Deb’s Book Blast gives you a front row seat to what’s happening with Deb’s books. If you sign up on this email list you’ll get:
News about the release of Deb’s upcoming books
Insider information about her books
Notice of free and discount Kindle books by Deb and other Christian authors
Deb’s perspective on distinctively Christian fiction
You’ll receive at least four emails a year and, under special circumstances, as many as one each month. You may unsubscribe at any time. Your privacy will be respected. Your name and address will not be given to anyone else for any other purpose.
Since most readers don’t bother to comment or leave a reply, your chances of winning my Book Blast giveaway are much higher than winning most other contests. See the end of this post to find the easy way to enter. I’d love to hear from you.
As I write this Book Blast, my husband, Art, is in Liberia, West Africa, speaking to a group of 450 people from 48 African churches. This ministry is hugely different from the ministries we’ve had in Taiwan and New Zealand. For one thing, five of the times he spoke he had three interpreters, interpreting into the Bassa, Mano, Kpelle languages, one right after another. “With three interpreters,” Art says, “fifteen minutes of English can turn into a one-hour sermon!”
While he’s serving in Africa, I’m working on some author projects that I haven’t been able to do for the last five or so years. Since 2021:
I published my most recent book series, “New Beginnings”
Art and I brought our 47 years of full-time missionary service to a close
We passed our work on to a national pastor
We moved our “home” back to America
We found a new church home and began new ministries in it
I had to put many author tasks aside during these five years, but now, as an indie (independent) author, I know I have to work harder to find new readers for my books. While Art’s gone, I’m beginning to make plans to do that. Deb’s Book Blast is a major part of that plan. You’ll see some new changes in coming Book Blasts which, I hope, you will enjoy.
Along with working with Bible college students, in our home church and singing in our church choir, I’ve also become the librarian for our church library. It has needed a revamp for some time and our pastors have fully supported it moving forward. Part of that has been adding newer Christian books which will be helpful and enjoyable to our church people. What’s the top thing I look for in Christian fiction? Books that show Christian characters who are active in ministry, reaching out to help others around them. Finding Christian ministry as a main part of a fiction book plot can be challenging, but worth the effort.
Goodreads has been an important tool for me, making this task far easier. For many years I’ve kept a record of almost every Christian book I read on my Goodreads bookshelves, along with a star rating and a review that helps me know what I liked or didn’t like about the book. Now, years after I’ve read books, I can consult my reviews to know which books to recommend to others, include in our church library, and mention in my Book Blasts.
Here are some books, each the first in a series I’ve brought into our church library, plus one that I may bring in soon. Each of these fiction series show Christians in ministry reaching out to others with spiritual, and sometimes physical, needs. If you’re looking for a new book to read, you might start here. I’ve loved these and I hope you will too.
Cape Refuge by Terri Blackstock (Cape Refuge Series)
Now for the Giveaway!
Beneath a Southern Sky by Deborah Raney.
Warning! If you read the Amazon review of this book, it will spoil the most compelling parts of the plot! I don’t want to do that, so just let me say that this story begins in the Amazon jungle with tensions that are natural in that setting. Then the location moves to America and the plot twists in ways I never ever expected. The book challenges the reader to trust God, to seek his will, and follow his leading. I just finished reading this book for the second time and, though I knew the plot twist ahead of time, I still really enjoyed it. Such an intriguing situation with no easy answers, but I appreciate how the author resolved this. Though the content is entirely appropriate for a Christian marriage, there are some brief mentions of marital intimacy that make it most suitable for married adults.
To enter the giveaway for the free ebook, simply leave a comment below or send a comment to: DebBrammer@gmail.com. You can enter by sharing the name of one of these things:
A Christian book that inspired you to live for Christ
Your favorite subgenre of fiction (contemporary, historical, romance, mystery, suspense)
A book that includes Christian ministry as a major plot line
A book you’ve enjoyed reading recently
Thanks for taking the time to enter. I’ll announce the winner’s name in the next Book Blast.
Everyone gets a freebie today! Scroll down to get afree Thanksgiving short story that is sure to touch the heart.
Then go into the draw to win these twofree ebooks! Edges of Truth: The Mary Weaver Story and I Survived! 5 Bible Characters Who Survived Disasters. The first book is a memoir that will inspire you and the second is the companion Bible story that goes with the memoir. With each Book Blast I usually give away a book written by a different author, but this time the books are by me, Deb Brammer. Scroll down for more details.
Have you ever gone through a difficult period of time when it seemed God was watching your life go by with his hands in his pockets? Maybe you did your best, only to experience failure, unfairness or unrelieved suffering. You prayed fervently but God didn’t seem to be listening.
