Category: 2010 Releases

Title: The Bishop’s Bride: The Honeymoon’s Over

Author: Elizabeth W. Watkins

Publisher: Covenant

Release Date: April, 2010

ISBN:

Size: 208 pages, 6×9

Genre: General (?)

Series: The Bishop’s Bride (v.1)

Andrew McCammon is preoccupied as he drives home from his honeymoon with his brand-new wife, Jeanette. He’s not getting any younger, and carrying his bride across the threshold means managing a tricky storm door—not to mention some tender memories of his first wife, Susan. But as he pulls into the dark driveway, Andrew is yanked from his reverie: the headlights show Police Chief Riley pounding on the front door, frantic to report an emergency to the soon-to-be-sustained bishop.

The honeymoon is officially over as Andrew scrambles to staff the recently combined ward and juggle the compelling needs of its members, as well as his fledgling marriage. While Jeanette struggles to fill Susan’s shoes, the bishop’s ears and heart grow heavy with ward confidences (including the confessions of an investigator who can’t be baptized until he quits smoking and organized crime). Plans for a son’s dream wedding come crashing down due to a disturbing family history discovery, and Jeanette must unravel a delicate generational mystery even as she seeks a firm foothold into the future.

With warmth and humor, this delightful sequel to The Bishop’s Bride explores the challenges and rewards of loving those who share our homes as well as those who share our faith— and provides a comforting, convincing reminder of who’s truly in charge of our personal pathways and our treasured family ties.

Title: Leaning Into the Curves

Author: Nancy Anderson and Carroll H. Morris

Publisher: Deseret Book

Release Date: April, 2010

ISBN:

Size: 257 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: General, Womens

Leaning into the Curves offers a delightful view of a little-known group of faithful Latter-day Saints. Full of appealing characters and unexpected turns, it gives a new twist to what life can be like after “a certain age”!

Molly is happy with her life the way it is, but everything changes when her husband, Hank, retires. When Hank brings home a Gold Wing motorcycle and joins the Temple Riders Association, a “Mormon motorcycle gang” that combines road trips with temple work, things go from bad to worse. Faced with the prospect of being left behind as Hank hits the road with his new group of friends, Molly starts making some changes of her own.

A funny, often poignant, look at the challenges of reinventing life after sixty, from the co-authors of the popular series The Company of Good Women.

(The Temple Riders were featured in an October 2009 Footsteps of Faith documentary.)

Title: The Walk

Author: Richard Paul Evans

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Release Date: April 6, 2010

ISBN: 978-1439187319

Size: 304 pages, 5×8, hardcover

Genre: General

Alan Christofferson is a successful Seattle advertising executive who seems to have it all: a beautiful home, a sky-rocketing career, and an idyllic marriage to his childhood sweetheart, McKale. However, unbeknownst to him, on the day that Alan successfully pitches a three million dollar advertising campaign to a key account, events are already unfolding that will soon take from him everything he holds dear.

Within a few short weeks, Alan Christofferson loses everything: his company, his fortune, and even the woman he loves. Betrayed by his business partner, Kyle, stripped of most of his material possessions and all of his emotional connections, Alan is left adrift in a world that has suddenly grown cold and meaningless. At first he considers taking his own life; instead, equipped with little more than the clothes on his back and his diary, he sets off on a walk across America, from Seattle to Florida. The Walk covers the first 12 days of Alan’s journey, which will take him over 250 miles, from Bellevue, WA to Spokane, WA. As he journeys across the country, Alan will learn how to move beyond despair toward a profoundly new understanding of life, helped along the way by the unexpected kindness of strangers.

The Walk is the first of a new series that tells the poignant and inspirational tale of an advertising executive who loses everything, and decides to embark on an unforgettable journey that is as life-altering as it is life-affirming.

Title: Awakening Avery

Author: Laurie Lewis

Publisher:

Release Date: April 1, 2010

ISBN:978-1935217619

Size: 344 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: General (?)

Read an excerpt.

“You’re depressed,” the doctor declared.

“Ya think?” is author Avery Elkins Thompson’s sarcastic response to the astute diagnosis for the malaise that set in following her husband’s untimely death. Avery’s carefully controlled world is imploding, and her adult children fear they are losing her too.

“You’re just a shadow of the person you used to be…We’d gladly give you up for a while if it meant getting you back.”

Avery can’t write, and questions about their father’s death leave the family mired in pain. “We need a healing place,” her oldest son tells her, suggesting she find it on Anna Maria Island, Florida, a former family vacation spot.

When Avery returns to Baltimore to sell the family’s waterfront condo, she meets rodeo-ers-turned-real-estate-brokers Teddie and Rider Davis, and Avery’s quiet life will never be the same again.

The Davises help arrange a short-term house swap with widower Gabriel Carson from Anna Maria, whose overprotective parenting has resulted in two self-centered, twenty-something daughters. Avery and Gabriel are in for the summer of their lives as they step into one another’s messy, complicated worlds.

Still, venturing out on her own again is challenging for Avery, whose experiences at the Ringling’s magnificent Ca d’Zan mansion, and with the quirky characters she meets there, eventually awaken her to truths she has long forgotten – that as crazy as life can be, it is possible to laugh and love again.

Title: Turning Hearts

Author: Deanne Blackhurst

Publisher: Covenant

Release Date: April 2010

ISBN: 978-1-59811-541-3

Size: 180 pages, 6×9, softcover

Genre: General/Womens

“Jake and I have called off the wedding.” “Amanda’s mother, doing dishes at the sink, froze at Amanda’s words. Her father stared at her in dismay. “But why?” her mother asked. “You both seem so happy together.” “Is it a worthiness issue?” her father turned a grim eye on Jake, who blushed. “No, sir,” he said. “It’s nothing like that.” “Then why?” her mother repeated. Amanda took a deep breath. “Because I’m going on a mission.”

Amanda knows there’s a certain family out there that needs the gospel—and she also knows she’s the one who’s supposed to bring it to them. Her recurring dream makes it seem urgent—the dream with the shiny gold frame and the vaguely familiar faces smiling down at her. The dream in which her grandmother says, “You must find them. You’re the only one who can.”

When Amanda gets to California and starts teaching, she wonders which family she was sent there to find. What happens next is something she never would have expected.

Turning Hearts is an inspiring story of faith, love, and the bittersweet struggles of missionary work that you won’t want to miss.