Author Ruth Logan Herne & Winter's End

My guest today is Ruth Logan Herne, a debut Love Inspired author, who is pretty happy. And her title is definitely TIMELY! Here's Ruth:

"As a child interventionist for a local school district, I spent nine years dealing with children’s anger issues, anger whose roots began in a small child and mushroomed into acting out behaviors by the time they reached me in middle school. But what happens to those children who don’t act out? I wondered. The ones who suck it up, put their chin in the air, and quietly survive? Who’s there to help them?

And so began the structuring of Kayla Dougherty, the heroine of Winter’s End, my 4 ½ Star debut novel about a hospice nurse who deals with life and death by facing both head on. All I knew when I started this book was that Kayla had faced her Rubicon successfully but carried residual clutter from her dysfunctional setting, a ripped and torn childhood.

For Kayla, a new believer who can’t quite accept that God’s grace really, truly means her, facing the hero’s antagonism and anxiety is a drain. As she recognizes the depths of his personal losses, she realizes there is no hope, no chance for them and broken families are the grillwork of her past, not stepping stones to the future. Kayla wants the fairy tale, the happy ending, and she’s willing to step aside to prevent ruining that for anyone else, even the man she loves.

Yesterday’s child has grown into today’s woman. The child of the streets became the woman who longs for normalcy and strength, victimized, yet refusing to be a victim, a professional in her own right, clinging to an image of savvy success.

While life has sharpened and honed the well-dressed nurse, faith has softened the sassy woman within, offering her a chance to embrace a life she hadn’t dared hope for. A husband. A home. A family of faith, where warmth embraces the coldest winter days."

Thanks, Ruth. And for more about Ruth and her books, here you go!--Lyn

Winter's End Steeple Hill Love Inspired, March 2010, 4 1/2 STARS!!! Romantic Times Review...

Waiting Out the Storm Steeple Hill Love Inspired, July 2010

Made To Order Family Steeple Hill Love Inspired, September 2010

Enduring, endearing... Fiction that embraces the heart.

www.ruthloganherne.com

www.seekerville.blogspot.com Fifteen author blog!!!! SOOOO fun!

Lois Richer, Ruth and Her Heroine Olivia

Today, my good friend Lois Richer shares her thoughts on Ruth, the grandmother of King David and her latest Love Inspired. Here's Lois:



"Thanks for inviting me to blog, Lyn.

A very strong woman in the Bible whom I’ve always admired is Ruth. Losing a husband would be decimating, scary and painful. The future would be terrifying. But still Ruth refused Naomi’s admonition to stay where she was. Imagine leaving home with your mother-in-law!
Naomi must have been some kind of a mother-in-law because Ruth was determined to stick by her side. I’ve always loved Ruth’s famous response. ‘Don’t ask me to go back anymore. Wherever you’re going, I’m going. Whoever you call family, I will, too. Your God is mine. I’ll stick so close that when you die, I’ll be buried beside you.’ (Paraphrase mine.) After those amazing statements, Ruth even invokes God to help her keep her vow, a God she only knew through her husband’s family! What a powerful faith she must have had to trust this new God.

But Ruth’s strength survived more than the long journey to a foreign place, or the people Naomi had once called family. Once they were ‘home’, Ruth had strength enough to plan for their daily needs. She didn’t hesitate or avoid the rough and heavy job, but went out into the fields to gather the bits that were left for the poor and hungry. Humiliating? Embarrassing? I’m sure Ruth felt that and more, but she kept going every day, picking up as much as she could so the only family she had left wouldn’t go hungry. How hard it must have been for Ruth to accept that this was her life now, that she wasn’t a protected wife any longer, but alone and responsible for another mouth. And yet she accepted her life with grace, dignity and strength.


Olivia Hastings, the heroine in my April Love Inspired, TWICE UPON A TIME, is just such a strong woman. A psychologist for a kid’s radio talk show, Olivia devoted herself to helping children find solutions for their problems until her husband and child were murdered. Olivia clung to her faith, left home and friends behind. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, give up her desire to help children. When an abused teen struggles to break free of her brother’s manipulations, Olivia refuses to give up, even though it means risking her new love for Reese and his adorable kids.
Ruth and Olivia–two strong women who drew on God to see them through their trials."

Thanks, Lois and Happy Easter!