Fay Risner's Blog, page 9
June 14, 2017
Joyful Wisdom – Nurse Hal Among The Amish book 10
When I started writing about Hallie Lindstrom Lapp, she was a single woman working as a home health nurse in a fictional southern Iowa town. After the first book was published, A Promise Is A Promise, I heard from readers who wanted to read more about Nurse Hal and her family.
Over the last nine books, Hallie Lapp’s step children have grown up, and she has two little ones of her own at home and one adopted child, Beth.
The stories expanded from the life of Hallie Lapp to her step-daughter Emma Lapp Keim and now to step-son Daniel Lapp. It’s been fun for me to be a part of the Lapp family’s lives. As long as I can come up with ideas, I’ll continue to write Nurse Hal stories. As involved as I’ve gotten with this family, I think I would miss their stories as much as you readers would.
When I found this Bible verse I thought it went along with Joy’s story and a hard decision she had to make.
“She speaks with wisdom and faithful instructions is on her tongue.”
Proverbs 31:26
You will see what I mean when you read this book. I hope you enjoy reading about Daniel Lapp and Joy Petermeyer as much as I enjoyed writing about them.
Synopsis for Joyful Wisdom book in Nurse Hal Among The Amish series
Hallie Lapp’s parents, Jim and Nora Lindstrom, decide to uproot themselves from northern Iowa after they retire. They move to southern Iowa to live near their daughter and her Amish family. Aunt Tootie comes along and moves into the grandfather house on the property. While the Lindstroms adjust to living in an Amish community, they get news that Nora and Tootie’s nephew and his wife have been killed in a car crash. Surviving them is a fourteen-year-old daughter who will be put in foster care if they don’t take her in. Tootie is against having a teenager underfoot, but the Lindstroms think it’s their duty to raise their great-niece. They find her to be an enthusiastic bundle of energy named Joy. The Lindstroms take to her instantly, but Joy clashes with Tootie, a woman set in her ways. To start with, Joy brought her parents with her in an urn. Tootie thinks that is in poor taste and demands Nora tell the girl to bury the urn. Hallie Lapp’s stepson, Daniel Lapp, becomes good friends with Joy and helps her clear off a small cemetery they discovered at the back of the property. Tootie complains Joy has too much freedom and needs more constructive activities. She warns Nora that Daniel and Joy are becoming more than friends, but Nora doesn’t want to listen. As the Amish would say, she hadn’t seen a match strike between Daniel and Joy yet. They all agree Joy keeps life interesting, from bringing home a baby skunk to picking wild flowers and ragweeds as a gift for Tootie that gives her a dangerous allergic reaction. Join the Lindstrom family and find out more. I’ve only told you part of what happens in Joyful Wisdom.
Paperback found on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Joyful-Wisdom-Nurse-Among-Amish/dp/1544838344/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497467404&sr=1-11&keywords=Joyful+Wisdom
http://www.smashwords. Com ebook https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/713014
Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/joyful-wisdom-fay-risner/1126034719?ean=9781544838342
Enjoy your summer reading,
Fay Risner
June 13, 2017
The Wild Critters Are Back
As the days have gotten longer, I keep watching the clock, waiting for the time to shut the chicken house door. Around 9:10 p.m. last night, the chickens had gone to roost, but an older movie I wanted to see had just started. It was a Barry VanDyke romance titled Foxfire Light shot in the Ozarks near Springfield, Mo. I decided to wait until the commercial five minutes later. That’s when I hustled outside at dusk. The yard light was on, but it wasn’t quite dark enough for me to take a flashlight. Although, the hen house was dark.
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Niece Katie opening the hen house door so the chickens could enjoy their free range freedom.
When I heard a hen squawk and wings flapping, I thought it was two hens in an argument. They have helped me understand the meaning of hen pecked lately. One hen took a dislike to another. She stands in the doorway and pecks the last hen wanting to enter. After I make several trips around the hen house one way then the other, I finally convince the dominating hen to back off and let the hen pecked hen into the building. I didn’t have time for that last night. Commercials are long only when I’m watching them. The minutes were ticking away. I picked up my speed to get to the hen house before the hens came out. I could have been wrong. It could have been the two roosters. I broke up two cock fights this last week. Maybe it’s the hot weather making the chickens disagreeable but not last night. I was almost to the chicken pen when a hen flew out of the hen house and right behind her leaped a large raccoon. She squeezed through the cattle panel fence. The coon squeezed through. The hen made a good impersonation of a road runner as the coon chased her, a tail feather length behind across the barn yard. I started screaming quit that and get out of here while I clapped my hands. I fully expected the neighbors to come check on me. The goats bolted out of the barn and came to me. The racing hen saw the the group of us as safety in numbers. She veered our way. The coon looked after her as he slowed slightly. His meal was getting away. He noticed my gyrated fit and decided the five feet three inch, squawking chicken with the flapping wings was too big to drag off. He picked up speed again, went through a gate and disappeared behind the barn in high grass. I’m sure he’s thinking there will always be another night and soon. Meanwhile, I’m thinking if I’d been a few minutes sooner and was standing in front of the hen house, that coon might not have been so fussy about my size when he bolted out the open door.