It can be hard to trust God at times like these, but God does see and care for us, even when it doesn’t seem like it. Sometimes God is workingout his plan, but we can’t see any evidence of it yet.
Steve Brennecke can testify to this. When his friend from church, Mary Weaver, was charged with the murder of a baby she provided care for, Steve, a young lawyer, did his best to defend her. He knew Mary was innocent, but at the end of her second trial, the judge declared her guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. How could God allow this sweet mother of two young children to receive such a sentence?
Steve worked with an appeal lawyer, Paul Rosenberg, to find enough evidence enough to warrant a new trial, but God seemed to be observing the process with his hands in his pockets. Steve’s best work had produced his worst nightmare. His failure had sentenced an innocent client to life in prison. God hadn’t prevented the unfair verdict. Steve had resigned himself to the reality that Mary would die of old age in prison.
Then one day, one ruling changed everything. Steve could finally see the fingerprints of God.
I was privileged to write this true story, Edges of Truth: The Mary Weaver Story, with the help of Mary and my friend, Steve Brennecke. With the help of my husband, Art, I also wrote a Bible study book, I Survived! 5 Bible Characters Who Survived Disasters, to go with Mary’s story. Mary, Steve and I launched both books on November 22, 2013. God blessed the book launch when Mary’s supporters filled our beautiful venue in Marshalltown, Iowa. Mary, Steve and I had the opportunity to each tell what amazing things God had done to bring Mary out of prison and then bring these books to print.
In 2013, when the books were launched, Art and I lived in New Zealand where Art pastored a mission church. Twelve years later, we live in Iowa, just a ten-minute drive from the prison in which Mary was incarcerated for two years. We now visit an inmate there that had also been incarcerated when Mary was there for two years. And currently I’m teaching a ladies’ Sunday School class using I Survived! Our home and church are no longer ten thousand miles away from the prison. Now all three are within a ten-minute drive of each other.
As I teach this class week by week, I remember Mary’s simple faith in God and the way he worked in her life. But as I look at the years from 2009-2013, I realize God was preparing me to write the Bible study before I even heard Mary’s story. Two years before I heard Mary’s story, I went through a very difficult time in my own life. That situation helped prepare me to write I Survived! in a way that would really help readers. God also brought a book to my attention that helped me in the writing process. On Being a Servant of God by Warren Wiersbe really helped me know how to respond to personal conflict in a way that honored God. As I wrote chapter 6 in the Bible study book, I could present a good picture of what forgiveness looks like. That helped some of the ladies in my class.
But God’s timing was perfect in other ways as well. As I taught the Bible studies, I realized how many events had to fall into place at just the right time to enable us to write Mary’s story and launch it. From 2011-2013 God worked things in our lives so I could come back to the USA twice, one time to interview Steve and Mary in person and the next time to launch the book. Steve also came to New Zealand twice, one time when I heard Mary’s story, and next time to bring a huge box of court transcripts with him on the plane.
Perfect timing doesn’t always look perfect going forward. Looking back, however, often shows how God is working all things according to his plan. I hope you can see the fingerprints of God in your own life today.
Now for the freebies.
Your free Thanksgiving story, Prison Blues: A Thanksgiving Challenge, is here.
Enter the giveaway for the free ebooks, Edges of Truth: The Mary Weaver StoryandI Survived! 5 Bible Characters Who Survived Disasters. To enter, simply leave a comment below telling what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving. You have a much higher chance of winning this drawing that most other drawings, so why not take a few moments to share your blessings?
Christmas is coming!
Books make a great gift for the readers in your life. I’ve posted links to buy all 12 of my books below and have even given you tips about the best places to purchase them. If you need a last-minute stocking stuffer, ebooks work great for that as well. All of my books are distinctively Christian and challenge the reader to live for Christ.
Whatever your plans are for Thanksgiving and Christmas, may the Lord open your eyes to his great love and many of the blessings he gives his children.
Deb
Books for Adults
(The New Beginnings Series and the Art Spotlight Mysteries are also very suitable for ages 15 and up.) My adult books are only available on Amazon. They are all available as paperbacks, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited.
Edges of Truth: The Mary Weaver Story: When a baby dies from head injuries, an innocent babysitter is accused and uncertainty forces experts to define the Edges of Truth.
Short Poppies: New Zealand sounds more like a tourist destination than a mission field, but when Levi is thrust into a short-term ministry there, things aren’t as easy as he expected.
Give It a Go Pastor Greg needs a new wife, but how can he begin to date when he lives in the goldfish bowl of a mission church, ten thousand miles away from his home in America?
Pop In for a Cuppa: At fifty-two, Jennifer has never felt called to missions, but dating veteran missionary Greg Fischer makes her rethink almost every area of her life.
