I know it's only mid-September. And I've never been one to jump on the Christmas bandwagon too early (because I love summer!). But I'm making an exception today! I'm so excited to announce that the anthology A Holy City Christmas - Charleston Holiday Tales is making its way into the world!
What is it? This is a special collection of stories that are guaranteed to fill your heart with inspiration and warmth! Eight individual novellas written by authors who belong to the South Carolina Lowcountry Chapter of the national organization, American Christian Fiction Writers. We’re a fairly small chapter with a little over a dozen members but we are all convinced that we’ve got something really special going on. Once a month on a Saturday morning we all meet to learn our craft, listen to knowledgeable speakers, share our questions, progress and challenges. We also support each other, pray for each other, and challenge each other to keep moving forward.
A Holy City Christmas is our second anthology. After the success of our first award-winning anthology project, Charleston Light: Tales of Love and Light, it isn’t too surprising that we decided to give it another go. This time, we wanted to incorporate the beauty of Christmas in Charleston. Each and every story will bring you the joy of the Christmas season in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Helping others through the book: One thing we love to do with these anthologies is to choose a charity that is meaningful to one of our members and donate all our earnings there for six months. That way, we can support a worthy cause through our writing.
Our chapter member, and line editor of this anthology, Laurie Ingram Sibley and her family are heavily involved with a program called RISE Men’s Recovery Ministry. RISE exists so that men of Orangeburg County, South Carolina who are trapped in poverty, homelessness, or addiction are Restored, Ignited, Supported, and Empowered to flourish by the grace of Jesus Christ. RISE is a voluntary, residential program. It’s a place to come when you’re ready for help breaking the cycle. For six months, the men will live on campus, dormitory-style, attend classes on job readiness, soft skills, financial planning, relationships, and parenting. They’ll work on campus doing laundry, preparing meals, mowing the lawn, and whatever else is needed. And of course, the gospel and grace and accountability will be infused over everything.
Each story features a Christmas storyline as well as an actual location within Charleston. It's been so fun reading the results of these pretty broad guidelines and seeing what everyone came up with. Each story is so different from the others. There are contemporary romance, historical romance, and mysteries to solve.
The list of locations featured in the story are Dock Street Theater, historic Charleston City Market, the Little Pink House on Tradd Street, First Scots Presbyterian Church and Citadel Square Church, among other wonderful Charleston locations! Another thing that's so special and unique about this collection is that a talented artist who is a member of our chapter created a line drawing for each and every story featuring the story's location! They are absolutely beautiful! In fact, take a sneak peek at the drawing she did for my story, Dock Street Miracle:
What's my story about? Here's a short description to get you interested!
Susannah, raised in foster care, now making her timid path into adulthood, receives the chance of a lifetime when exuberant off-Broadway theater veteran Molly arrives to direct the Christmas Nativity play at the historic Dock Street Theater. Working with Molly changes Susannah’s life in many ways. But she could never agree to Molly’s last-minute request to play the important role of Jesus’ mother. Could she?
How and when can I get it? I was hoping you'd ask! There will be several ways to read it between now and Christmas!
Kindle Unlimited: If you belong to the KU program you'll be able to download it for free starting Oct 1!
Buy the Kindle ebook: If you don't belong to KU but you read your books on your Kindle, you can preorder NOW, and it'll be delivered to your Kindle on October 1!
Paperback: Can you think of any better Christmas presents for friends, family, teachers, and church friends? I know I'm going to order a bunch to hand out! The paperback will be available for sale on October 1!
Here's the link to the Amazon page to make your purchase!
Thank you for your enthusiasm about this exciting new book!
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