Ellen Gable's Blog, page 79

7 Quick Takes Friday – A Subtle Grace Edition

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday!

Today’s edition? Everything you ever wanted to know about my upcoming novel, A Subtle Grace.

1. Final Cover Finished

James worked hard on finishing the cover. One of the things he changed was the floor (he turned the modern looking carpet into an old-fashioned hardwood floor). Well done!

2. Synopsis

1896 (Philadelphia)

In this sequel to In Name Only (FQP, 2009), A Subtle Grace continues the story of the wealthy and unconventional O’Donovan Family as they approach the dawn of a new century.

When Kathleen (oldest daughter) meets the handsome and charming son of the local police chief, she is convinced that he is the sweetheart for whom she has been waiting. Unforeseen events soon reveal the answer. William (oldest son) believes that God may be calling him to a religious vocation. When he discovers the circumstances of his humble beginnings, his belief turns to doubt and eventually he embarks on a pilgrimage to Rome. Dr. Luke Peterson is the kind, caring – and somewhat nontraditional – new physician in town. His enduring love of a local woman leads him to startling revelations: about the girl, about his practice and, most importantly, about himself.

3. Excerpt!!!

Check out yesterday’s post to read a long excerpt from the beginning of the novel.

4. Villain

One of the big differences between this book and In Name Only is a villain. In Name Only didn’t really have a villain (although some might argue that David and Liam’s father was a villain). A Subtle Grace most definitely has an antagonist.

5. Less Death

Okay, so I do listen to readers. One of the biggest complaints about In Name Only is that there were too many deaths. However, in my defense, I was going for realism and death was an every-day part of life in the 19th century. A Subtle Grace does contain deaths, but not nearly as many as In Name Only and I think readers will be pleased.

6. Mature Themes

Like In Name Only, this novel deals with mature themes. Target audience is age 16 and above. A Subtle Grace deals with the following situations: attempted rape, obsession, stalking, fornication, prostitution. First and foremost, though, it is a love story.

7. Book Three

There will be a third (and final) book in this series and the outline is currently being developed. I hope it doesn’t take another five years, though.

Copyright 2013 Ellen Gable Hrkach

A Subtle Grace Excerpt

A Subtle Grace, the soon-to-be released sequel to , is moving along in the editing process. The final cover image is completed. The copy-editor, proofreaders, medical expert, spiritual director and gun experts will be helping me with this manuscript in the coming weeks.

The following is an excerpt from the beginning of the novel. To read a synopsis, click here.

I just witnessed another human being coming into the world.

Kathleen’s head sunk deeply into her feather pillow as she stared upward. Her oil lamp, as always, was dimly lit and projected a small yellow circle onto the ceiling. Kathleen had always despised the blackness that surrounded her at night. Keeping the lamp aglow meant that she never had to endure the black night. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt safer when there was light, even a flicker.

She tossed back and forth as sleep eluded her. How could she possibly rest — or sleep — after what she had just experienced? And would she see other births at nursing school?

While she looked forward to college, she wished that her non-marital state hadn’t necessitated her making a decision to attend post-secondary school. She would have been happy to be married at this age, but thus far, no eligible bachelor — at least one with whom Kathleen approved — had shown serious interest.

The clock downstairs struck quarter past three. Her brothers hadn’t wakened during the night – Mama had kept fairly quiet during the birthing – but in the morning, they would all be excited to discover they had a new sibling.

For the moment, Kathleen thought of her own vocation, of which she was certain was marriage and motherhood. At 19, her “coming out” reception early last year was a tremendous success. Two of her friends from high school, Margaret and Anne, had already married. Kathleen was beginning to think she might become a spinster or, heaven forbid, an “old maid.” Therefore, it was essential to meet her future husband immediately. Of course, after seeing firsthand what her mother just went through, Kathleen questioned whether she would have the high endurance for pain her mother obviously possessed.

Turning up the gas lamp, she got out of bed and sat at her desk. She reached deep inside the top drawer for her journal.

At the front, she kept the tintype portrait of her mother and her “real” father, Papa’s brother, Liam, at his wedding to her mother. Mama had given her the photo when she was 12, explaining that her first husband had died and that she had married his brother. Over the years, she had learned that Liam was a fine, godly man who had died in a carriage accident before Kathleen was born. Staring at his face, she concluded that he was a handsome man with light hair, which Kathleen obviously had inherited from him. When she was a toddler, her blonde hair was so light, it was almost white. Now, of course, her hair was a darker blonde.

She pulled out a small holy card with a picture of St. Agnes holding a lamb.

St. Agnes, where is my sweetheart? Please send him to me soon!

St. Agnes, patron and martyr, had become Kathleen’s favorite saint a few years previous. In the fourth century, Agnes’ virginity was preserved despite the young girl being stripped naked and taken to a brothel to be violated by a group of men after she turned down one man’s proposal of marriage. The saint was saved when most of the men could not go through with the heinous act. The man who wanted to forcibly marry her was struck blind. She was eventually martyred.