Art Spotlight Series:
Broken Windows: Running away to Boise makes sense until a shadow from the past commits weird crimes to destroy Jordan’s credibility in the art community.
Déjà Who? : Jordan never dreamed an innocent promise could coast him his career, but new accusations pull him into the past, forcing him to ask, “Who am I?” all over again.
I Scream: A child’s simple painting enters the world of contemporary art, challenging Jordan to re-examine his principles and to market art he can’t understand.
JourneyForth Books for kids and teens
My JourneyForth books (BJU Press) books are available from BJU Press, Amazon, and Christian Book Distributors (CBD.) I don’t have price control over these books, but I can tell you where to get the best buys.
Tips on choosing a distributor to buy my JourneyForth books from:
Only JourneyForth (BJU Press) has the newest cover and illustrations for Peanut ButterFriends in a Chop Suey World as a paperbackand this is the most attractive version of the four versions they’ve printed. (Not that the old covers weren’t nice, but this one is especially nice.)
JourneyForth doesn’t sell the Kindle version of these four books, but Amazon and CBD does.
As I write this, CBD now is offering the lowest price ($5.59) on the Kindle version of these four books.
As I write this, CBD is also offering the paperback version of Two Sides to Everything for $5.19, saving 42%!
Buy kid/teens books directly from JourneyForth:
Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World(age 8-12) (paperback only): Amy finds herself in a whole new world when she moves to Taiwan with her missionary parents and brothers.
Two Sides to Everything (age 8-12): Going to New Zealand while his mom recovers from a serious accident, Josh experiences another side to all kinds of things he thought he understood.
Moose (teens): Cody finds that living with a miracle can take a lot of patience—especially when that miracle is a new, struggling Christian friend.
Careful Enough? (uses my pen name, Dillon Forbes, as author): Daniel spends his senior year moving to a Chinese city with his parents to help start a secret house church.
Two Sides to Everything (age 8-12): Going to New Zealand while his mom recovers from a serious accident, Josh experiences another side to all kinds of things he thought he understood.
Moose (teen): Cody finds that living with a miracle can take a lot of patience—especially when that miracle is a new, struggling Christian friend.
Careful Enough? (uses my pen name, Dillon Forbes, as author): Daniel spends his senior year moving to a Chinese city with his parents to help start a secret house church.
Buy kid/teens books from Christian Book Distributors (CBD):
Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World (age 8-12): Amy finds herself in a whole new world when she moves to Taiwan with her missionary parents and brothers. (Right now CBD seems to only be selling this book with the older cover.)
Two Sides to Everything (age 8-12): Going to New Zealand while his mom recovers from a serious accident, Josh experiences another side to all kinds of things he thought he understood.
Moose (teen): Cody finds that living with a miracle can take a lot of patience—especially when that miracle is a new, struggling Christian friend. (Right now CBD seems to only have the ebook for this one.)
Careful Enough? (uses my pen name, Dillon Forbes, as author name): Daniel spends his senior year moving to a Chinese city with his parents to help start a secret house church.
Today all my subscribers can get two free books from me as well as free books from nine other authors! You can find Christian cozy mysteries and suspenseful thrillers here. See details at the end of this Book Blast for a second free book you can get, just for being my subscriber.
If you’ve been a subscriber to Deb’s Book Blast for any length of time, you probably know that my husband Art and I spent about 45 years serving in Taiwan and New Zealand in church planting ministries. In New Zealand, many internationals came to our church. Connecting to them gave us lots of contact with significantly different cultures. We feel so blessed to have extensive multi-cultural experience.
Now we live in Altoona, Iowa where many of our church friends have lived in Iowa all their lives. Living near a Bible college, however, gives us opportunities to hang out with international students. Our cross-cultural experiences help us:
Understand the missionary kid who doesn’t know what country to call home and is struggling to fit into American culture
To relate to the American who has just finished an extended time in a foreign country and suddenly sees his home country in a different light than he ever has before
To give ear to the person who has hidden the multi-cultural part of herself deep inside, waiting to meet someone she can share her stories with
Our cross-culture experience has also helped us teach new concepts to mono-cultural Iowans. In June, Art and I got to serve as camp missionaries at a smallish junior camp in rural Iowa. Each day we presented a different mission field and taught the juniors a few phrases in the corresponding language. We talked about our experiences in Taiwan and taught campers how to eat with chopsticks. As we shared the need to reach the world with the gospel, we explained the practice of animism in Taiwan and how similar it is to the Maori stories in New Zealand. We shared incidents from the lives of Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael and the way they changed the way they dressed to look more like the culture around them and have a bigger impact on their lives.