June 12, 2017
Katrina’s Gift – A historical story
My latest book, a novella, is in print now. My idea for this book was a short story I wrote for a contest several years ago when the contest theme was vampires and supernatural stories. I expanded the short story into a novella. I happened to see a friend post two pictures of a rainbow last year near her home in Northern Iowa and realized I could use those pictures for my cover. Katrina sees a rainbow aura before she has a vision. The rainbows were ideal. Thanks so much to my friend for giving me permission to use the pictures.
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Front Cover of the book
Synopsis
Katrina Sibowski has inherited a gift from her grandmother she doesn’t want or understand. Gift is what her grandmother, Libby Sibowski, calls the women in the Sibowski family’s ability to have second sight. This revelation catches Katrina by complete surprise. Her mother, Vencil, is uneasy around her mother-in-law because of her powers. She knew there was a fifty-fifty chance Katrina might inherit second sight, but she didn’t warn her daughter. Katrina’s grandmother is the granny woman healer for the neighborhood. The closest thing to a doctor. She doesn’t talk about her gift and very few people have witnessed her have visions. They see that as a witch’s curse. When Libby Sibowski realizes thirteen-year-old Katrina now has dream visions, Libby wants to train Katrina to become the next healer to take her place, but Libby warns Katrina to be careful not to talk about her second sight so no one outside of the family knows about Katrina’s Gift.
Paperback book can be found at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Katrinas-Gift-Fay-Risner/dp/1547278749/ref=sr_1_4_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497306589&sr=1-4&keywords=Katrina%27s+Gift
Kindle has the ebook at https://www.amazon.com/Katrinas-Gift-Fay-Risner-ebook/dp/B07218C9C5/ref=sr_1_2_twi_kin_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497105551&sr=1-2&keywords=Katrina%27s+Gift
smashwords.com has the ebook at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/729166
Enjoy reading my books and those of other authors when you’re on a relaxing vacation.
Fay Risner
April 5, 2017
Read Series Books in Order
I just finished a book by a well known Amish book author. Since I write an Amish series I don’t usually read many other books about the Amish. This one happened to be in a bunch I bought at a library book sale last summer. I found the book a good read and know the author is well educated to all things Amish. As I read pages jumping between three couples and two families with problems and back to the first couple to continue their problem and then on to the next couple and so on, I had trouble keeping up with each story. It occurred to me I hadn’t been a follower of the series from the beginning. If I had been more familiar with the characters it might have helped me keep up with the story lines in this book.
I’ve been told by readers that they found they should have read the Nurse Hal books in order after buying one of the later books in the series, and now I understand more clearly why. So with that in mind I thought it might be a good idea to remind readers that the latest Nurse Hal Among the Amish series book titled Joyful Wisdom is number ten in the series.
Number one is A Promise Is A Promise. Nurse Hal is assigned an Amish farmer as a patient. He is a widower with three children. Hal grows attached to the children and their father, but she realizes something happened in the family’s past that makes them afraid to let Hal stay in their lives. Finally, John confides in Hal.
Number two – A Rainbow’s End – An Englisher joining an Amish church is rare. If Hal is to marry John she has to prove she will be a devout Amish that obeys all the rules. One way to help the bishop and preachers decide in her favor is to build her a medical clinic on the side of John Lapp’s house so she can treat the Amish community which makes her a much needed asset.
Number three- Hal’s Worldly Temptations – After she marries John, Hal stalls about giving up her car and cell phone. The bishop tells John he will be in trouble along with Hal if she doesn’t obey the Ordnung. Hal talks John into letting her drive the family to The Old Thrasher’s Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and gets caught by Stella Strutt, an Old Order Amish woman who doesn’t like Hal. The church members have to vote on whether to let Hal stay Amish.
Number four – As Her Name Is So Is Redbird – Nurse Hal has her first baby, a girl John nicknamed Redbird, at the clinic that is considered a birthing clinic as well as medical. After one of her medical visits, Hal find a newborn baby in her buggy. An Amish compound ran by a overbearing man is scaring the community, trying to make them join his compound. He finds he has lost the mother and her baby and is searching the neighborhood, terrorizing people.
Number five – Emma’s Gossamer Dreams – John Lapp’s daughter is dating age and considered a very good catch for Amish bachelors. She has been taking care of the Lapp household for sometime before Nurse Hal joined the family. As the different young men date Emma, she becomes more confused about which one she’d pick. She becomes so troubled she has dreams about the men. When Emma is asked to become the school teacher she decides to accept.
