Becky Wade's Blog, page 69

Join us for Fun and Prizes!

Are you a member of Inspirational Regency Readers? If not, I personally invite you to join me there along with sister-authors Erica Vetsch, Michelle Griep, and several others. It’s a private Facebook group for people who share a love of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, and other clean or inspirational Regency romances. We talk about favorite adaptations and actors, places we long to travel, and our bookish ways. We also offer news on book sales and giveaways.

We are currently gearing up for an annual tradition members love: REGENCY BINGO! We’d love for you to join us. This year our theme is “On the Map.” And the Bingo words are all places we love in the British Isles.

It’s fun and easy (and free) to play. How it works: You pick 16 words from our list of 48 and email them in. Then, you watch our short videos and keep track of the words drawn. In these videos, authors Erica Vetch, Michelle Griep, and I will briefly describe these places we love and how they relate to our novels. When 16 of your place-words are chosen, you email them in for a chance to win Bingo.

You need to be a member of the Inspirational Regency Readers group to play. Please join the group soon because you’ll need to email your choice of 16 Bingo words before May 10th to participate.

(Anyone can play but U.S. winners only, due to the high price of postage. Sorry!)

Grand Prize

The first person to email in with a qualifying bingo will receive: 

A fabulous tote bag featuring a map of the British Isles.A greeting card with a map of the British Isles created by the artist who creates the maps in my novels.And a selection of vintage map themed bookmarks.

Two secondary winners will receive:

5 custom drawn postcards featuring cities in England. And a selection of vintage map themed bookmarks.

Inspirational Regency Readers is truly my favorite place on Facebook. Click here to join us!

Little Free Libraries

Ken and I just got home last night from a five-week trip to Texas (also camping in Arkansas and New Mexico) and on one of our last nights camping, we came across a Little Free Library. Are you familiar with these charming little mini-libraries? The collage below shows just some of the Little Free Libraries Ken and I have come across on our travels across the country, and in our own hometowns when we lived in Kansas and here in Missouri.

Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to their website, their mission is “to be a catalyst for building community, inspiring readers, and expanding book access for all through a global network of volunteer-led Little Free Library book-exchange boxes.”

The vision of Little Free Library is to have “a book-exchange box in every community and a book for every reader.” I love that idea! And not only is it a great goal, but the library boxes themselves are just charming! This one was near the bathhouse at Caddo Lake State Park in Texas. I’m always thrilled to find a book by one of my writers friends inside. Susan May Warren’s book was just begging someone to pick it up! (I’d already read this one or I may have grabbed it for myself!)

I’m finally learning to always have a few of my own books in the car, so when we come across a Little Free Library, I have something to contribute. This library had a special section designated for children’s books, so we added a copy of Ken’s Stick Horse picture book, and his young readers book, Dino Hunters: Discovery in the Desert.

This colorful Little Free Library may have been the one that introduced me to the charming little library boxes. We came across it a few years ago on one of our Friday garage sale dates. I’ve been intrigued by them ever since. I love the creativity of each one and how some of them have special themes for children’s books or inspirational books, etc.

This sweet replica of the houses on this brick street in Bellevue, IL was in front of an Airbnb Ken and I stayed at last September. I’ve dreamed of owning an Airbnb someday (though I’ve resigned myself to merely writing about Airbnbs at this stage of my life ) but if I ever did open a little inn, it would certainly have a Little Free Library in front of it!

This beauty was near Edisto Beach, near Charleston, SC. And sadly I had no books with me to contribute!

Do you have a Little Free Library near where you live? Have you ever exchanged books at a Little Free Library? I’d love to hear your stories about these charming little book nooks that I think are a new American icon!

Inspired by Scripture

This Sunday feature is brought to you by ClashVerseoftheDay.com. You may sign up to receive a beautiful photo with Scripture in your inbox each morning or view the verse each day online.

Research Decisions

I’ve got a May deadline for a novel about the queen of Sheba. I don’t have an approved title yet from the publisher or I would share it.

The last time I used a biblical setting, it was in Jesus’s day and the four Gospels were my main research resources. I had plenty of manners and customs books and foods of the Bible books, etc., but the Gospels were where I lived for the duration. Four good-sized books.

But for this novel, the Bible says very little. Just thirteen verses concern the queen herself (in 1st King with an almost exact repeat in 2nd Chronicles). Plus Jesus used the queen of Sheba as an example to the pharisees, as reported in Matthew and Luke. But that still isn’t a lot of words to go by.

