When you live a lie for so long, it becomes a part of you. Like clothing first rough and scratchy, it eventually wears down, thins out. Sinks into your skin. ----------- Thirty-four-year-old Delanie Miller has fled her dark past and is now settled into a quiet life in small-town Kentucky. She has friends, a faux "family" who lives in her house, and a loving boyfriend who may soon ask her to marry him. Her aching dream of a husband and future children are about to come true. But protecting this life of promise means keeping a low profile and guarding the truth of her past-from everyone. The...

If you had to choose between protecting all you hold dear in your own life or saving an innocent person from going to prison what would you do? Thirty-four-year-old Delanie Miller has fled her dark past and is now settled into a quiet life in small-town Redbud, Kentucky. She has friends, a faux family who lives in her house, and a loving boyfriend who may soon ask her to marry him. Her aching dream of a husband and future children are about to come true. But protecting this life of promise means keeping a low profile and guarding the truth of her past from everyone. The town's peace is...

With his last breath, a dying man whispered four stunning words into Shaley O'Connor's ear. Shaley is reeling after two murders on the Rayne concert tour. But she has no time to rest. If the dying man's claim is right, the danger is far from over. Shaley's quest for the truth leads to the mysterious and wrenching past of her mother and father. Could what happened to them so many years ago threaten Shaley's life now?

Dearing Family Series Book 2 The wedding for Ben Dearing and Christina Day is planned to be picture perfect, and the boisterous family has gathered for the big event. What could possibly go wrong? Christina's estranged mother, that's what. The alcoholic, abusive mother who wasn't invited. Two days before the ceremony Edna Day crashes the bridal shower and insists she's staying in town for the ceremony. What's Christina to do? After her abusive childhood, standing up to her parent calls for strength she's not sure she possesses. Besides, if she tells her mother to leave, the woman could get...

Amaryllis, Mississippi is a scrappy little town of strong backbone and southern hospitality. A brick-paved Main Street, a park, and a legendary ghost in the local cemetery are all part of its heritage. Everybody knows everybody in Amaryllis, and gossip wafts on the breeze. Its people are friendly, its families tight. On the surface Amaryllis seems much like the bright and lovely flower for which it's named. But the Amaryllis flower is poisonous. In the past three years five unsolved murders have occurred within the town. All the victims were women, and all were killed in similar fashion in...

Bradleyville Series Book 2 ---------- "As a chalk-fingered child, I had worn my craving for Mama's love on my sleeve. But as I grew, that craving became cloaked in excuses and denial until slowly it sank beneath my skin to lie unheeded but vital, like the sinews of my framework. By the time I was a teenager, I thought the gap between Mama and me could not be wider. And than Danny came along ..." ---------- A splendidly colored sidewalk. Six-year-old Celia presented the gift to her mother with pride-and received only anger in return. Why couldn't Mama love her? Years later, when...

Bradleyville Series Book 1 ---------- "A course-changing event in one's life can happen in minutes. Or it can form slowly, a primitive webbing splaying into fingers of discontent, a minuscule trail hardening into the sinewed spine of resentment. So it was with the mill workers as the heat-soaked days of summer marched on..." ---------- City girl Jessie, orphaned at sixteen, struggles to adjust to life with her barely known aunt and uncle in the tiny town of Bradleyville, Kentucky. Eight years later (1968) she plans on leaving-to following in her revered mother's footsteps of serving the...

Bradleyville Series Book 3 ---------- One thing I have learned. The bonfires of change start with the merest spark. Sometimes we see that flicker. Sometimes we blink in surprise at the flame only after it has marched hot legs upward to fully ignite. Either way, flicker or flame, we'd better do some serious praying. When God's on the move in our lives, He tends to burn up things we'd just as soon keep. ---------- After her mama's death, sixteen-year-old Jackie Delham is left to run the household for her daddy and two younger siblings. When Katherine King breezes into town and tries to steal...

EDITION 2: Revised with some new material gathered through 13 years of teaching these concepts at writers conferences. ------------- Want to bring characters to life on the page as vividly as fine actors do on the stage or screen? Getting Into Character will give you a whole new way of thinking about your writing. Drawing on the Method Acting theory that theater professionals have used for decades, this in-depth guide explains seven characterization techniques and adapts them for the novelist's use. You'll discover concepts that will lead you to understand and communicate the motivation and...