October 2013 Sponsors

October 1, 2013 | 1 Comment
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A big thank you to this month’s Prize Sponsors! Please take a moment to learn more about our wonderfully generous sponsors.

Awakening: Book One of The Geis by Christy Dorrity

Prize Format: eBook

A little magic has always run in sixteen-year-old McKayla McCleery’s family—at least that’s what she’s been told. McKayla’s eccentric Aunt Avril travels the world as a psychic for the FBI, and her mother can make amazing delicacies out of the most basic of ingredients. But McKayla doesn’t think for a second that the magic is real—it’s just good storytelling. Besides, McKayla doesn’t need magic.

But when the janitor reveals that an ancient curse, known as a geis, has awakened deadly powers that defy explanation, McKayla is forced to come to terms with what is real and what is fantasy.

Christy Dorrity is a freelance writer and author. She writes a blog about Irish dancing on IrishCentral.com, the leading Irish-American website. Her articles have appeared in Feis America Magazine and DiddlyiMag. She recently had an article accepted for the children’s Friend Magazine. In addition to Awakening, Christy has also written The Book Blogger’s Cookbook.

Christy is a stay-at-home mom with five children. She loves reading, writing, cooking and Irish dancing. Learn more about Christy at www.christydorrity.com.

Culpability and Absolution by Joshua Berry

Prize Format: Print

Unexpected twists and turns fill these pages written about two families brought together by the worst of circumstances. It’s a story of forgiveness and love unfeigned through the innocent gesture of a young girl who is a catalyst that softens hearts seized with pain and bitterness.

This is a novel full of emotions and the tribulations experienced by those in the throas of gambling addictions. Berry says ‘chances are you will worry, laugh, feel anger, insecurity, love, remorse, but you will forgive and shed a tear along with the characters . . . from beginning to end.’

Joshua Berry: I live in the southeast corner of Idaho with my wife of 30 years. A valley surrounded by lava rock and tall mountains is visible through our front window. Very scenic.

I graduated from Idaho State University. I love the outdoors. Reading and writing are both enjoyments for me.

I am an author of several short stories (available on Kindle) and the new novel, Culpability and Absolution.

Visit Joshua at www.authorjoshuaberry.com

Healing Creek by Jaclyn M. Hawkes

Prize Format: Print

Finding she had a perpetually unfaithful husband had been hard to cope with as a newly wed and newly certified marriage counselor. Still, that wasn’t as hard as finding her husband had a newborn daughter with a teenager—effectively ending both her marriage, and the career Monet McLaughlin had spent seven years building. That’ll leave a mark.

It’s why she absolutely knows not to trust the hunky male model who shows up two years later at her therapy horse stable to do a photo shoot for romance novel covers. Certainly no one who looks like that, and makes a living being that intimate with that many women, has a shred of moral integrity—do they?

Jaclyn M. Hawkes grew up in Utah with 6 sisters, 4 brothers and a large number of pets. She got a bachelor’s degree, had a career, and traveled extensively before settling down to her life’s work of being the mother of four magnificent and sometimes challenging children. She loves shellfish, the out of doors, the youth, and hearing her children laugh.

She and her fine husband, their family, and their sometimes very large pets, now live in a mountain valley in northern Utah, where it smells like heaven and kids still move sprinkler pipe. Jaclyn is the author of seven novels. You can read more about them at www.jaclynmhawkes.com.

The Realm: Secrets Unlocked by Lindsey K. Rietzsch

Prize Format: Print

Being raised in a church-going family where image is everything, her whole world is about to be turned upside down overnight as Celeste decides to take the summer off to fix herself. When the good-looking and mysterious Ezra moves to town things only get more complicated as Celeste is confronted by secrets from her past, unexplained phenomenon and dark paranormal forces beyond her control.

Saving her reputation and proving her sanity is the least of her worries when she quickly learns she is a part of something much bigger than she could have ever imagined—something that will forever alter her future and change the world…and there is no turning back!

Lindsey Rietzsch: Born and raised in Sandy, Utah, Lindsey Rietzsch (pronounced “reach”) has been a creator, inventor and entrepreneur since the age of three. In 2003 after graduating from Weber State University with a Bachelor of Integrated Studies with an emphases in Family Studies, Social Work and Communication, Lindsey found a passion for self-improvement workshop instructing and relationship coaching.

In 2008, she published her first book, How to Date Your Spouse. She now has four published books, including Successful Failures, Creating a Marriage You’ll Love (contributing author) and The Realm: Secrets Unlocked. Learn more about Lindsey and her various entrepreneurial adventures at www.lindseyrietzch.blogspot.com

The Reluctant Blogger by Ryan Rapier

Prize Format: Your Choice (Print or Ebook)

Todd Landry knows he’s in a bad place. That’s why he began seeing a therapist to begin with. And that alone took a lot of doing. So when Dr. Schenk threatens to stop their sessions due to Todd’s lack of effort, Todd grasps at the last available straw: a personal blog that will force him to confront his demons.

Ever since the death of his wife, Marci, Todd has not been the same. To make matters worse, he’s being forced to Single Adult activities at church, and everyone close to him seems to think he should be able to just forget Marci and get married again—especially when he meets Emily. But dating again is hard, especially when throw in three kids still at home, an overbearing father, and friends who need help with problems all their own.

Ryan Rapier is an Arizona native and through the course of his life has come face to face with a rattlesnake more than once. For that reason alone, he would likely have left the desert behind years ago were it not for one thing—the luxury of year-round golf. When Ryan isn’t on the course or in front of a computer screen, he can usually be found chasing behind his four children or doing errands for his amazing wife in the isolated beautiful valley they have both called home forever. Ryan’s thoughts and opinions that concern nobody but himself can be found here at his website. The Reluctant Blogger is his first novel.