The first decision I needed to make was about the extra-biblical material that exists. Would I use the extra-biblical texts or stick to the biblical text? Partially related to that decision was choosing the location of the nation of Sheba. Was it modern day Ethiopia or modern day Yemen? I chose to stick with the biblical text (no affair between Solomon and the queen), and I went with the preponderance of evidence and placed Sheba on the southern end of the Arabian peninsula.

The second decision I had to make was about 1 King 10:9. 

“Blessed be the Lord your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.” (1 Kings 10:9, NASB95)

Were the words of the queen in that verse a statement of faith in the God of Israel or were they a polite throne room expression that might have been said to any king about any god? Bible commentaries differ. But I was convinced by one book I read to lean toward the statement of faith.

Those decisions made, I was on my way.

The picture below has served as my inspiration for Queen Bilqis of Sheba. Of course, her clothing is too modern, but it is this woman’s eyes and smile that I love.

It won’t surprise you that I have found myself looking for answers for this story not just in 1 Kings, but also in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ruth, Psalms, and Proverbs (to name a few). Oh, the things I am learning.

I hope I can achieve the vision I had when I started this book, and I hope readers will love it when it releases.

~robin

Spring Game & Giveaway

I’m a Word Nerd, and as such, I love playing word games. Words with Friends, Boggle with Friends, UpWords, Taboo, Scattegories, Bananagrams, Scrabble. I even keep a crossword puzzle by my place at the table, so I always have some word fun to work on.

So for our Game Day today, I thought we could stretch our Word Nerd muscles and with some acrostics.

To play, create a poem or sentence where each word starts with the first letters of the two words below.

SPRING READS

You can use both words or just one. This is for fun, so we’re going light on the rules. Your sentence or poem should explore a place or experience that fits the theme of Spring Reads.

For example, I pictured taking a walk through beautiful spring blossoms.

Enter your acrostic in the comments to be entered to win a Spring Reads Prize of fun reader socks and an autographed copy of your choice of one of the three pictured books.
Have fun!

Details of the Past

I know this makes me sound like an old lady, but lately I’ve been realizing how many things have fundamentally changed over my 50-odd years on this earth. Although I truly think my interest is not nostalgia but history. 

Case in point. I went to the dentist last week. I sat in that chair as the hygienist cleaned my teeth, spraying water in my mouth then vacuuming it out again. And I remembered so many other times—including when I got my wisdom teeth taken out!—when I had to rouse myself to swish the water and spit in the cup. It was much of what made me hate going to the dentist. But no more. Now I can lie back, watch TV or just live in my head, and let the work get done without my participation. 

Which makes me wonder: fifty years from now will some historical novelist have a scene set in a dentist office in the 1970s or 1980s and wonder what it was like back then? And will they be able to find that information? 

Part of what has me thinking about all this is a book I picked up after we toured a historical home here in Dallas a few months ago. The small book, Willie, a Girl from a Town Called Dallas, is the memoir of a young woman who grew up in Dallas near the turn of the century and lived out most of her life there. She was the young bride for whom the home we toured was built. She wrote the book when she was in her nineties, back in the 1980s. And she gave details of life I’d not only never thought of but never would have imagined correctly if I had.  

For example, did you know that in the early 1900s when you purchased fine china or silverware that you bought them at a jewelry store? That little tidbit thrilled me to no end. Why? Because I had never thought about where those things were purchased before there were true department stores. I’m so very glad she included that detail so that 2023 me would know. 

It makes me wonder—are we chronicling such mundane things, the minutia of life, for the future historians and historical novelists? I have no idea. Perhaps no one will remember the spit bowls at the dentist office or getting on airplanes without going through security or being tethered in one place in order to use a telephone. All those things have changed in my lifetime, things  my children have no memory of on their own but only know because I’ve told them. 

I guess that’s why memoirs and letters and diaries of other eras are so important to those of us who want a record of the lives of the past. Those documents often insert a casual detail that future generations would not have known otherwise. It’s why I love combing through the papers of the past to find little bits of forgotten history to bring to life again through fiction. 

Have you run across an unusual piece of life in the past? Tell us about it! 

WOW Book Club from Morris, AL is (was) in the house!

Last week, I had the absolute JOY of meeting with the WOW (Women of the Word) Book Club from Enon Baptist in Morris, Alabama on location at Carnton in Franklin, which is the setting of all my Carnton novels.

