Awakening by JoAnn Durgin
c. 2010
TornVeil Books
ISBN: 978-1926712697
$12.99
Christian romance
JoAnn Durgin's debut novel, Awakening, is a romance to tickle your fancy, keep your pulse hopping and your hands busy turning pages.
Lexa Clarke wants to satisfy an elusive longing to do the right thing. Sam Lewis tried love once, but it didn't work very well, so he figures he's done looking. He might have been done looking, but it found him anyway, and with the most inconvenient timing – right in the middle of his eight-week TeamWork Christian work camp rebuilding houses on the Texas coast after a hurricane.
Lexa, a citified financial professional, takes a big chance with her job when she takes a two-month leave to try to scratch her itchy conscience and make a difference in the world. How better than to help people make a new start after the hurricane? She picks TeamWork and moves to San Antonio for the summer, realizing the organization is Christian, but not undertanding what an impact the people and the experience would have. Sam is also a financial professional, successful in his own right, from a large loving family, and faithful from the crown of his Stetson to the tips of his cowboy boots. From the start, Lexa is a problem child; one who rattles his cage and makes him step back and look at his well-practiced faith from a fresh angle. Lexa learns not only how to wield a hammer and how to be useful in a group setting, she finds that elusive joy through faith she's been missing her whole life.
Lexa and Sam's relationship is tested through the camp setting, and through a strange twist of a scary intruder bent on hurting one of the other TeamWork members. As Sam and Lexa work out this problem together, they grow in faith and love. Sam, however, finds a new calling that Lexa can't share. Will their love withstand a separation?
JoAnn's story is filled with lots of good kissing and intense moments of danger and high emotion. She describes her settings so faithfully that you feel like you're there. Lovers of romantic stories set in wonderful locations like San Antonio will truly enjoy this story.
I read this on Kindle!
Precarious Yates
Precarious Yates lives in Texas with husband, daughter, sheep, dogs, chickens, rabbit, lizard and by the time you read this some other exotic creature her husband or daughter has brought home. She had studied the plight of and worked toward the abolition of modern slavery for over a decade before sitting down to write Revelation Special Ops. She was further inspired by the work of her sister-in-law, who helped to found Love146, an organization that works to raise awareness about human trafficking and builds safe homes in vulnerable regions. Yates spent several years overseas as a missionary in Ireland, and also did missions work in India and the Philippines. Her passion for literature has become her means of further educating young adults of the realities of modern slavery, while producing hope through the power of Christ Jesus in us.
Shelley Hitz is the co-author of
Forgiveness Formula: Finding Lasting Freedom in Christ, along with her husband,
CJ. In this book they talks more about
this topic of forgiveness as well as when bad things happen. Visit their book website to check out their
full virtual book tour schedule and special gifts with purchase at:
www.TheForgivenessFormula.com 
