You could win this riveting novel about a forensic artist, written by a forensic artist! Carrie Stuart Park’s books are amazingly suspenseful, funny, and Christian.

It’s easy to enter my giveaways and your chance of winning one is higher than most other contests. See the end of this post to find the winner from my last Book Blast and the easy way to enter this time to be in to win Carrie’s book, Relative Silence. I’d love to hear from you.

More free books:

October Christian Fiction Kindle Unlimited Deals I’m a part in this book promo with fourteen other Christian authors. All of these books are available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers, but this promo will also help other readers get Christian fiction at low Kindle prices. I don’t know all of these authors, but I’ve already read Ember by Sharon Srock. Though I seldom award 5-stars to books, but this one deserved it. You can find all twenty-four books by fifteen authors here.

I was nearly ready to launch my book I Scream one night, when I was sitting in prayer meeting in our church in Montana, trying to focus on our pastor’s words. Three words popped into my head and stole my focus. “I Scream Social.” Suddenly, I knew I had the perfect way to celebrate my book launch. This would give local readers a way to get a taste of my new book, in both senses of the word.

As I delved deeper into contemporary art, I found out how classic abstract art influenced contemporary artists today. I gained new appreciation for “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh and “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. I found some interesting work by Paul Klee, but I have to admit, I still don’t get anything out of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings.

I couldn’t stop with merely learning more about contemporary art, however. I had to produce five-year-old Destiny’s fictional art. Paintings good enough to compete with adults and win prizes. These three paintings made Destiny a shooting star in the art world.

“Feline Guardians” was a stock photo.

To make “Beyond Childhood” I resorted to cutting out another silhouette and pasting it over a stock photo.

For “I Scream,” however, I started with a blank canvas and a few tubes of acrylic paint.

To make this picture, I felt only slightly intimidated creating art that was supposedly produced by a very skillful six-year-old. I spent hours ogling Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” blending colors, and trying to figure out how much of what I was doing would be able to be produced by such a young artist. (Thankfully, this painting only made it onto the back cover of the book and my Pinterest page. The cover photo for the book, a stock photo altered by a designer, was not intended to reproduce Destiny’s image.)

How can you define real art?

Recently, I’ve begun to think about how digital images blur the line between fact and fiction. Today art can be created and displayed without a canvas and paint, paper and ink, or any physical thing you can touch, feel, or smell. In the same way, I am witness to the fact that some fictional art is real, whether it exists only in the mind or is made of paper or canvas that is created by a real person for fictional purposes. So now I not only write fiction. I paint it as well. And I’m not even an artist!

A writer’s journey gives the author a much deeper experience in the world of her book than the reader will ever get. A writer sometimes sees, touches, smells, hears, and tastes a world before it ever gets passed on to the reader. Some of that book world is real and some is imagined, but creating a fictional world is one of the joys of writing.

See more about the art mentioned in I Scream on this Pinterest board.

You’ll also find great art humor and articles about two real life child prodigies.

Q: Since contemporary art is edgy art that challenges traditional boundaries and isn’t easy to define, who do you think should be qualified to judge it? How can we know if it is bogus or real? Or does it matter?

Q: What kind of art do you like most? Do you find it hard to appreciate art you don’t understand?

Don’t forget to answer a question or comment on anything in this Book Blast so you can go into the draw for my giveaway!

Book Giveaway from my last Book Blast: I gave away the entire Kindle Box Set for my Art Spotlight series to a random reader who commented on that BB. And the winner is . . . Eric P.

Today’s Book Blast giveaway will go to a person chosen at random from all those who answer one of these questions or comment on this post.

Relative Silence by Carrie Stuart Parks

Carrie Stuart Parks is a forensic artist who teaches courses and writes books on the subject. She also writes amazingly funny and suspenseful fiction about forensic artists who help solve crimes. This book is one of them.  

My review:

Sandpiper Boone’s past has left her fragile and claustrophobic. Her wealthy family owns most of the island where she lives. When she witnesses a murder of a close friend, she feels the need to get involved so the murder won’t be swept under the carpet. The past of Tucker Landry, a forensic artist, has left him fragile and afraid of boats and bodies of water. Piper and Tucker come together to solve the murder and find the secrets behind Piper’s “perfect family.”

I gave this book 5 stars for suspense. Though this book doesn’t have as much of a Christian feel as some of Carrie’s other books, she does bring God into the equation to a degree.

Don’t forget about the offers at October Christian Fiction KU Deals? Just follow this link.