Daily Archives: June 12, 2025

A New Book Release and First Book is an Award Finalist

I wanted to share my exciting book news – a book release AND an award final announcement! My first book become an award finalist and my second book released, all while on our three-week trip abroad (I will write another post about all the great research I did). 

2025 ACFW Award Finalist

My debut novel, When Plans Go Awry, is a 2025 Carol Award finalist in the debut category. It is such an honor to be recognized in this way.

I was so surprised. In fact we were at Disneyland, Paris when I started receiving texts early in the AM (think nine hours ahead). I might’ve made a few incoherant sounds as I reached for my laptop to find the website page and confirm before I said something to my family. Sure enough, my book was listed. I think I walked around the parks in a daze that day. As I said, such an honor. Winners will be announced at the ACFW conference gala on September 6.

A New Book Release

My second book, A Slight Change of Plans, released May 27^th. About midway through our trip. In fact, I was going through the final proof on the plane to London. 

Which meant I didn’t have a book in hand with me on my trip. Instead I printed out the cover and glued it to cardstock and carried it around with me taking pictures against major landmarks.

It was my little way to celebrate the release of my book and be able to create this graphic for launch day, announcing it was released to the world.

I took way more than what could fit on one graphic, so I thought I’d share them here. See if you can guess some of the places I visited. Once the book released, I stopped (and kindof wished I hadn’t).

Celebrating both a Book Release and becoming an Award Finalist

I was staying present for our trip, except to respond to all the well wishes on both announcements.

On release day it rained as we walked to find a coffee shop and breakfast. This is the one picture of me and the book cover that day. I was a little wet and tired (we had walked and walked and walked every day). But still celebrating. A Slight Change of Plans made it to the 7th spot in one of the new release categories on Amazon, and has received many lovely reviews.

This week A Slight Change of Plans is on a blog tour. Click on the link to check out all the interviews, excerpts, and reviews being highlighted this week.

It’s been an exciting month having a book release and become an award finalist. Thank you everyone for your support. I’m so happy to see readers enjoying the story and feeling encouraged. I love to write stories full of faith, hope, and love. If you are interested in learning what inspired and influenced my stories, I wrote this blog post a few months back about it.