BOX O' BOOKS       CONTEST

Fall turning into winter, and cool breezes turning to snow! We're offering 10 books that will wipe away the chill, and keep your heart warm. Come sign up for the contest!

What do you need to do to enter your name in the drawing?

Sign up by typing your name in the entry form located below. The winner will be drawn and their name posted in the Next issue of Christian Fiction Online Magazine.

CFBA Blog Tours For January 2010

Visit our CFBA Blog each week to learn about the authors, and visit participating blogs.

You can read the first chapter of each book when its tour date starts by going to our repository for first chapters,
 Where The Story Begins

Lawyer Cassie Constantine has no plans to stay in Florida. She's here just long enough to sell her late husband's vacation house, a tacky bungalow shes always despised then she'll hightail it back to her gracious Boston brownstone. But the place needs more work than Cassie bargained for. What's more, her widow status is like a target on her back and the elderly matchmakers around town manage to sidetrack her mission at every turn. Holiday is a landmine of golf tournaments, ballroom dancing competitions, shuffleboard and day trips. But the biggest obstacle of all? Richard Dillon, the stuffed shirt she's paired with on the dance floor. Cassie had always considered herself uptight but Richard won't take a walk on the beach without his socks and shoes! There's one little problem he makes her heart beat faster than the rhythm of the quickstep. Can Cassie and Richard let loose long enough to have a little fun?

Sales clerk, barista, telemarketer, sign waver … At twenty-five, free-spirited Becca Daniels is still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. What Becca doesn’t want to be is bored. She craves the rush of a new experience, whether it’s an extreme sport, a shocking hair color, or a new guy. That’s why she quit her bookstore job, used her last bit of credit to go skydiving, and broke her leg. And that’s why, grounded and grumpy, Becca bristles when teased by friends for being commitment-phobic. In response, Becca issues an outrageous wager—that she can sustain a three-month or twenty-five date relationship with the next guy who asks her out. When the guy turns out to be “churchy” Ben—definitely not Becca’s type—she gamely embarks on a hilarious series of dates that plunge her purple-haired, free-speaking, commitment-phobic self into the alien world of church potlucks and prayer meetings. This irrepressible Getaway Girl will have you cheering her on as she “suffers” through her dates, gains perspective on her life’s purpose, and ultimately begins her greatest adventure of all.

It's tough to do a guy-meets-Jesus book and not be too pious for some and/or too heretical for others. Landis (Longing), a former editor-in-chief at William Morrow, walks a line somewhere between in this ambitious and lyrical story of a young veteran returning to his New Hampshire home from the Iraq War. Army sniper Warren Pease (think of a famous novel by Tolstoy) meets a blue-jeans clad Jesus (Call me Ray, Jesus says) on the beach, and Jesus accompanies Pease through a day of returning to important relationships—his father, his girlfriend, his toddler daughter—while reflecting on his dead mother and other past events. There's lots of gentle humor—Jesus likes burgers and of course he knows everything, including miscellaneous facts about the natural world. Much grimmer, and darker, are episodes set in Iraq of intense violence; they also seem somewhat stagier next to the relative naturalism of the New Hampshire setting, Ray's supernaturalism notwithstanding. Being about Christ doesn't automatically make it an edifying Christian novel, and it won't sit well with some conservative religious readers.

"An unwed (and unwanted) teen pregnancy with two possible fathers. Abusive relationships. Drug and alcohol addiction. Rape and molestation. The struggle to understand grace, forgiveness, and free will versus predestination. The Judas Ride hits the road running in the opening pages, where Sonia and Xavier argue explosively about whether Sonia should have their unborn child and about who the father is: Xavier, a struggling Christian, or Vader, an abusive and abused drug dealer. As the pages turn, readers continue to meet a hodgepodge of troubled teens and eclectic characters, including Pastor Manny, a quirky immigrant pastor infatuated with John Wayne. Pastor Manny desires to help the tortured souls in his community but finds that it takes more than unconditional love to reach them. Secrets literally kill in The Judas Ride, an edgy, in-your-your face Christian novel that boldly explores the struggles of modern-day young people."

Sarah Prescott has never known a respectable life; just a hardscrabble childhood and brothers who taught her to shoot straight. Justin Wells left Boston in disgrace, heading out alone on the dusty trail to Texas. But when the once-respected clergyman encounters a feisty redhead in handcuffs with a dying US Marshall at her side, their journey takes a dramatic turn. His high society expectations and Sarah's outlaw habits clash from the start. With a price on her head and a sweet orphan in tow, Justin and Sarah make the difficult journey toward Rocky Creek. There justice will be meted out hopefully with a portion of grace.

Life for Kelly McGregor is a daily drudge of driving her overbearing father’s mules along Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Canal. She dreams of one day owning an art gallery where her own drawings and paintings are on display. But these dreams don’t include marriage. . .not after seeing what her father has done to her mother. How then can Mike Cooper, a general store owner, make her realize he is different than her father and wants to support her artistic talent? Will Kelly learn that dreams can walk hand in hand with a love created by God?