Kathleen paged through the earlier entries until she came to January 20th of last year, on the eve of St. Agnes’ Feast Day, where she wrote down a prayer/poem to St. Agnes.

January 20th, 1895

Now good St. Agnes, play thy part,

And send to me my own sweetheart,

And show me such a happy bliss,

This night of him to have a kiss.

On that January day a year and a half ago, she had recited the prayer, then had finally drifted to sleep. Indeed, she had dreamt of a man.

His face was blurry like an Impressionist painting, except with less detail. The man leaned in to kiss her, a soft kiss that gently brushed her lips. Immediately, Kathleen knew that this was her beloved. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew that this man’s heart was pure and true and good. All of a sudden, he vanished. In his place was a blue and green hummingbird hovering above her. How would she recognize her sweetheart if she could only see his heart?

Excerpt from A Subtle Grace, copyright 2013 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Finding Grace by Laura Pearl

Author Laura Pearl and I have a lot in common. As she says on her blog, “I wanted to write a book that shows that the Catholic Church’s teachings on pre-marital sex are not only good for one’s immortal soul, but also just make sense and make life simpler and happier.” That sounds a lot like me when asked why I wrote my first novel. As well, we both know the joys of raising five sons. It was my pleasure to meet Laura (and her husband, Tim) recently at the Catholic Writers Conference Live in New Jersey.

Laura’s novel, Finding Grace, is a coming-of-age story of a girl named Grace Kelly and her journey as a teenager of the 70′s in small town America. This novel deals with some mature themes (Roe v. Wade, abortion, pre-marital sex) but it does so with sensitivity and without explicit details so teens regardless of faith background will enjoy it.

For those of us who grew up in the 70′s, I related to much of what Grace went through and the author captures the atmosphere of that decade well. In fact, I knew a Grace Kelly during my high school years. (I also knew a Rudy Valentino and an Elizabeth Taylor and marveled at how parents could do such a thing to their kids…)

The characters and story line were believable and well-defined. If I were to use one word to describe this book, it would be “Epic.” Epic (a word teens use to describe something cool) but it is also epic in size. As other reviewers have mentioned, this is not a short read. Special thanks to the author, who gifted me with a Kindle edition. I was able to read this book in a larger font (I struggled with the print book’s tiny font) and I must say, it was a much more enjoyable experience!

Finding Grace is available on Kindle and in paperback.

Check out Laura’s blog too!

Copyright 2013 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Angela’s Song Free November 12-14

Today through Thursday, Angela’s Song by AnnMarie Creedon will be free on Kindle.

To download, click the photo to the right or this link: Angela’s Song on Kindle.

Veterans Day – Remembrance Day 2013

Today is Remembrance Day/Veterans Day. I’d like to remember in a special way my father, father-in-law and stepfather (all now deceased). Each served their country in war: my father-in-law was in the USAF during WW II and was MIA for months, my father and stepfather (my father’s first cousin) both served in Korea. This is also my father’s birthday. He died in 1978 at the age of 49.

Remembering Tony An article about my father-in-law, who was a gunner for the USAF in WW II. He was shot down over Yugoslavia, near his father’s birthplace.

Remembering Dad A tribute to my own father, who served in both the USMC and the United States Army, and who died when I was 18.

This last post is a special way to remember, with fondness, the three father figures in my life: Remembrance Day/Veterans Day 2009

Lest We Forget…

Sunday Snippets – November 10

Image copyright Ellen Gable Hrkach

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at RAnn’s Place for Sunday Snippets where we share posts from the previous week and answer a weekly question.

The question: Do you have any recipe you make for religious reasons–i.e. to celebrate a religious holiday or to teach kids something about the faith or to help you remember something about your faith or as a prayer? My answer: We do Christmas baking every year but nothing that specifically teaches anything about the faith.

Here are my posts:

7 Quick Takes Friday

FQP Giveaway on Catholic Mom

FQP Giveaway on Catholic Mom – Enter Before November 15!!!

Catholic Mom is hosting a Full Quiver Publishing giveaway until November 15th. Enter before then to win a print copy of Don’t You Forget About Me by Erin McCole Cupp and Angela’s Song by AnnMarie Creedon!!

To enter, click on the photo above or this link: Catholic Mom FQP Giveaway.

7 Quick Takes Friday – Volume 96

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday.

1. Interview with Erin McCole Cupp

If you missed my interview with Erin McCole Cupp, author of FQP’s new book, Don’t You Forget About Me, you can read it here. If you leave a comment before tonight at midnight, you can be entered to win a free print copy of Erin’s new book.