Best of all, we brought some Bible college students from South Africa to our Friday session. Azola Nqulequ and Ntutu Maseyimane shared the unique sounds of their Xhosa language. I can’t even pronounce the name of this language because Xhosa is filled with distinctive clicks like no other language I’ve heard before. Azola and Ntutu held the campers spellbound as they shared their testimonies and cultural differences from our American culture. They enabled us to bring a bit of black African culture to white rural Iowa kids and broaden their worldview a bit.
So, our cross-cultural experience has given us a special ministry with people we meet. But it also colors so much of my writing. Many of my books have strong cross-cultural themes or elements. Throughout the month of August, I’m giving away my book Broken Windows, the first in my Art Spotlight Mysteries. My lead character in that series has grown up as an MK in Taiwan.
Since you’ve already subscribed to my Book Blast, you may have already read Broken Windows, the book I’m featuring in this group promotion, but I encourage you to go to the promo anyway. That will allow you to see books from nine other Christian writers who write cozy mysteries and suspense. If you like my book, you may like theirs as well. Each author is offering a free book in exchange for joining their newsletter.
Because some of you may have received Broken Windows in an earlier promo, and because I want to reward my subscribers who get my newsletter and read it, I’m going to give away another free book. I’ve never given this book away before. Déjà Who? is the second in the Art Spotlight Mysteries. You can get your free copyhere. Please don’t share this link with others. It’s for my subscribers only.
Leave a comment. If you’ve spent time in a foreign country, how has that experience changed you? Leave a comment to share with my readers.
It’s great to have Kindle Unlimited and have access to so many books. Sometimes, however, too many options can make it hard to know which books to choose. From now until the end of April, I’m partnering with other Christian fiction authors to share our books which are free to KU subscribers. I haven’t read all these books, but they should all be both clean and Christian. Why not try one out and find out about a Christian author who is new to you?
My books Short Poppies and Broken Windows are both featured in this promo. Due to a mistake that can’t be corrected, it looks like Broken Windows is no longer offered, but you can still find it on Amazon KU.
Many of my books are also now offered in Kindle Unlimited. Here’s a list of them:
New Beginnings Series:
Short Poppies
Give It a Go
Pop In for a Cuppa
Art Mystery Series:
Broken Windows
Déjà Who?
I Scream
True Story and Companion Bible Study:
Edges of Truth: The Mary Weaver Story
I Survived! :5 Bible Characters Who Survived Disasters
On a personal note, the most exciting thing that’s happened in our family since my last Book Blast is getting a new family member. Benji Barnabas Brammer is our new dog!
Since we got married 47 years ago, we’ve travelled a lot. Being missionaries meant leaving our fields of service for regular furloughs and extensive travels during those furloughs. That made owning a dog complicated. About 30 years ago, when we lived in Taiwan, we did have Muffin, a white toy poodle. Sadly, after two years, Muffin was killed in an accident. Other than those two years, we were completely dogless. By Christmas of 2024, however, we had settled down in our Iowa home for retirement. No more excuses. I really needed a dog!
Benji, a black miniature poodle puppy, became our dog! He stole our heart from the first moment. Since our two daughters currently don’t have a dog, Benji became the dog for the whole family.
While we love him dearly and can hardly keep our hands off him, we had never raised a puppy before so we weren’t quite prepared for the parenting job he would require. While human babies go through some stages of development one at a time, our puppy was going through potty training, teething (chewing), and crying (barking) through the night all at one time. Thankfully, he is mainly potty trained now and doesn’t bark much throughout the night. Whew! What a relief!
So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a great idea. “How come churches don’t allow dogs to come?” I asked. Benjie loves to meet people and dogs and I could imagine going to a church that allows dogs, showing Benji off and getting to know the dogs of my church friends.
It seemed like a good idea at the time!
Then we took Benji in for what we thought was a free nail trim at one of our local pet stores. He met a leashed dog in an aisle. Suddenly, the other dog snapped at our sweet little Benji! Another dog barked loudly from the grooming section. In the grooming area a large basset hound displayed serious signs of stress while a groomer gave him a bath. I realized then that dogs often feel stressed in unfamiliar places, especially while they are being groomed or have different restrictions they are used to. Can you imagine the pandemonium with a church full of dogs?
So much for dog church.
Spring is just around the corner, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. May this be a joyful time for you wherever you are today. If you’re feeling stressed, I hope you have opportunity to read an uplifting Christian book.
Do you ever wonder if God is smiling on you?Sure, you know God loves you, but do you wonder if He is pleased with you? Maybe you try to please him but you feel you fail more than anything. You confess every sin you can think of, but you still sin occasionally. … Continue reading →
