Family Ties - a reading challenge

November is a time for family. We Americans gather around our tables the fourth Thursday of the month to celebrate Thanksgiving, during which we appreciate our family perhaps the most of all our blessings. When I was thinking about a reading challenge for this special month, I thought about how we could celebrate family.

What about a reading challenge called Family Ties?

No, not this Family Ties:

Though, I will admit to being addicted to that show when I was growing up. (Reruns were awesome back in the early- to mid-1990s.)

For our Family Ties challenge, our main character's family ties should be featured.

Beyond Her Calling by Kellyn Roth - Blog Tour + Giveaway

This week, I'm a part of a blog tour for Kellyn Roth's new book, Beyond Her Calling. Please read through the very end of this article, because there's lots of good stuff heading your way, including a giveaway opportunity that I'm sure you're going to love.

FTC DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary e-copy of this book from Reveries Co. A positive review was not required. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.

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Sweet. Charming. Idyllic. Classy. Faith-filled. Romantic (in a sweet way). Scottish charm.

These are just a few terms that define Beyond Her Calling, book four in the Chronicles of Alice and Ivy series. I haven’t read the previous three books, so while I enjoyed this one immensely, I did feel I had missed a few things by coming in late. My remedy for this? Saving up money to purchase the full series in paperback and reading from the beginning.

I especially loved the innocent sweetness of this story. Ivy was quite refreshing with her take on the world. It’s not every day that a “mentally challenged” person is the lead of a novel, and I found it something to cherish, truly. Her perspective was my favorite, and I thought the aspect of her different way of thinking was captured perfectly.

Why NaNoWriMo is Crucial For Me

Finding focus is often a problem for me. As a writer, that is not good. It takes a lot of hours of concentration to create stories worthy of being seen by readers’ precious eyes. When one has undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, as I do, the battle for focus is significantly more than half the war for words.

When I discovered National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWrimo) in 2013, I was skeptical that it would work for me. The goal for that writing challenge is to write a novel (50,000 words) in a single month. Well, that particular month is November, one of the busiest of the year for me. I had already discovered that my mind is very goal oriented, but I hadn’t yet attempted to set such a huge goal for myself in my writing journey. However, I felt like it was a challenge worth taking.

This is the Day - a short story

Here's another short story that's inspired by YOU, my faithful readers. (See this article for the contest and entry that inspired this particular story.)

Copyright 2018 by Andrea Renee Cox. This story may not be copied or reprinted without prior written consent.

This is the Day

inspired by Caitlyn Santi

“… and that little monster bit me when I was trying to take his vitals.”

Lena slammed the first of two doors on her coworker’s grumbling. She’d had just as rough a time as he—though, she hadn’t been on the receiving end of a teeth chomping—during the work at an apartment-building fire. At least they’d finally been released to come back to the station, where they’d been for the last hour, sanitizing and restocking the bus.

She angled an irritated gaze his direction. “Mark, I get it. You got bitten, it hurt. Move on.”

“I don’t think you’re getting it.”

The next door banged shut even louder. “I get it just fine. We both had a rough day. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go clock out and enjoy what’s left of the waning daylight.”

“Want to go to dinner?”

A skeptical look shot to her face before she could halt it. “That’s, what? The fiftieth time you’ve asked me out this year?”

“Oh, at least.”

Life Interrupted by Priscilla Shirer

I just finished this book late last night. It's one I highly recommend for anyone who feels their life has not gone as planned.

Here's my review, as posted on Goodreads. (Stay tuned for some more thoughts, unique to this website.)

“There’s grace in [God’s] eyes.”

If there’s one thing I hope people come away from this book with it’s that God wants to give us grace. He has such stores of compassion in His heart for us, if only we’d turn from our wicked ways and ask for His forgiveness. He loves us more than we may comprehend in this lifetime.

This book is all about second chances and following God and discovering yet again what His grace means for the people around us as well as ourselves. I’m happy to have read it, because it’s perspective-shifting. It’s eye-opening. It’s grace-giving.