Ane Mulligan's Laugh Out Loud Debut Novel Is a Hit - Chapel Springs Revival Rocks!

To win a copy of Ane Mulligan's Chapel Hill Revival, be sure to leave a comment below for Ane with your contact information and if you prefer a print copy of the book or an ebook. NOTE: PRINT COPY FOR U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY.



Okay, since Ane Mulligan is one of my best friends you may think I am pushing her debut novel because I love her so much. But, even if I didn't know Ane at all, I would still say Chapel Springs Revival is a must read.

I'm tickled to have her as my guest on my blog today and be part of her blog tour. So let's get started!

Ane, did you always know you would be a writer?

No way did I ever think the stories I told as a kid (back then they called it lying) and played out for weeks with my dolls, would someday become books. I cut my authorial teeth as a playwright.

I was Creative Arts director for my church and wrote my first script in 1996. After we performed it, I was encouraged to send it to a publisher. I did and they bought that one and everything I sent them afterwards.

How did you start writing novels?

The hubs said I spent so much on books I ought to write one. I realized that was God's call, because as soon as Hubs said those words, an idea dropped into my otherwise empty mind.

Plays are a far cry from novels. How did you learn?

First, I found an online Christian critique group and a few mentors, who told me plainly I had a lot to learn. What an understatement. POV? Never heard the term. Omniscient? That's what God was. Show don't tell? How do I tell a story without telling?

Yikes! Yet, with each critique, I absorbed a new concept. I bought every writing craft book they recommended, read them, and absorbed more.

What’s one of the most important things you’ve learned about writing fiction?

Absolutely the top thing I’ve learned is motivation is the key to plotting and real characters. Make the motivation right and readers will relate to your characters and will follow them through anything.

Writing is a sedentary occupation. What do you do for exercise?

I have a walking route I like. It starts at the coffee pot, goes through the refrigerator and past the chocolate cupboard before ending up at my writing chair. What do you mean that doesn't count? Okay, I go to the gym three times a week with a good friend who feeds me story fodder.

So, tell my readers 3 fun things they might not know about you.

I sing in a community choir of 130 senior citizens. Hubs is the senior, I’m not. I’m still 35. Hey, I took that online Real Age test and I’m 35...perpetually.

I once wrote humorous advertising poems for a commercial roofer.

I sat in Maggie Thatcher's seat in the House of Commons dining room in London while the luncheon guest of Lord Graham.

Wow, I don't know about you, but I'm impressed. Not everyone gets to sit in Maggie Thatcher's seat!

Here's a blurb about the story to whet your appitite!

Chapel Springs Revival

With a friend like Claire, you need a gurney, a mop, and a guardian angel.

Everybody in the small town of Chapel Springs, Georgia, knows best friends Claire and Patsy. It's impossible not to, what with Claire's zany antics and Patsy's self-appointed mission to keep her friend out of trouble. And trouble abounds. Chapel Springs has grown dilapidated and the tourist trade has slackened. With their livelihoods threatened, they join forces to revitalize the town. No one could have guessed the real issue needing restoration is their marriages.

With their personal lives in as much disarray as the town, Claire and Patsy embark on a mission of mishaps and miscommunication, determined to restore warmth to Chapel Springs —and their lives. That is if they can convince their husbands and the town council, led by two curmudgeons who would prefer to see Chapel Springs left in the fifties and closed to traffic.

About Ane:

While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, Ane has worn many different ones: hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that's a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction (try saying that three times fast). She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. President of the award-winning literary site, Novel Rocket, Ane resides in Suwanee, GA, with her artist husband, her chef son, and two dogs of Biblical proportion. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried Fiction website, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Don't forget to leave a comment to win a copy of Chapel Hill Revival! See details at the beginning of this post. 

Author Gina Holmes Has Done It Again With Driftwood Tides! A CFBA Blog Tour.

One of my auto-buy authors is Gina Holmes. Her debut novel, Crossing Oceans, blew me away. I knew immediately she was an author that would be around a long while. That story still resonates with me. Then came Dry as Rain, followed by Wings of Glass. Each story as different as the one preceding it, and each one pulls the reader in until you don't want to put the book down until you've read the last page. Holmes can turn a phrase, saying ordinary things in a new and fresh way. As an author, I always say I want to be like Gina when I grow up.

Gina's new novel, Driftwood Tides, releases this month...in fact it's releasing right now! Like her other stories, this one is totally different from the others. But the one thing they have in common is the way Holmes touches deep in her characters' hearts and pulls out the very thing that has been driving them. Issues that many of us face are written into her stories. Each one says much about God's redemption without preaching it.

Here's the blurb on Driftwood Tides: He made himself an island until something unexpected washed ashore. When Holton lost his wife, Adele, in a freak accident, he shut himself off from the world, living a life of seclusion, making driftwood sculptures and drowning his pain in gin. Until twenty-three-year-old Libby knocks on his door, asking for a job and claiming to be a friend of his late wife. When he discovers Libby is actually his late wife’s illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption without his knowledge, his life is turned upside down as he struggles to accept that the wife he’d given saint status to was not the woman he thought he knew. 

Together Holton and Libby form an unlikely bond as the two struggle to learn the identity of Libby’s father and the truth about Adele, themselves, and each other. 

If you would like to read the first chapter of Driftwood Tides, go HERE. To learn more about Gina Holmes you can go to her Website 

To purchase Driftwood Tides you can buy it at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1414366426 


Note: I received a complementary copy of Driftwood Tides from the publisher for the purpose of an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Gina Holmes is the founder of Novel Rocket, regularly named as one of Writers Digest’s best websites for writers. Her debut novel, 

Crossing Oceans, was a Christy and Gold Medallion finalist and winner of the Carol Award, INSPY, and RWA’s Inspirational Reader’s Choice, as well as being a CBA, ECPA, Amazon and PW bestseller. Her sophomore novel, Dry as Rain was a Christy Award finalist. Her latest novel, Wings of Glass has been named as one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and was a SIBA Okra pick and a finalist for Romantic Times’ Reviewers Choice Award. She holds degrees in science and nursing and currently resides with her family in southern Virginia. She works too hard, laughs too loud, and longs to see others heal from their past and discover their God-given purpose.