Bookish Tuesday: Introducing Solo Tu in A Tuscan Legacy plus #Giveaway | Narelle Atkins

By Narelle Atkins @NarelleAtkins

I'm thrilled to introduce my tenth book - Solo Tu: Only You - Book 7 in A Tuscan Legacy - a contemporary Christian romance novella series spanning three continents.

Solo Tu is releasing today on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

I've always wanted to write a book for a continuity series that has shared characters and a connected story world.

A Tuscan Legacy is the brainchild of my author friends Marion Ueckermann and Autumn Macarthur. I was delighted to accept their offer when they asked me to join them in their journey to write an indie novella series based in Tuscany.

The series has an overarching family mystery plot that links all the books together. I've loved working with my authors friends in the group who live in England, South Africa and USA. Marion Ueckermann introduced the series back in January - Wandering Wednesday: Beautiful Tuscany.

Here's the video trailer introducing A Tuscan Legacy:

Let me share Solo Tu with you and introduce you to my characters - Sienna Rossi and Dave Maxwell.

If you read A Tuscan Legacy series from start to finish, you'll meet Sienna in That's Amore (Book 1) and Ti Amo (Book 4) before journeying to Sydney, Australia for Book 7.

Home means everything to Sienna Rossi.

Four years ago, Sienna defied her father by moving to Australia to obtain her teaching qualifications. Her grand plan is shaken by her father’s unexpected death and a trip back to Tuscany for her grandmother’s eightieth birthday where she renews her close bond with her sister, Alessa.

Teacher Dave Maxwell likes the freedom of his nomadic lifestyle. He works contract-to-contract, moving to different high schools around Australia. He’s in Sydney for a season, caring for his grandma while his aunt is on an extended overseas vacation.

Back in Sydney, Sienna moves in with her Aussie cousins and starts her first teaching job, torn between her dream for a future in Australia and her longing for home. Sienna and Dave work at the same school, attend the same church, and quickly become friends. They are drawn together by circumstances and an undeniable attraction.

But their idyllic time together is temporary. Can the girl from Tuscany and the boy from Australia risk everything for love?

A Tuscan Legacy series - Amazon Kindle and coming in print

A Tuscan Legacy novellas are available on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. The books will be releasing in ebook format first, and will later be available in print. Please check out A Tuscan Legacy series page on Amazon.com for more information.

Here's the complete A Tuscan Legacy series list and the Amazon Kindle release dates.

AVAILABLE NOW:

THAT'S AMORE: That's Love Book 1 by Marion Ueckermann - set in Tuscany, Italy.

LUNA ROSA: Blushing Moon Book 2 by Elizabeth Maddrey - set in Washington DC, USA.

RAPSODIA: Rhapsody Book 3 by Alexa Verde - set in Texas, USA.

TI AMO: I Love You Book 4 by Marion Ueckermann - set in Rome, Italy.

LA FIAMMA SACRA: The Sacred Flame Book 5 by Clare Revell - set in England.

BELLA NOTTE: Beautiful Night Book 6 by Heather Gray - international setting (Europe and USA).

SPECIAL PRE-ORDER PRICE OF 99 CENTS (US):

SOLO TU: Only You Book 7 by Narelle Atkins - releasing MAY 29 - set in Sydney, Australia.

DOLCE VITA: Sweet Life Book 8 by Autumn Macarthur - releasing JUNE 5 - set in Wales.

LA RISPOSTA: The Answer Book 9 by Autumn Macarthur - releasing JUNE 12 - set in Tuscany, Italy.

A Tuscan Legacy Reader Group on Facebook

A Tuscan Legacy has a Reader Group on Facebook. If you'd like to follow the series and keep up-to-date on the latest news, please join our Reader Group.

Giveaway

I'm giving away a print copy of Solo Tu. The giveaway is open to international entrants with a mailing address where Amazon USA delivers.

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post and/or the May New Releases post on May 21. Receive two entries in the drawing by commenting on both posts.

The giveaway closes on Tuesday June 5 and the winner will be announced soon after in a comment on this post and the May 2018 New Releases post.

The winner can claim their prize by leaving a comment on this post with their email address or by contacting Narelle via social media. A redraw will take place if the winner doesn't claim their prize by June 30, 2018.

A fun loving Aussie girl at heart, NARELLE ATKINS was born and raised on the beautiful northern beaches in Sydney, Australia. She has settled in Canberra with her husband and children. A lifelong romance reader, she found the perfect genre to write when she discovered inspirational romance. Narelle's contemporary stories of faith and romance are set in Australia.

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Getting unstuck

The title of this blog post is actually not quite the truth. As I write this, I still feel stuck. 

Very stuck.

