Barbara Ellen Brink

Barbara's Thin Line Between Truth & Fiction

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Spring Fever giveaway: Day 3 with author Lindsey P. Brackett

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Welcome to Day 3 of the Spring Fever book promo and Giveaway!

Lindsey P. Brackett writes southern fiction and cooks big family meals, but she complains about the dishes. Her debut novel, Still Waters, released in 2017. Someday she hopes to balance motherhood and writing full-time. Until then, she’s just very grateful for her public school system.

Connect with Lindsey online:

Facebook Author Page

Lindsey’s Instagram

Author Website

Still Waters blurb:  

Cora Anne graduated from college with a plan that didn’t involve her grandmother’s ramshackle beach cottage or Tennessee Watson, a local builder dedicated to the preservation of Edisto Island—and her heart.

Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/Still-Waters-Lindsey-Brackett/dp/1946016233/ref

Kindle:

https://www.amazon.com/Still-Waters-Lindsey-Brackett-ebook/dp/B0749S8WDW/ref

 

Coming soon to newsletter subscribers—A Lowcountry Setting, recipes inspired by Still Waters.

Edisto Beach is our family place—My mother grew up spending summers there, I grew up spending summers there, and now my children experience it. For more about Edisto and its history visit ExploreEdisto.com.

~Lindsey is currently working on the next book and a novella for release later this year.

*Fun fact from Lindsey—Currently I’m a community “star” in Dancing with the Stars for Hope, our annual fundraiser for Circle of Hope, a domestic violence shelter. You can vote for my team, Plot Twist, at www.dancingwiththestarsforhope.com/vote –every $1 vote goes to charity and helps us win the People’s Choice award. My partner is my friend Jeremy and we’re using our theater backgrounds to create an epic number sure to please. The performance will be showcased on March 17!

For an extra chance to win, secret word of the day is: Edisto

ENTER NOW: a Rafflecopter giveaway

~Be sure and check back tomorrow for more chances to win with author Johnnie Alexander!~

The link to all 10 days of authors and ways to enter> HERE

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Thanks for stopping!

Barbara

Barbara is an award winning author, wife, mom, and soon to be grandmother. She enjoys weekend motorcycle trips, spending time with family and friends, and catching up on all the books and movies she misses when she’s busy writing.

Spring Fever Giveaway: Day 2 with author Brenda S Anderson!

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Welcome to Day 2 of the 2018 Spring Fever Book Promotion!

Thanks to Barbara Ellen Brink for kicking off the event yesterday! And over the next nine days you’ll discover nine additional contemporary authors who will take you on adventures that will carry you through the rest of the winter. So curl up next to the fireplace with a blanket, a nice warm cup of hot cocoa, and a book!

Today we’re spotlighting Brenda S. Anderson. Brenda writes gritty and authentic, life-affirming fiction. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, and is Past-President of the ACFW Minnesota chapter, MN-NICE, the 2016 ACFW Chapter of the Year. When not reading or writing, she enjoys music, theater, roller coasters, and baseball (Go Twins!), and she loves watching movies with her family. She resides in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area with her husband of 30 years, their three children, and one sassy cat.

Brenda is excited to tell the world about her next book project with The Potter’s House Books! In the Fall of 2017, Brenda was invited to join six other authors to tell stories of Hope, Redemption, and Second Chances. Long Way Home, coming out on May 8, is Brenda’s first book in the Potter’s House Series. You can find more information here: http://pottershousebooks.com/. For those who’ve read Brenda’s Coming Home Series, you’ll be reunited with a bunch of old friends! A short story bridging the Coming Home Series with Brenda’s Potter’s House stories will be coming out soon!

The best way to learn about updates and book releases is to sign up for Brenda’s enewsletter (http://brendaandersonbooks.com/subscribe/). She’s even giving away a free ebook of Risking Love, a Where the Heart Is Romance #1, just for signing up!

During this ten-day celebration, you can pick up an ecopy of Capturing Beauty, book #2 in Brenda’s Where the Heart Is series, for only $2.99. That’s a savings of $2.00 off regular price! Purchase here: https://books2read.com/CapturingBeauty.

Here’s the back-cover blurb for Capturing Beauty:

He’s a nature photographer returning to make amends.

She’s a camera-shy naturalist seeking privacy.

Their love for a boy brings them together,

But the camera could drive them apart.

Photographer Haven Carlysle is a changed man. Six years earlier, he had run from his tragedy-filled life in Duluth. Now he’s back in town to capture the North Shore’s beauty … and to recapture the love of his son. But that means making amends with his ex-girlfriend too. When camera-leery Callie Beaumont steps in to bridge the relationship between Haven and his former family, he’s wary, but she’s his only hope.

Callie Beaumont is surrounded by beauty. Her parents are local news celebrities. Her sister is a model. And Callie is … Ordinary. All her life, Callie has longed to work outdoors soaking up God-breathed beauty, and the opportunity is finally on the horizon. But being the liaison between the handsome photographer and his son has thrown her dreams, and her heart, into chaos.