2. Crazy Love – Now Available on Kindle

Eileen Leamy’s moving account of finding love late in life (and the joys and challenges that came with it) is a beautifully inspiring read. Paperback edition coming soon! Check it out here at this link.

3. Goodreads Giveaways

Right now, Goodreads is giving away Don’t You Forget About Me by Erin McCole Cupp and a delightful children’s chapter book called “The Willow Tree” by Alexandra Valentien. If you’re on Goodreads and you’d like to enter to win a copy of either of these books, pr just read more about each book, click below:

Don’t You Forget About Me Goodreads Giveaway

The Willow Tree Goodreads Giveaway

4. Dancing on Friday

For the past two years, I’ve been helping an elderly friend and fellow parishioner of my church write her life story. The local newspaper ran an article last week about it.

photo copyright James Hrkach

5. St. Gertrude’s Prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

This beautiful prayer is one that I say daily but it is an ideal prayer to recite during November, the month of the Holy Souls. According to tradition, our Lord promised St. Gertrude that 1000 souls would be released from purgatory each time it is said devoutly.



Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

6. Reading/Review Shelf

Angels for Kids – Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle (highly recommend…of course I highly recommend any book Donna-Marie writes!!)

7. Game of Life Cartoon

image copyright James and Ellen Hrkach Please do not use without permission

Copyright 2013 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Sunday Snippets – November 3

Image copyright Ellen Gable Hrkach

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at RAnn’s Place for Sunday Snippets where we share posts from the previous week and answer a weekly question. This week’s question: What is your favorite non-blog Catholic website? My favorite non-blog Catholic website is the Vatican website. I can spend hours on it, reading old encyclicals or news about Pope Francis.

Here is the one and only post this week:

7 Quick Takes Friday – An Interview with Erin McCole Cupp Read my lengthy interview with Erin about her new novel, Don’t You Forget About Me (and comment to be entered to win a free print copy of her book!)

7QT Friday – An Interview with Erin McCole Cupp

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at Jen’s Conversion Diary for 7QT Friday.

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Erin McCole Cupp about her new book, Don’t You Forget About Me, now available on Kindle and in Paperback! Thank you, Erin, for stopping by on your blog tour!!

1. The lone piece of tomato pie on the front cover of your book is intriguing. Why the pie? (Besides the fact that tomato pie is delicious!)

Tomato pie: it’s pizza—only made by angels! Ah, yes, why the tomato pie? Forgive the cliché, but I think at the heart of every story is a quest for something deep: truth, meaning, love, what have you. We humans are searching for those things in real life as well. However, just as real humans do, characters often distract themselves from those abstract longings with a desire for something base. Does Mary Catherine Whelihan want to find truth, meaning, and love on her trip back to her dreadful hometown? Of course she does. She just thinks the only thing worth returning for is the one concrete, guaranteed pleasure the place can offer, and that is tomato pie. How often do we despair of finding higher ideals and instead go looking for Esau’s bowl of pottage? I guess the tomato pie was just a wink at how we all search for what we think we want, but God usually has something much better in mind.

Here’s a picture of my husband taking pictures of tomato pie for the book cover. There is no tomato pie in Full Quiver Publishing’s area, so in a pinch we had to enlist Scott’s photography skills. We had to buy a whole pie for the photo shoot. Then, oh darn, we had all that tomato pie to eat.

2. Are any of the characters in your book based on real people?

I was pondering this question recently, even before you asked it! This is going to sound absolutely insane, but the more I write, the less it seems like I’m basing characters on people from real life. Mostly that’s because novel characters must behave in a more believable fashion than real people do! These days, when it comes to the characters I write, it’s starting to feel like I get this window inside my head, and the characters are doing their thing and I’m just a fly on the wall. The only reason I can recognize these characters because I’ve had life experiences with similar types of people, and that allows me to recognize the characters when I meet them in my imagination. Still, I have been known to name characters I really adore after adorable people in real life. For instance, one of DYFAM’s “magical helpers,” the grade school secretary, I named after your dear friend and mine and fellow Guildie author Margaret Rose Realy.

3. Your novel includes some fascinating information on the intricate connection between chemicals, environment and fertility. What kind of research was necessary?

I’m a big nerd, so I actually enjoy research. I remember in my early 30s reading an article in a women’s magazine—I forget which, just something I picked up to read while doing cardio at the gym—that talked about a number of studies in which primates were fed dioxin-laced food and the overwhelming result among the subjects was endometriosis. I didn’t think of that article until years later, while I was recovering from endometriosis removal surgery, that my brother and I were sharing memories of, in the late 1970s, having to be evacuated from our home town for a couple of nights because the chemical plant down the road had had an accident. My brother mentioned that dioxins were involved, and that reminded me of that magazine article I had read in the gym a few years before (yeah, I remember nonsense like that, but ask me where I put my keys an hour ago…). Anyway, the link between endometriosis and dioxin sat stewing in my mind for a few months while the story for DYFAM burbled to the surface. Once I knew I was writing a novel, I spent a lot of time with Google to get an idea of where to look for the science behind the story. I also had to talk to a pharmacist friend of mine as well as three separate Catholic gynecological specialists. I specifically wanted to talk to the Catholic specialists, less so for the spirituality aspect and more because I know the Catholic approach to women’s health problems shies away from covering up symptoms with “The Pill” and seeks to correct the underlying causes. Without those underlying causes, DYFAM would not have been as credible, I don’t think.