In the past six months, I've started five new books, but finished nothing. In the past three weeks, I haven't managed to write even one new chapter of my current story. 

If I was a car, I'd be up to my axles in mud. Spinning my wheels. Digging myself deeper into the hole. Getting nowhere, and the harder I try, the more stuck I get.

Photo by the Henry Ford via Flickr

It's messy, frustrating, and no fun at all. 

Writing and releasing my first three published books in less than six months required that I put in a load of hours, but they were easy. I just did the work. Wrote the stories, sent them off to my editor and critique partner, did my edits and revisions, published the books. I'd been writing on and off all my life. This was just a lot more on, and very little off. I knew God wanted me to publish the books, and so I did it, with a single-minded focus.

Then, with book four, things went wrong. Real life got in the way of writing. My husband was ill, and needed my attention. A beloved pet died despite weeks of careful nursing and so much fervent prayer. I missed deadlines. Writing became a struggle. The book did release, eventually, but six weeks late. I lost all my preorders. Sales of all my books, which had done way better than expected, crashed. 

Angry with God, I forgot all about the deep spiritual lessons He'd made me teach my characters writing books two and three. Lessons about what truly loving others means. Lessons about putting Him first. Lessons about His purposes being far higher than our own plans. Lessons about what it means to truly trust in Him, and surrender to Him. 

God didn't forget. He had other ways to teach me those lessons.

From book 2: Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18 
God is teaching me that I wasn't truly living His love. He doesn't want me making writing the most important thing I do, giving it the biggest share of my time. He wants me to truly love the people He's placed in my life. To not just say I love them, but to show it, by giving them time, by listening, by putting their needs ahead of my writing and my to-do list and my own plans. 

From Book 2: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:29

I thought I trusted God, thought I wanted to do His will. The problem was, I still wanted to do it all myself. I wasn't leaning on Him or surrendering anything to Him.  I trusted in my own strength and my own plans. I had to be broken to let go of that, to truly allow Him to take my burdens and learn what it means to rest in Him. 

From Book 3: I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me. Psalm 57:2 ESV

God had to show me that He has other purposes for me besides writing. I write to share His love, but I need to live it, first. He is fulfilling His purpose for my life, in His way, and it's better than mine. 

From Book 4: And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart. Ezekiel 11:19 NLT

I never quite understood why God gave me this verse for this book. It fit my heroine, who had a hard heart, not trusting God or love at the start of the book, but the context of the verse is about choosing to worship God rather than worshipping idols. I'm only just coming to realise I'd made an idol of writing, of my business plan, of Amazon rankings and sales figures. 

God had an answer for that. Take away the sales, and my release schedules, and my earnings forecasts. Take away all my plans. That hurt. I felt such a failure. I cried, a lot. 

But now, I'm grateful. If the big plans I made last year for my writing career had worked, I never would have learned to trust God. I never would have handed my burdens over to Him. I never would have known His rest. I'd be truly stuck, trying to write a book every six or seven weeks, without a break. Eep! Instead, he taught me to look to Him and rely on Him.

It's funny. Last week, when I first asked God for guidance on what to blog about, just the title came to me. I figured I was supposed to write about overcoming writer's block, and researched a load of links on timed writing and the psychology of creative blocks. Instead, God wanted me to write a post about looking at being stuck in a different way. 

The owners of these boats could struggle to push their boats back into the water. It would be hard, but if they worked enough, they'd do it. Or they can simply wait for the tide to come back in and float the boats for them. 

Sometimes the answer to a block isn't to try harder, to push more, to beat ourselves up for not doing the work, or for giving in to resistance. Sometimes, maybe far more often than we realise, the answer is to look to God and wait on His timing.

Knowing that, suddenly I don't feel stuck at all!

But I stand silently before the Lord, waiting for him to rescue me. 

For salvation comes from him alone. 

Psalm 62:5

"Fluffy" fiction, tough issues?

The heartbreaking images and stories from the current refugee crisis have me praying, donating to the emergency appeal, and remembering Jesus's words:

“I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me...

Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me — you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40 The Message)

As Christians, we're commanded to get involved. We can't stay passive bystanders. It's not always easy, when our resources and what we're able to offer can feel so insignificant compared to what's happening.

But Matthew records Jesus as saying this right after the parable of the talents. Maybe there's a reason for that? Maybe, God wants us to use everything we have in His service, no matter how small it seems to us.

So does that mean our writing too? Can we do anything to help with big issues through the stories we write? 

If I was a journalist or an author of gritty, realistic novels, clearly I could. But I write sweet Christian romance, a "fluffy" feel-good genre. I even have that in my author tag-line, my promise to readers : Feel-good inspirational romance to make you smile. A recent review referred to 'Sweet brain candy'. Eep!