Can Haven capture her heart when she won’t let him capture her image? And will his poor choices cost Callie her dream job and him the love of his son?

Connect with Brenda:

ENTER NOW: a Rafflecopter giveaway
For an additional chance to enter and win, the secret word for today is Lilac.

Be sure to check in tomorrow as we meet Lindsey Brackett!

All ten days of authors and ways to enter> HERE

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Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have time to leave a comment and say hello!

Barbara

 

Barbara is an award winning author, wife, mom, and soon to be grandmother. She enjoys weekend motorcycle trips, spending time with family and friends, and catching up on all the books and movies she misses when she’s busy writing.

Spring Fever Book promo/kindleFire Giveaway! Day #1

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10 days of Spring Fever is coming your way!

Discover great deals on books for the next 10 days! Stories of redemption and grace, romance and mystery, and much more! Stories that will take your mind off the bitter cold and long, dark days of winter until the thaw has begun and spring has really sprung!

With 10 Christian fiction authors involved, you have 10 chances to win awesome prizes!

First up on the Spring Fever docket is ME: Barbara Ellen Brink! If you love mystery or suspense with a touch of romance, you’ll want to pick up today’s deals:

 

Here is a little about Barbara’s two book deals:

Running Home is free at Amazon thru March 2nd (reg price 3.99)

In Running Home, Ivy’s husband disappears in a cloud of suspicion and leaves her and the children to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on without him. Back in her hometown she dreams that everything will be better. She can start over and hopefully not make the same mistakes she made in the past.

But her philandering husband left her with more than bills to pay and children to raise. He left her in a world of trouble. The FBI thinks she knows something and the bad guys think she has something.

When her husband is found murdered, special agent Samson Sinclair is assigned to keep an eye on her. He’s willing to take a bullet for her, but can she trust him with her heart?

Ivy’s attempt to assemble the broken pieces of her life is proving harder than she anticipated. Will her husband’s secrets push her over the edge or into the arms of grace?

Split Sense is a Christian thriller that interweaves the lives of two families, twins separated at birth, and two different but unbelievable gifts that each child discovers which impacts their lives and others in startling ways.

Connect with Barbara online:

Facebook

Twitter

Bookbub Author Page

Author webpage

Split Sense is on sale for .99¢ at all online stores thru March 5th (reg. price 4.99)

The 3rd book in the Second Chances series will be (fingers crossed) coming soon! Barbara’s first grandbaby is due to arrive in a couple of weeks, so she won’t make any set-in-stone promises, but visit her webpage and/or sign up for her newsletter for all the newest updates!

*Sign up for Barbara’s newsletter on her webpage and also get a free copy of Entangled!

Enter the Rafflecopter now for your chance to win! a Rafflecopter giveaway
~For another chance to win, the secret word of the day is… blatherskite.~

Be sure to check in tomorrow for the giveaway as we meet author Brenda S. Anderson! A link to all the authors and all the ways to enter for the next 10 days> HERE 

 

Barbara Ellen Brink is an award-winning author of action-packed mysteries brimming with suspense and interweaved with a thread of romance. She grew up on a small fruit farm in Washington State, but now lives in the mean “burbs” of Minnesota. In her spare time, she likes to take her motorcycle for a spin, hang out with friends, or go hiking with her husband and their spoiled dog.

She is currently working on the 4th book in her Double Barrel Mysteries series and the 3rd in her Christian romantic suspense series, Second Chances.

 

 

Book Review: The Masterpiece by Francine Rivers

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New York Times bestselling author Francine Rivers returns to her romance roots with this unexpected and redemptive love story, a probing tale that reminds us that mercy can shape even the most broken among us into an imperfect yet stunning masterpiece.

A successful LA artist, Roman Velasco appears to have everything he could possibly want—money, women, fame. Only Grace Moore, his reluctant, newly hired personal assistant, knows how little he truly has. The demons of Roman’s past seem to echo through the halls of his empty mansion and out across his breathtaking Topanga Canyon view. But Grace doesn’t know how her boss secretly wrestles with those demons: by tagging buildings as the Bird, a notorious but unidentified graffiti artist—an alter ego that could destroy his career and land him in prison.

Like Roman, Grace is wrestling with ghosts and secrets of her own. After a disastrous marriage threw her life completely off course, she vowed never to let love steal her dreams again. But as she gets to know the enigmatic man behind the reputation, it’s as if the jagged pieces of both of their pasts slowly begin to fit together . . . until something so unexpected happens that it changes the course of their relationship—and both their lives—forever.

Purchase your own copy at Amazon

Barbara’s review:

Francine Rivers has once again created a story with characters so vibrant, so etched within the words that you don’t want the book to end even after 484 pages. I don’t know the last time I devoured a book so eagerly. This was not an easy story. It was emotionally draining at times and one that will stay with me for a long while. The Masterpiece is like a window into the souls of two individuals. One who desperately knows she needs God and one who lives like there is no God. It’s a human love story wrapped up in the much bigger story of God’s redeeming love for Roman and Grace.

