. Talent was still recognized; just with less fanfare.

But it appears there are some who were greatly distressed by what didn't take place last night. And it had nothing to do with writers and actors and directors. It had nothing to do with the art of filmmaking at all. It had to do with fashion. There was no runway show last night. No one was showing off their evening gowns or jewels or coiffures. There was no red carpet to woo us into thinking big award ceremonies are about clothes, not artistic talent.

I happened upon a countdown to the Golden Globes show where nameless commentators in ties and spaghetti straps tried to convince themselves and their audience that they were having a lovely, engaging time waiting for the press conference to start even though there were no celebs to chat with and no dresses to admire or ridicule. They kept saying "We're still having a good time here!" which makes you think they aren't. And which certainly makes you think the GG awards are really a front for a fashion show.

Actually, Hollywood news teams had a chance to delve deep into what makes a movie memorable, what turns words on a page into story, what compels us to care about characters who aren't real. But from what I saw, they just yakked about what makes an award ceremony boring. No stars. No gowns. No red carpet.

Well. Maybe it's time to nix the carpet, have next year's ceremony at Yellowstone and tell everyone to wears jeans and a sweatshirt.

But then I suppose it be all about who's wearing whose jeans. . . And what kind of SUV they drove to get there. . .

Wilson is alive and well

A hearty congrats to mindaykay09 for being the only brave soul to imagine a life for my bald man. You win a copy of Blue Heart Blessed, due out in February, and which, by the way, was just named to Romantic Times' February Top Picks, garnering 4½ stars. Yay! Makes me want to zip down to Donutland in a red Corvette and eat a jelly doughnut.

Hey, mindaykay09, just head over to my website, send me an email via the contact page with your snail mail and I'll make sure you get a copy of BHB when it comes out next month. Thanks for giving my bald man a cool name (Wilson is a GREAT name for an older guy who drives a sleek 'Vette) and a cool after-doughnuts life.

The photo above, by the way, is Capri in all its brilliant blueness. I've never been there but I saw it from a distance while on a bus on the Amalfi Highway. Now there's something to blog about. Surviving the Amalfi Highway. Anyone out there besides me ever been on it? It is beauty and danger twisted together in a weave so tight you can't tell which is which.

I had a birthday this week. I spent part of it buying books (always a treat) and part of it saying goodbye to a lovely great aunt who graced our planet for 97 years. She left us quietly and without fuss, just like she lived her life. One minute she was here and the next she wasn't. It was like turning a page.

That's the kind of exit I want. We don't get to choose, I know that. But if I could, that's what I would pick. A quiet farewell with no lingering, no tough decisions.

Life on the edge of the Amalfi Highway has an understandable wild appeal, but an easy death on a quiet stretch of long, unbroken horizon sounds pretty good, too.

Just in case anyOne is listening. . .

See you Monday

Messing up the morning routine

Every schoolday morning for the last five months my teenage son and I have had the same routine commute to his high school three miles from our house.

We get in the van, we ease down the hill and we snake our way into the crush of other folks making their way to the campus.

Everyday we've seen the same red Corvette parked in a tiny strip mall parking lot at the corner where we turn left. Every day we've seen a bald man in the doughnut shop wearing a leather jacket, reading the newspaper and holding his cup of coffee while it rests on the table. He always sits by the window. He always wears the black leather jacket. He always has a cup of coffee and a doughnut. We know that red Corvette is his. We just do.

It's become our habit to turn our heads to the right as we make our way into the left turn lane. We don't know his name or anything about him other than he likes red sports cars, doughnuts and the Union Tribune. My son says he's old. I say he's in his late 50s , early 60s. My son says that's old.

It's comforting to see this man every morning. Seeing him there with his coffee and glazed doughnut lets us know all is right with the world and, if nothing else, seeing him assures us we aren't running late.

But he stopped coming a few days before Christmas vacation. We'd get to the intersection and no red Corvette. No bald man at the table by the window. Yikes. The cosmos shuddered. I decided that he went away for the holidays with his wife Renata. They flew to the island of Capri and had Christmas at a seaside resort and toasted the New Year with limoncello.

But hey. It's January 7. School started up today. No Corvette. No bald man. The table by the window is empty.

It's driving me crazy.

My pessimistic side says he had emergency bypass due to eating far too many doughnuts and now Renata and his doctor have forbidden him to come to DonutLand and so he spends his mornings eating dry toast.

My optimistic side says he and Renata loved Capri. They loved it so much they couldn't leave it. And now the bald man's brother is driving his red Corvette and hoping the bald brother stays in Italy a long, long time.

I like the the second story better.

I've got an idea. Send me your thoughts on where my bald man went. Give him a name and a reason for messing up my mornings. You have until midnight Thursday to post your entry. Winner (chosen by my teenage son) will get a free copy of my upcoming release, "Blue Heart Blessed," coming your way in Feb.

Let's hear 'em!

From desert floor to snowy peaks

Just three pictures for you today.

One from the sandy bottom at Palm Springs, another from the swinging cables as our gondola trekked up San Jacinto, and another from its snowy white top.

The ride to 8,500 feet took only 10 minutes. Maybe less than that.

I haven't seen a sunset that beautiful in I don't know how long.

None of us wanted it to end.

But the lovely thing about the sun is that it always comes back the next day.

Fancy that.

One last parting shot

I promised to end the year with sharing my top read for 2007 and here it is: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

A Thousand Splendid Suns was a close second, and The Glass Castle, only a breath away from that, but in the end, and when I weigh everything, The Thirteenth Tale comes out on top. There wasn't another read like it for me in 2007. I was thoroughly surprised at the ending, mesmerized by the use of setting as character and wooed by the Gothic mystery threads.

It's a bit of a ghost story, a mystery, a journey into the world of a family gone off-center, their crumbling house, a legion of half-truths, and exposure to the curious uber-fraternal bond that only twins know.

A little dark at times (okay - fairly dark at times), nevertheless the Setterfield is an expert storyteller and her voice reminds me of Austen and Dickens. I highly recommend it.

And now as we push off into 2008, here's what is waiting for me on the top of my To Be Read stack:

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama. I loved The Samurai's Garden by this same author. From the synopsis on the Barnes and Noble site: "In Women of the Silk Gail Tsukiyama takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own. Tsukiyama's graceful prose weaves the details of "the silk work" and Chinese village life into a story of courage and strength."

Quaker Summer by Lisa Samson. I've loved everything I've read by the talented Lisa Samson. She is a wonderfully gifted story teller. I can't believe I let 2007 go by without reading this one; everyone I know who has read it, has been floored by the outpouring of talent within the pages. Publishers Weekly says: "One of the most powerful voices in Christian fiction, Samson delivers what seems, on the surface, to be just another Christian women's novel, but in reality is a staggering examination of the Christian conscience." Sounds pretty good to me.

My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay: Okay, so it's probably not going to be light reading. But I've never shied away from books that take me to uncomfortable places if the prose is as beautiful as the subject matter is painful. I've heard really good things about this debut novel. Publishers Weekly had this to say: "The external hardships the characters face on their trek are secondary to the internal struggles they battle over how a loving God could let terrible things happen; and why their sacrificial choice to give up a summer to help others would cost them more than they ever dreamed. While written from a Christian perspective, McKay gives an evenhanded treatment to Muslims, showing that violence and hatred transcend religious boundaries. This is one of Christian fiction's best novels of the year."

Wow! I gotta read it.

So. The 2008 race to read as many books as I can squish into my cramped free time has begun! What's in your wallet? I mean, What's on your TBR stack?