Number six -The Courting Buggy – We are introduced to Hal’s parents and her Aunt Tootie. Hal’s father buys a buggy and horse, and the buggy just happens to be a courting buggy. Hal is extremely nervous about Aunt Tootie making a mistake that will offend someone Amish. When an elderly man takes a liking to Tootie, he takes her for a ride in lover’s lane along Bender Creek in Jim’s courting buggy. That was not a good idea.
Number seven -Doubting Thomas – This book is Emma’s romance and possible marriage. She was so busy planning her wedding she didn’t notice for a while the groom had been absent. Once she thought about it, she began to have doubts about him marrying her. He hired a pretty girl as sales clerk in his shop. So maybe he liked the sales clerk better than her.
Number eight – Amish Country Arson – When several fires are set in the Amish community no one wants to believe it is one of their own. Join the community as they try to figure out who the Arsonist was.
Number nine – Second Hand Goods – A man is attacking young girls in Wickenburg and the surrounding area. Second Hand Goods refers to a young woman expecting a baby before she is married.
Number ten – Joyful Wisdom – Hal’s parents and Aunt Tootie have retired and moved to an acreage near Hal’s farm. Jim and Nora take in a great niece that enjoys the friendship of Hal’s stepson Daniel which is not to Stella Strutt’s liking.
Now you have a very condensed synopsis of each book. At one time, I was writing just about the Lapp family and as the children grew up I’ve had to expand the books to include different people. If you have come across one of my books, you can easily find the rest of the series in the same place in paperback and ebook form.
Enjoy
Fay Risner
March 24, 2017
Joyful Wisdom Nurse Hal Among The Amish Book Ten
Book number fifty is number ten in the Nurse Hal Among The Amish series. It has been published in German and will soon be in Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and French in Amazon paperback and Kindle ebook.
Synopsis for Joyful Wisdom
Hallie Lapp’s parents, Jim and Nora Lindstrom, decide to uproot themselves from northern Iowa after they retire. They move to southern Iowa to live near their daughter, and her Amish family. Aunt Tootie comes along and move into the grandfather house on the property. While the Lindstroms adjust to living in an Amish community, they get news that Nora and Tootie’s nephew and his wife have been killed in a car crash. Surviving them is a fourteen year old daughter that will be put in foster care if they don’t take her in. Tootie is against having a teenager under foot, but the Lindstroms think it’s their duty to raise their great-niece. They find her to be an enthusiastic, bundle of energy named Joy. The Lindstroms take to her instantly, but Joy clashes with Tootie, a woman set in her ways. To start with, Joy brought her parents with her in an urn. Tootie thinks that is in poor taste and demands Nora tell the girl to bury the urn. Hallie Lapp’s stepson, Daniel Lapp, becomes good friends with Joy and helps her clean off a small cemetery they discovered at the back of the property, Tootie complains Joy has too much freedom and needs more constructive activities. She warns Nora that Daniel and Joy are becoming more than friends, but the Nora doesn’t want to listen. As the Amish would say, she hadn’t seen a match strike between Daniel and Joy yet. They all agree Joy keeps life interesting from bringing home a baby skunk to picking wild flowers and ragweeds as a gift for Tootie that gives her a dangerous allergic reaction. Join the Lindstrom family and find out more. I’ve only told you part of what happens in Joyful Wisdom.
When I started writing about Hallie Lindstrom Lapp, she was a single woman working as a home health nurse in a fictional southern Iowa town. She falls in love and marries one of her patients – Amish farmer John Lapp who is the father of three children. After the first book was published, A Promise Is A Promise, I heard from readers who wanted to read more about Nurse Hal and her Amish family.
Over the last nine books, Hallie Lapp’s step-children have grown up, and she has two little ones of her own at home and one adopted child, Beth. Pets and named farm animals have come and gone. In this latest book, Joy finds and raises a baby skunk she named Sweet Pea.
The stories expanded from the life of Hallie Lapp to her step-daughter Emma Lapp Keim and now to step-son Daniel Lapp. It’s been fun for me to be a part of the Lapp family’s lives. As long as I can come up with ideas, I’ll continue to write Nurse Hal stories. As involved as I’ve gotten with this family, I think I would miss their stories as much as you readers would.
When I found this Bible verse I thought it went along with Joy’s story and a hard decision she had to make.
“She speaks with wisdom and faithful instructions is on her tongue.”
Proverbs 31:26
You will see what I mean when you read this book. I hope you enjoy reading about Daniel Lapp and Joy Petermeyer as much as I enjoyed writing about them.
Thanks so much for being a fan of my Nurse Hal books.
Enjoy,
Fay Risner
Links to buy the book and ebook.
Amazon for paperback book
Kindle
Barnes and Noble for paperback and nook ereader
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/joyful-wisdom-fay-risner/1126034719?ean=9781544838342
http/www.smashwords.com ereader
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/713014
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