I write for God, definitely. My mission with my writing is to show the extent of God's love for us. Can that stretch to dealing with tough real-life issues too, even in fluffy fiction?

I hope so! I don't think I do it perfectly, but with God's help, I try.

My Love in Store romance series is based around a London department store (think Selfridge's poor-relation frumpy spinster aunt). Yet just as many of the scenes are set in a nearby homeless shelter, or involve formerly homeless shelter residents. My characters have dealt with suicide, addiction, and debt. My last release was filled with disabled children, some severely disabled. My work-in-progress is about divorce. My next story will involve terminal cancer, a burned out medical missionary, and a shopaholic with an eating disorder. Sometime in the next two years, I'll have the interesting job of making a character with Asperger's syndrome, cerebral palsy, OCD, and a very nasty way with words a romantic hero.

And I aim to write light, uplifting happy-ever-after fiction!

How serious do you think we can get, when we write lighter genres? How best can we serve God with our books? I'd love to hear how other authors approach this in their writing, and how you feel about more serious issues appearing in lighter genre fiction as a reader?


Autumn Macarthur is an Australian writer of inspirational romance living near London with her very English husband and four spoiled rescue cats.

She loves reading, cooking, gardening, and writing deeply emotional stories to make you smile and remind you how big and wide and deep God’s love and forgiveness can be.
She loves hearing from readers so do get in touch on either Facebook or Twitter!

You can subscribe to her mailing list here.

Book Recommendation: Forget Paris by Autumn Macarthur

Book Description:  

American graduate student Zoe Gallagher doesn’t believe in romance. 

She’s in Paris on Valentine’s Day doing research to prove that romance is an illusion and love based on it doesn’t last. When she meets New Yorker Gabe Ross, there to fulfil his mother’s dying wish by placing a lovelock on a bridge crossing the River Seine, even she finds it hard to resist the most romantic city in the world on the most romantic day of the year. 

An impulsive challenge to try a psychological experiment feels like more, much more, for both of them. 

Zoe tells herself their one wonderful day together proves nothing, only gives more evidence her theory is right. But on her return to London, she discovers she needs Gabe’s help to learn the biggest lesson of all, that love does last. 

Especially God’s love… 

Narelle's thoughts: 

I was intrigued by the story premise and I enjoyed reading Forget Paris. Zoe is different to the typical romance heroine. Not only is she cynical about romance, she's doing post graduate psychological research to prove her theory. Zoe is not afraid to share her opinion of romance, and it's kind of like the author has cast one of the real life female critics of the romance genre as the heroine in her own story. 

Zoe meets Gabe in Paris on Valentine's Day and she asks him to join her in completing her research test. Her theory is they'll spend the day together and develop romantic feelings due to forced proximity. But, those feelings won't be real. Instead, they'll be based on an illusion of romantic love.

Complete strangers when they have a chance meeting on a Parisian bridge, Gabe is fascinated by Zoe and her interesting ideas about romance. His loving parents recently passed and he's alone in Paris to fulfil his mother's long held dream. Meeting Zoe is a pleasant distraction from his grief. They spend Valentine's Day together, working on the assumption they'll never meet again.

Zoe is a complex and, at times, prickly character who has trust issues. Gabe reappears in her life and she struggles to process her developing feelings for him. I liked Gabe and I thought he was very sweet and patient with Zoe. In one scene her twin sister, Tiff (the heroine in Book 3, A Model Bride), gives Zoe a lecture, and I'm cheering for Tiff, hoping Zoe will finally listen to her twin rather than hiding behind her fears and assuming she knows best. 

Zoe and Gabe grow in their love and faith during the story. Zoe's big spiritual 'aha moment' brings the story together, which leads to satisfying and romantic ending. I finished the story believing that Zoe and Gabe's love was for real and that their relationship would last the distance and survive the challenges of life. I loved the urban setting in Paris and London, and the colourful backdrop it provides for the story. 

Forget Paris is Book 4 in Autumn Macarthur's Love in Store series and can be read as a standalone title. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy fun and contemporary Christian romances with an European flavour.

To learn more about Autumn Macarthur and her books, please visit her website.

A fun loving Aussie girl at heart, Narelle Atkins was born and raised on the beautiful northern beaches in Sydney, Australia. She has settled in Canberra with her husband and children. A lifelong romance reader, she found the perfect genre to write when she discovered inspirational romance. Narelle's contemporary stories of faith and romance are set in Australia. Her latest book, His Perfect Catch, was released on June 23 in the SPLASH! box set contemporary Christian romance novella collection. His Perfect Catch was released as a standalone title on July 10. 

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com

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