Confessions of a secular romance reader

I didn't grow up in the church, and while a "heathen," I used to read historical romance novels. *cringing about what ya'll might think of me* I LOVED them! I loved the action-packed, adventurous plots and the fierce heroes who knew how to be gentle lovers. E-hem. Just being honest. *wiping brow* That wasn't easy.

After I became a Christian, I decided I should read books that would be more pleasing to the Lord. Only problem was, I couldn't find anything pleasing to ME! So, I decided to write what I wanted to read.

In the meantime, I've continued to search for books that I might enjoy. Unable to find anything I could really lose myself in, I went back to secular romance. But all of a sudden, those books were too shallow and all about sex! What happened? Did the books change? Perhaps. But I also changed. My focus had changed. God sure opens the eyes.

Well, for years I didn't find what I was looking for, other than in Francine Rivers' books, but recently I came across a CBA author that I fell in love with! She has the excitement, adventure and romance that I've been longing to read!

Thank you, MaryLu Tyndall for "The Blue Enchantress." I enjoyed it so much, I went out and bought the first in that series, "The Red Siren."

Read any good books lately?

More Ups than Downs

So, I just heard from my agent, Joyce Hart from Hartline Literary. Remember that great endorsement? Well, Harvest House requested the entire manuscript of The Master's Wall!

Pray they like what they read. Actually, pray they LOVE what they read! Pray they're so WOW'd by what they read that they HAVE to publish it. LOL

One thing I learned is it doesn't hurt to ask. The worst God can say is "no." Right?

Anyway, the proposal to The Master's Wall is sitting on six editors' desks, having already been rejected by Bethany House. Here's what they said about it:

Thanks for passing this one along. We feel that, while Sandi is a strong writer, this story isn’t the best fit for us. There seems to be a fair amount of violence and the romance is between characters who are quite young. Please do keep us in mind if Sandi has anything else come up in the future.

Really, the "romance" between David and Alethea is comparable to the "romance" between Anne and Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables. They were also "quite young," in my opinion. And, there's a lot less violence in The Master's Wall than in many of Francine Rivers' books. Honestly, I thought my book would fit Bethany House the best. But oh well. I don't see anything like The Master's Wall at Harvest House. So, we'll see. I'm asking God to put my book in the right hands.

I do have a small press interested in it, but Joyce thinks I can land a bigger house and would like to give it a shot. Our goal is to land an editor by September; otherwise, we'll go with the small press.

Oh, and it's finally safe to announce that The Master's Wall was a finalist in the Genesis! Because of that, Zondervan would like to meet with me at the ACFW conference in September. It's there that I'll find out whether The Master's Wall will place or not. Either way, being a Genesis finalist is totally awesome! Whoo, hoo!

And so . . . I wait.