4. Have you always felt called to be a novelist? And if so, elaborate (or if not, elaborate)…

Being called and feeling that call are two different things! I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t telling stories in my head. Whether it was about Star Wars, Little House or eventually The X Files, I was always taking what I read or watched and then after the book was closed or the show was over, my imagination wanted to take all the “what if”s a few steps further. I usually was too lazy to actually write any of it! For a very long time, I thought I wanted to be an actress or a theatrical director. I even majored in theatre in college. Then, while drafting a novel as part of my senior project, my theatre department advisor held up the journal in which I’d been writing and said with this rueful smile, “This is what you’re supposed to be doing.” It was heartbreaking and scary but at the same time validating and invigorating. I did complete my degree in theatre, but I have been pursuing little but writing ever since.

5. Today is All Saints Day and is also the official launch date of Don’t You Forget About Me. Were there any saints who inspired you or with whom you felt a particular devotion/connection during the writing of this novel?

DYFAM is very much under the patronage of my confirmation saint, St. Catherine of Alexandria. I even went so far as to name the main character after her. Whelihan/Wheeler came from St. Catherine’s symbol of the torture wheel that broke when Catherine touched it. St. Catherine has interceded on my behalf, asked and un-asked, for so many years that I wanted to give her a little thank you gift. I hope she likes it!

6. Are there any contemporary or classic authors who have influenced you as a novelist?

Oh, dear, here’s where you’ll get to see the secular direction in which my tastes lean! I acknowledge quite openly that Neal Stephenson has been a huge influence on me. I admit I haven’t read any of his recent work (in fact, if it came out after my kids were born, I haven’t read it), but I remember reading Snow Crash for the first time and thinking, “Is a writer allowed to have this much fun making stuff up? Seriously? Then I want IN!” I also love Douglass Adams, especially the Dirk Gently series. Adams could take a heap of seeming nonsense and turn it into this great piece of hilarious word-architecture. On the more girly side, I adore how Tracy Chevalier writes a beautiful reality—never arguing, just presenting people as they have been—and always will be—in their conflicts throughout the centuries. As for classics, I love me some Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. I try not to read Dickens while I’m working on my own writing, otherwise I start writing as if I’m getting paid by the word.

7. What one piece of advice would you give to the newbie novelist?

Psalm 131, “Humble Trust in God.” That one holds so much for the writer, especially for someone starting out on the endeavor to get to the “sublime” experience of being published. Here’s where I ask people to my book so I can afford a new Bible without the Little Einsteins stickers on it.

8. Okay. So I’ve already asked seven (for 7QT) but I’m not done!! The epilogue suggests this is not the last Cate novel. Can you tell us a bit about future Cate stories?

I’m hoping for at least two more books, if not three. I can’t say much more without spoiling Don’t You Forget About Me, but I can say that I think Cate and Gene have more than enough baggage to fill out a trilogy. What I can say is that I plan on continuing using song titles. The working title for the sequel is Never Let Me Down Again. Right now the first chapter is called “Just Like Heaven.”

9. What is one lesson or message you want your readers to take away from your novel?

This is a really difficult question for me to answer, because I tend not to write with a message in mind. I just want to rip out the reader’s heart, stomp on it, bury it, then give it back, healed and with wings. (Does that make me a bad person?) Messages have to be argued, defended, and honestly I know that I’m not aggressive or clever enough to argue or defend well. I love how St. Augustine says, “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.” So basically I just want to write the truth, to clear a spot in the wilderness of our lives and lay reality out there for people to see—or not.

10. Where can readers find out more about you and your book…please feel free to include Facebook pages, Pinterest, Twitter etc.

Let’s see… The best place to find out what I’m doing is my webpage, where I blog about the writing life. I also have two years of recipes on my meatless Friday blog. Once a month, one of those recipes is featured at CatholicMom.com. I’m erinctotheop on Pinterest. I’m also on Facebook, and Twitter. Click on any of those links, and you’ll find links to my other blog tour posts for November. Thank you, Ellen, for these wonderful questions! This interview was a lot of fun!

Want to win a free copy of Erin’s book? Head on over to Goodreads for a chance to win one of three print copies! And if you don’t like your chances there (currently 3 in 240), leave a comment (before Friday, November 8) below to be entered to win one free print copy of Don’t You Forget About Me!!