FICTION
STAND STILL & CHILL (fiction 2023) — My newest novel is a FREE READ Christmas romance set in West Virginia’s beautiful Canaan Valley. It is the sequel to my serialized 2020 novel, Suspended Aggravation. Stand Still & Chill can be accessed through a series of three JOY Journal blog posts on this site. The first 10 chapters start HERE. Check the end of that post to link to remaining chapters.
A quick look: When a well-intentioned dad decides to be a modern-day Abraham — picking out a bride for his most-eligible-bachelor son — what could possibly go wrong? Pretty much everything. Sparks are flying faster than snow when the son, a ski lodge manager, and the woman, an intense PR maven, meet in rural West Virginia.
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Please click HERE to READ FOR FREE on Weelunk magazine or click HERE to listen to a behind-the-scenes interview that aired March 2, 2020 on West Virginia Public Radio.
++Thanks to an arts patron, Suspended Aggravation was released chapter by chapter on Weelunk magazine throughout 2020. The entire work remains available as a FREE READ. ++
SUSPENDED AGGRAVATION (fiction 2020) — This clean-read romance was serialized to take place in nearly real time in the entirely real city of Wheeling, W.Va. Only the people and the plot are fictional.
A quick look: He’s back! Allie Bennett never expected to see Gabe Morelli again after he hung her heart out to dry in a high school romance gone, well, sad. Yet, here he is, back in town after 12 long years. Before she can even fathom what that means, he leaves her hanging again – from a bridge! And, this time, it isn’t just a pack of mean girls watching. It’s the whole world.
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DUNE GIRL (fiction 2018) — This clean-read/beach-read is a fully contemporary, joyful take on the Old Testament romance between Ruth and Boaz.
A quick look: If Michael Alton’s hair is full of wood chips from a wild furniture-carving session, who cares? It’s not like he’s a CEO anymore. It’s not like his wife is still alive to notice. Life is simple. He’s got his art, his family, some great friends and a shield around his heart that is nearly as big as his dog. And, that’s just fine until the day TV journalist Maggie Brady explodes into his beach-side workshop wearing a wedding dress intended for another man and trailing a change of circumstances sure to rip apart her big-city, big-money world in a single day.
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NON-FICTION
SANDSCREST: A SENSE OF PLACE, A SENSE OF PAST (non-fiction 2025) is a sponsored free read written with West Virginia readers — or history buffs with a special interest in the Ohio Valley — in mind.
Live at sandscrest.com, this six-chapter work is posted in printer-friendly format. It is made possible by the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, which operates the historic farm chronicled in the book as Sandscrest Conference & Retreat Center.
The e-book traces Sandscrest’s 300 acres of land – located off GC&P Road in Wheeling — from its earliest days as a religious site and hunting grounds for Native Americans to its present role.
In between those two eras are stories from Wheeling’s earliest frontier days and the Sandscrest Farm era, from 1920 to 1962. During the latter time, the property was owned and farmed by Harry Sands, an industrialist who built wealth electrifying regional coal mines.
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OUR FIRST 200 YEARS: FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF WHEELING (non-fiction 2023) is a commissioned history of First Presbyterian Church of Wheeling, W.Va. While this release would be of most interest to residents of the Ohio Valley, this 200-year-old church also provides an interesting point of view in terms of American and church history.
The story begins inside a log fort just after the last land battle of the Revolutionary War (the Siege of Fort Henry) and tracks a single church through multiple wars, a dramatic reckoning with slavery, and the presently precarious state of Mainline Protestantism. So, we’re basically talking God, guns and conflict 1.0.
It is available solely in hardback ($25) through the church office — 304-232-3833, fpc1823@gmail.com.
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MAKING A GRAND EXIT (non-fiction 2019) — Are you afraid to die? If you are, you are not alone. Even many Christians, whose very faith core is the hope of heaven, face such feelings.
Making a Grand Exit: Biblical Answers to Our Fear of Dying, actually sprang from one such Christian’s experience. Watching this church friend battling both cancer and a terror of impending death inspired me to explore what the Bible actually says about dying, death and God’s forever place, heaven.
What I found — both in God’s Word and through a near-death experience of my own — is now available in book form.
Making a Grand Exit specifically answers the questions that some Christians are reluctant to talk about, such as: Why do people die? Is it OK for Christians to be afraid to die? What will happen when I die? What will happen to those I leave behind? and What is heaven really like? Answers are drawn solely from scripture.
Nora Edinger -- JOY Journal 