Barbara Wiginton, their fearless and fabulous leader, reached out and asked if I could meet them for a brief visit after they toured Carnton, and I’m thrilled that our schedules aligned!

Barbara and me on the back lower gallery (porch) at CarntonThe group gathered at the front of Carnton (as it spit rain, but we didn’t let that stop us)!

What a lovely bunch of gals, and how fun they are. Lots of laughter, for sure.

L to R: Donna Green, Denise Wiygul,Linda Slagle, Ashley Dial, Charlotte Hopkins, Gayla McCleney, Cindy Edwards, Katrina Creel, Barbara Wiginton, Vicki Brasher

We visited the cemetery, and I grabbed a pic of them with Carnton in the far left distance.

And I grabbed another pic as they were leaving…

Vickie, one of the faithful drivers!

I love being in a book club and also meeting with book clubs at the various Southern plantations when schedules mesh. In fact, the group also visited Belle Meade the very next day…

I SO appreciate them helping to keep real history alive, which is what book clubs do when they visit these old Southern homes.

And speaking of book clubs, if you happened to miss Angie’s great post about book clubs yesterday, please check it out. So much of what she shared rang true for me in my experiences, too.

Have you ever been part of a book club that went the extra mile (or lots of miles!) to visit the place you’d read about it? If yes, please share the book and location with us in a comment below!

Lastly, from time to time, I’ll share an especially good sermon and this Sunday’s was that. We’re starting a series entitled DIGITAL DETOX and Pastor Shannon Scott delivered a powerful and convicting lesson.

Much love from my corner of Nashville,

Tammy

Check out the CARNTON NOVELS
Christmas at Carnton (novella that launched the series)
With This Pledge (book 1)
Colors of Truth (book 2)
Book 3 (title TBD) scheduled for a summer release

Love Books? You’d love a book club!

In 1992, we moved into a house in a small development–only 44 houses total, if memory serves. I wanted to invest in my neighbor’s lives, so I made up some flyers and walked around the neighborhood, leaving one on each neighbor’s porch. “Come join the book club,” it said. “We’ll read SNOW IN AUGUST.” (A wonderful book I doubted anyone else had read.)

That night, I made some cookies and coffee and wondered if anyone would show up. One lady did, Becky Creveling, and we sat in my kitchen and talked about SNOW IN AUGUST. Since there were only two of us, we said we’d invite non neighbors for the next month’s meeting.

And so it began.

I enjoy talking about books, but more than that, I wanted to invest spiritually into the lives of my neighbors. To do that, I knew I couldn’t preach at them, so I thought we’d read all kinds of books, not only Christian novels. I can talk about a spiritual theme (or the lack of such) in any book.

After a year, the book club had grown to nearly 30 women, about half of whom showed up on any given night. We had a great time talking about books, eating desserts, and getting to know each other. My husband and I moved away from that neighborhood in 2017, but the book club is still going.

Group of female friends at book club with eBook reader and novels

As a writer, I learned a lot from that book club. I remember one book we read–it was buy a Pulitzer prize winning author, so when we went around the circle and gave it a rating, I gave it four out of five stars. But then I listened to the others. One woman said the author spent too much time showing off all the research he’d done, and I thought, Yeah, she’s right. He did.

Another woman said the big dramatic moment near the ending was too coincidental; it felt contrived. And I thought, Yeah, it was.

Another woman said the characters weren’t very well developed, and I thought, That’s right, they weren’t.

And that night I learned a huge lesson–I should never be influenced by prizes or hype or “big names.” I should write for the women in my living room. They’re smart, and they’re the people who buy books.

So if you haven’t joined a book club, start one! It’s easy, and once it gets rolling, your members will invite other book lovers. As the moderator, I did two things that helped–first, I let each member give their opinion without feedback from anyone else, so everyone got to share their thoughts. After that, I found discussion questions online or used the “what to do when there’s no discussion guide available” list of questions (you can google it). The trick is not to let any one person, including yourself, dominate the conversation. At the end of each meeting, I asked the others for recommendations for our next book. We tried to get books no one had read (because the reading experience should be fresh for everyone), and yes, sometimes we picked some duds. But we still had fun discussing WHY they were duds.

Are you–or have you ever been–a member of a book club? What did you like about it? How could it have been improved?