Both broken and forever changed by the loss of parents at a young age and left to grow up in a loveless world, Roman Velasco and Grace Moore may have had similar beginnings, but the paths they take and the choices they make are so spectacularly different they could easily be on different planets.

I appreciate a story with characters who aren’t perfect, who don’t always make the right choices, and who reflect reality. Sadly, the world is broken and we are all imperfect people. The light shines brightest against the backdrop of darkness. The Masterpiece is a beautiful picture of how much God loves us and continues to hold out his hand of mercy and grace even in our disobedience. I recommend this book for teens through adults.

*Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.

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Thanks for stopping! Leave a comment and tell me if you plan to read The Masterpiece or if you already have and what you thought.

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, Second Chances series, and The Double Barrel Mysteries series. She lives in Minnesota and yearns for Hawaii.

Trial by fire, coming soon!

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The girls are back together again! In the past, Ivy and Raven have run home, chucked an alias, and ended up with the men of their dreams, but now what?

I just wanted to let my Christian Suspense fans know that I have started a new book in the Second Chances series. Because, of course, you can’t have a true series with only two books, right?

Although it’s been almost six years since Alias Raven Black was released, you don’t have to worry. Time stands still or goes fast or does whatever the writer wants, so… The story picks up only eighteen months after Raven’s adventure as a nanny in the Giordano family.

Running Home and Alias Raven Black have bold threads of grace and forgiveness woven throughout their pages, and the third book, tentatively called, Trial by Fire, which will bring Ivy and Raven (Brenna) back together again, is also a redemptive story. If you enjoyed the first two books of the series, you will like this one even more. I promise.

Raven, or Brenna, as she is now known, is living back in Chicago running an open-door art studio for homeless teens. She now has custody of her daughter Maria and half-brother Rico, and while that may be enough emotional turmoil for a young woman, there can always be more. Giordano lawyers are breathing down her neck trying to pull Rico back into the bosom of the Italian mobster family and in the midst of a fund raiser art show, a stranger shows up with ties to Brenna’s childhood past.

Ivy is dealing with a new marriage, new home, and the trial of Ace Anderson, the man who kidnapped her children back in Running Home. Set to testify against the man, she begins receiving subtle threats against her family.

With all that is going on with these two, it’s good they have their knights in shining armor by their sides. Samson is still an agent with the FBI and Thomas is working closely with Brenna to continue his P.I. business of finding and rescuing teenage runaways.

The thing is, Ivy and Brenna don’t always let their men handle the hard things for them. Sometimes, knowing a girlfriend has your back is the only way to deal with the kind of trouble that seems to follow these two around.

That, and a mutual trust in the God who rescued them in the past. New faith is definitely going to get tested in Trial by Fire.

I hope to have and am working toward a March release date for this new addition to the Second Chances series. So, if all things work out as I plan, Trial by Fire might be in your hot little hands before spring.

Wish me luck!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think about a third book in the Second Chances series. Are you excited? Apathetic? Was hoping for a book about giant muskrats? Let me know!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, Second Chances series, and The Double Barrel Mysteries series. She lives in Minnesota and yearns for Hawaii.

What are you reading in the New Year?

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Welcome to the New Year!

They say if you stay busy, time goes by faster. When you are at work and are longing to go home, that might be a good thing. But looking back at 2017, I feel like it went by so fast that it was sort of a blur. There was a lot going on for me and my family. A wedding, foot surgery, another wedding, the writing and release of MidSummer Madness… and suddenly Christmas was here.

Now that we’re living in sub-zero temperatures again, maybe we’ll all have time to slow down and smell the icicles. I vote to stay inside with a cup of hot coffee, and read a good book.

I have enjoyed many new authors this past year. They aren’t actually new authors, just new to me. But I love finding a fun novel or series that I can add to my reading list. After all, you can never have too many books on your Ereader, or too much chocolate in your desk drawer.

In case you’ve read all of my books and are looking for something new to fill your days until my next release… Here are a few titles I read in 2017 and truly enjoyed. Most are authors I haven’t read before, but Sibella and Diana are continuing favorites. I linked them all with Amazon but I’m sure you can get them at other stores as well.

The Illegal Gardener by Sara Alexi

The Closing (Whippoorwill Hollow Book 1) by Ken Oder

Shattered Image (Chain of Lakes Book 1) by Stacy Monson

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

The Moon Stands Still (Raleigh Harmon Mysteries #7) Sibella Giorello

A Hope Undaunted by Julie Lessman

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

If you haven’t read my Double Barrel Mysteries series yet… here’s a link to AWESOME!

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year and lots of time to read! Leave a comment and tell me what book you’re reading right now!

Thanks for stopping,

Barbara

Barbara is the author of the Fredrickson Winery Novels, the Grace Award winning thriller, Split Sense, The Second Chances series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, and The Double Barrel Mysteries. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and pup.