In High Places by Tom Morrisey
April 5, 2007
This week, the
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Morrisey is the author of four previous novels and numerous short stories, a world-renowned adventure-travel writer whose work has appeared in Outside, Sport Diver (where he serves as Executive Editor) and other leading magazines.
He holds an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Toledo and an MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He lives in Orlando, Florida.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
For Patrick Nolan, every climb tells a story. And now maybe it’s his own …. He’s right at the rim, staring over the cliff’s knife edge and wondering how things went wrong so quickly.
It all started after arriving home from a weekend climbing trip with his father, Kevin. That’s when word reached them. In a silent moment, they’d lost the person most important to them—her death raising unanswerable questions and dangerous doubts.
Launching a new life in a new town to escape their pain, son and father find themselves in danger of being torn apart forever. As his father seeks a route to solace on the dangerous high face of the rock, Patrick finds a path to hope with the unlikeliest of allies—a pastor’s daughter. Together they must discover the one answer that can bring Patrick and Kevin back from the brink of the precipice.
Endorsements: “It is rare to find a ‘man’s man’ who knows the human heart, much less one who can write with such a well-balanced combination of sensitivity and adrenaline-charged adventure.”
—Athol Dickson, Christy-Award-winning author of River Rising
“Beautifully exciting, haunting, and satisfying. Morrisey leaves you hanging by your fingertips.”
—Lisa Samson, award-winning author of The Church Ladies and Straight Up
“Tom Morrisey is a master wordsmith and an expert at weaving gripping stories. If I pick up a book with his name on it, I know I’m going for gold.”
—Angela Hunt, author of Uncharted
I’ve been hearing great things about this book and plan to read it just as soon as I can. Take a closer look at it here, if you’d like.
Fresh Territory
April 4, 2007
Today we have one of those guest bloggers I promised. Cynthia Ruchti is a critique partner of mine, friend, and a fun, fantastic writer. Recently she made a comment to me that I asked her to expand on. Take it away, Cynthia!
As a child growing up in the Midwest, a fresh snowfall meant new territory. A long, sparkling stretch of white, unmarked by evidence of human interference . . . until my booted feet marked paths and designs through the pristine surface. Untouched snow was like a new canvas for my imagination.
A similar but much deeper thrill overwhelms me now when I purchase a new Bible.
I own a zillion Bibles. One of those who enjoys studying many different translations and paraphrases, I’m also a person who can’t read my Bible productively without a pen or colored pencil in hand. Always marking. In fact, if I see a pristine, unmarked page in my Bible, I know in an instant I haven’t read that page. How can I be so sure? Because God speaks to my heart somehow, some way, on every page. If nothing is marked, it’s a tell-tale sign that I haven’t been over that territory.
Many people feel uncomfortable, downright sacrilegious about the idea of marking in their Bibles. Although I can respect their reverence for the physical book itself, to me it is the words of that holy Book that deserve our deepest respect. And those words come alive for me when I have a pen or pencil in hand. When I mark in my Bible, I’m interacting with the Word and by association with the Lord Himself. I don’t know what my family will do if I die first and they search for my Bible to gain insights into what was important to me in order to include “a little something” in the funeral sermon. They’ll find a shelf full of Bibles marked with exclamation points and heavy underlining and notes in the margins with dates and specific crises to which God applied a particular Scripture as a balm for my heart. They’ll find little musical notes beside all the verses I know have been made into worship songs. They’ll discover tracks on the snowy pages that reveal the path of my faith in the God Who speaks to us through His Word.
This morning, I opened my pocket-sized Bible to a passage in Jeremiah. Nothing marked. A fresh snowfall. Time to make tracks!
Cynthia blogs at Splashing in the Deep End.
March Winners — And April Giveaways
April 2, 2007
For those of you who’ve been following my blog this first month, THANK YOU! You all are my new best friends. It’s been a little scary jumping into the blogging world. I wondered if I’d end up like that tree that falls in an unoccupied forest, but this afternoon, as I was writing every commenter’s name on little scraps of paper, I realized how many have posted here. Thank you! It’s been fun.
And now for our winners. Shelley won Linda Nichol’s In Search of Eden. Congrats, Shelley! Still haven’t had a chance to read it. Let me know how it is.
Robin has won the 2007 Christian Writers’ Market Guide. Congratulations, Robin and Shelley. I’ll get these books to you right away.
Now for April.
I was actually on vacation last week so I didn’t have a chance to plan out April’s schedule completely. The one book I know I’ll be giving away is Sharon Dunn’s latest release Death of a Garage Sale Newbie. I haven’t read this book yet, but I’ve read Sharon’s three previous books and they were great. I’m sure this one will be fun, too. You can check it out here if you’d like. Again, just post a comment any time during April to be entered.
I will also be offering a free twenty-five page critique to one writer who posts a comment this month. If you’re interested in that, please do include that in your post. That’ll help me so much come May 1st! If you’d like info on my critique service, please check here.
There still may be another free book or two in the works so stay tuned. I’ll let you know as soon as I nail everything down.
Well, I’m off to straighten my house after vacation. A week’s worth of laundry in one day — ughh.