I hope you will find a book club near you (some are online!) If you do, prepare to have your horizons expanded (you’ll be reading books that may not be your usual cup of tea), and enjoy!

~~Angie

Inspired by Scripture

This Sunday feature is brought to you by ClashVerseoftheDay.com. You may sign up to receive a beautiful photo with Scripture in your inbox each morning or view the verse each day online.

When Did You Discover Your Love of Reading?

I recently asked, “How old were you when you discovered your love of reading?” on my Facebook author page. I found the answers fascinating and heartwarming! For this post, I’m hitting on the themes I saw repeated again and again.

First Grade

This was the most common answer! For numerous women, learning to read went hand in hand with loving to read.

“I learned to read in first grade. I couldn’t wait for our bookmobile to come to school.” – Brenda Murphree

“First grade, six years old. I’m almost at 60 years of reading. It has been so many wonderful things to/for me. Truly a blessing from God.” – Judy Faloon

“First Grade – my brother walked with me to the library, helped me sign up for and get my library card, showed me where to look, and helped me carry home my stack of the maximum number of books that could be checked out.” – Ruth Ebert

Never Too Late

Thankfully, there’s still hope for those who don’t tap into the joy of reading early. The take-away: these women simply needed to find the right genre for them.

“In my 30’s. My sister gave me a book of hers and for the first time ever, a few pages in, I was hooked!!” – Lisa Winter

“I used to hate reading. Then around 35 I lived out in the country and a book mobile library came by my house monthly for my 3 homeschool boys and she introduced me to Christian fiction and I have loved it ever since.” – Marilyn Johnson

“25. I used to read while nursing my 3rd child. I needed an escape from the other two who were 2 and 4. And my love of Christian romance kind of took off from there!” – Jessica Johnson

“35…I used to HATE reading. Just hadn’t found what I liked. Found Christian fiction romance and can’t stop reading!” – Clarissa Hehman

Mothers

So many of our mothers sowed a love of reading in us. Bravo, moms!

“My precious mother read to us from birth on.” – Lisa Taylor

“Before I could read my mom read to my brother and me before bedtime. One of the highlights of my life in those days.” – Marcia Brown

“Mom read to us every night. I loved to look at the pages with words. They were calling to me. When I started kindergarten, mom had already taught me my ABC’s and many words so I could read some myself. It didn’t take long to be into books myself. Haven’t looked back!” – Lori Smanski

Libraries

No one can overstate the pivotal link between libraries and a love of reading.

“I remember going to the library and getting a huge stack of books. (Think Matilda.)” – Ladette Kerr

“Even before kindergarten I loved being at the local library and picking out books to “read”. I was always part of the library’s Reading Challenge where you earned stickers for books read. Loved it!!!!” – Suzy Clem

“I remember my sister and I going to the library (it was very close by) picking out books in the morning, then taking them back in the afternoon.” – Connie Price

Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew was the most-often named series that captured the hearts of readers. [I wonder if this is partly because it was empowering for girls to live in the shoes of a young female character who was both smart and brave.] The Hardy Boys, Boxcar Children, and Judy Blume books were honorable mentions. God bless the authors penning engaging stories for children, both now and then.

“When I discovered the Nancy Drew books, which was at age 11/12…My pocket money was just enough to buy one book a month” -Adele Welgemoed

“When I was 8 years old and my mother bought me my first Nancy Drew book at the beginning of the summer. I couldn’t put it down.” -Anne Wolters

“I remember reading every Nancy Drew novel I could get at my school library.” – Kate Gross

“When I discovered chapter books, like Nancy Drew and The Babysitter’s Club, and I began devouring books.” – Heather Byrd

The dream of reading from a young age

“Before I could even read I would always take a chapter book with me places and run my finger along the words pretending I was reading.” – Abbi Hart

“I literally read in my crib! I had to have books lined up all around my crib in order to sleep!” – Holly Signorino

“I wanted to read well before I started school. I was just told that I would be able to read once I went to school. My mom told me I came home angry my first day because I couldn’t read. I guess I thought something magic happened when I walked through those doors.” – Pam Morrison

Do you relate to the above?

Before I go, I’m delighted to announce that my new release, Memory Lane, is now widely available as an audiobook! I hand-picked the narrators and oversaw the production of this project and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. If you’re an audiobook person, I hope you’ll give it a listen!

Audible | My Website | Scribd | Audiobooks.com | and more!