Cover Reveal: Too Old for Christmas by Zina Abbott

I am honored to host a cover reveal for Too Old for Christmas, a novella, by Zina Abbott. This is the first book in the Too Old in Columbia Series.

Book Description:

Irishman Sean Flood survived the potato famine, crossing the Atlantic, the Mexican-American War, and wandering the Western wilderness with his mules and freight wagon. But, due to poor diet and deprivation, his teeth did not fare well. It’s November of 1854 in Columbia, California, Queen of the Southern Mines, a city Sean is helping to rebuild after the disastrous fire the previous summer. Intense stabbing tooth pain drives him to see Doc Massey, the local dentist. He first stops by the mercantile to pick up a bottle of whiskey—for medicinal purposes—and food­­­­ he’ll be able to eat when it’s all over. If only the beautiful but aggravating woman ahead of him who keeps her face half hidden and insists she won’t accept charity would finish up with her purchase so he can get his supplies, his tooth pulled and return home to his mules and half-built cabin….

That night, Sean meets the woman’s two sons, Jesse and Benjy McNair, and learns her secret. He decides with only three teeth left in his head, he needs widow Ona McNair’s charity—and he’s willing to pay for it. Sean won’t accept nine year-old Jesse’s declaration his family’s poverty means the boy is too old for Christmas that year. Sean is a full-grown man and he’s not too old for Christmas. He not only plans to come bearing gifts to Christmas Eve dinner with the McNairs, but he knows exactly what gift he wants for himself.  

*Sweet Romance

To stay updated on the blog tour and Facebook event, stop by and visit Zina Abbott's blog and sign up to follow by email or RSS reader by clicking HERE. Blog tour participants are listed in the right sidebar.

AUTHOR LINKS:

WEBSITE  |  BLOG  |  FACEBOOK  |  PINTEREST  |  TWITTER

GOODREADS   |  AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

New Release and Review: Christmas Grace, Signing Seeds by Lynn Donovan

Grace Avery's husband was her rock, the foundation to her faith and her life. Now a young, grieving widow, she longs to have his baby, but artificial insemination fails her again and again. How far will she go to have his baby? She cries out to God, but He isn't listening. When the Worship Team Leader asks her to come back and bless the congregation with her gift of sign language during the Christmas Eve Program, her stifling grief holds her back. Can sharing her gift be the seed needed to reap the harvest she so desperately wants? Is God's grace sufficient? Is there Christmas Grace?
Published by Astraea Press Cover by Cora Graphics 




About this author:  Lynn Donovan spends her days chasing after her muses, trying to get them to settle down and behave long enough to dictate their words and actions. The results have produced The Clockwork Dragon, a collection of nine short stories in which she wrote half (4.5 stories), The Wishing Well Curse, and Thorns of Betrayal, Rocking Horse Shadows, and Christmas Grace, Signing Seeds. A speculative fiction called Fertility Pirates is hovering out there somewhere. Lynn enjoys reading and writing Christian fiction, paranormal, and speculative fiction. But you never know what her muses will come up with for a story, so you could see a novel under any given genre. All we can tell you is keep your eyes open, cause these muses are not sitting still for long! Oops, there they go again…

****

My thoughts: 

Christmas Grace, Signing Seeds is a gentle story about a widow’s journey in coming to terms with her husband’s death. Grace and Chris had planned to have children and raise them together, but God has other plans. Just as Grace is ready to slow concentrate less on her career and more on her husband’s wish to have a child, he is taken from her. She is overcome with grief, but her mother and sister are there to support her, as well as the people in her church.

It seemed that much of the first half of the story is told through inner dialogue, even though it’s written in third person. The action picks up more in the second half, when Faith and Liz, Grace’s sister and mother, begin to help her dig her way out of the crippling grief. She finds her support group is even wider when she goes back to the church where she and Chris worshipped.

The happily-ever-after was definitely not what I expected, although it’s a nice pleasant one. Grace learns to trust in God’s timing and His plan for her life, and when she does that, everything else falls into place. It’s a great reminder.

Christmas Grace can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes andNoble, and other ebook outlets.