An Unexpected Legacy, Amy Anguish, #Giveaway

HI THERE, IT'S TIMELESS THURSDAY

Where author guests have a chance to breathe new life into books from their backlist.

So please welcome author Amy Anguish!

There's a #giveaway, too. 

From Idea to Legacy

by Amy Anguish

In 2011, I sat down with a simple question running through my head. What if a guy and girl started dating, but then found out their parents had dated back in high school? How would that affect their relationship? I had no idea what had broken up their parents. I had no idea what the outcome would be (other than some sort of happily ever after – this is romance, after all). But I wanted to write it.

The opening scene was already in my head. A beautiful autumn afternoon in the Austin area of Texas. I could picture several other scenes, too. So, I took advantage of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November and hammered out over 50,000 words.

Halfway through the month, I realized I needed to also be telling her mom’s story as well as my main character’s. So, I interspersed scenes from the past throughout the current timeline. I didn’t realize I was writing a time-slip novel. I didn’t even know that term at the time. I’d never been published before and was still very much an amateur in my career.

Still, I ended up loving that novel, despite the fact that by the end, I was yelling at my characters to “quit angsting and just kiss already!”

I submitted it to a publisher who rejected it. But the lady who was their acquisitions editor at the time saw the potential in it. Several years later, she contacted me and took me under her wing to polish it up and publish it through her brand-new company.

We went through the frustration of her encouraging me to change the title—I had originally called it For the Love of Smoothies, but she pointed out that it had a bit of suspense in with the romance, too, and needed something edgier. We went through the agony of trying to find the perfect cover. And I love the final product.

It’s not what I thought I would get when I sat down to write November 1, 2011, but in 2017, An Unexpected Legacy was born. Since then, I’ve continued to learn and published a second book this last April and signed a contract to have a third come out next September. It’s been an amazing journey, but Legacy will always be my “first book baby.”

Several people have asked for a sequel. Well, I have never written a sequel, so it may not happen any time soon, but I did write a short Christmas story set a month after the book and posted it on my blog this week. Feel free to go check it out here

https://abitofanguish.weebly.com/writing/category/short-story but watch out for spoilers.

I’d love to know. If you found out your mom had dated your boyfriend’s dad in the past, what would you think? Would it freak you out a little? Would you wonder why they broke up?

About the Book:

When Chad Manning introduces himself to Jessica Garcia at her favorite smoothie shop, it's like he stepped out of one of her romance novels. But as she tentatively walks into a relationship with this man of her dreams, secrets from their past threaten to shatter their already fragile bond.  Chad and Jessica must struggle to figure out if their relationship has a chance or if there is nothing between them but a love of smoothies.

Purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0996274626

About Amy:

Amy R Anguish grew up a preacher's kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a bossy cat or two. Amy has an English degree from Freed-Hardeman University that she intends to use to glorify God, and she wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

Follow her at http://abitofanguish.weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/amyanguishauthor

About the Giveaway:

Amy is offering to give away an eBook copy of An Unexpected Legacy to one of my blog readers. Entering is easy . . . just leave your name and contact information (in case you win) in the comment section below. If you feel like answering Amy’s question above along with your comment, that would be great, but not required to be entered in the drawing. Giveaway ends one week from today on December 26 at MIDNIGHT O’clock.

FAITH AND HOPE ~ Amy Anguish

This post was supposed to be live here on Whispers in Purple yesterday, April 7, but guess who dropped the ball? This whole week has been turned upside-down and inside-out. My apologies to my special guest AMY ANGUISH. This post will remain at the top of this page until Friday morning.

And 5 ...4 ... 3... 2 ... 1 ... GO, Amy!

What would you do if you were forced to leave the town and state you loved and move in with a sister you can barely tolerate in a state you swore you’d never live in? 

Hope finds herself in just such a predicament. In one day, she’s lost her job, her car, and her boyfriend. When she agrees to her mom’s plan to spend the summer with her older sister, Faith, she wonders if she’s maybe lost her mind, too. After all, what could possibly be worse than moving to the middle of Texas?

A little backstory from Amy:

Two years after my husband and I were married, I found myself moving to a state that I at one time declared I never wanted to live in. Texas. I had only visited the Lone Star State once but had met several people from there. They all came across as very arrogant. When my husband got a job down in Austin, I swallowed my “I’ll never” and packed our things, ready to start the new adventure, hoping against hope that not everyone down there was like the few I’d based my reasoning on.

We lived in the great state of Texas for eleven years, five in the Austin area, and six in Tyler. Can I just tell you right now that even though I love living in Tennessee, I miss Texas? The people there are friendly and loving, the springtime hills are covered in a blanket of bluebonnets, and there is no other place to get Whataburger.

When I wrote my new book, Faith & Hope, I based some of Hope’s feelings about spending the summer on my preconceived notions before we moved there. And I helped her overcome them, just like I overcame my own. Hope and Faith don’t only have to overcome preconceived notions about their location or each other, though. There are a few other twists and turns before you can get to the happy ending.

Two sisters. One summer. Multiple problems.

Younger sister Hope has lost her job, her car, and her boyfriend all in one day. Her well-laid plans for life have gone sideways, as has her hope in God.

Older sister Faith is finally getting her dream-come-true after years of struggles and prayers. But when her mom talks her into letting Hope move in for the summer, will the stress turn her dream into a nightmare? Is her faith in God strong enough to handle everything?

For two sisters who haven't gotten along in years, this summer together could be a disaster ... or it could lead them to a closer relationship with each other and God. Can they overcome all life is throwing at them? Or is this going to destroy their relationship for good?

Amy R Anguish

Author of An Unexpected Legacy

Amy R Anguish grew up a preacher's kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a bossy cat or two. Amy has an English degree from Freed-Hardeman University that she intends to use to glorify God, and she wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

Follow her at http://abitofanguish.weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/amyanguishauthor

Joy in the Waiting ♦ Amy Anguish

Finding Joy in the Waiting

 by author Amy Anguish

My husband and I have had a lot of waiting over the thirteen years of our marriage. When we first married, we had to wait for him to find a good teaching position. That took two years and moved us thirteen hours away from family. When we decided to have children, we ended up having to wait six and a half years before actually getting pregnant. That was a crazy hard journey, but we came out stronger in the end for it. Several other times through all of that, we’ve been through more job changes and moves. The latest move was this last summer, when my husband got a better teaching position again. We uprooted our little family and headed east from east Texas, where we had lived for six years, and stopped in middle Tennessee. The last six months have been a bit insane, to say the least. We’ve been renting, half our things in a storage unit, as we searched for a house to buy. We took a while to find a new church family, make some new friends, and haven’t found a house quite as quickly as we meant to when we first came. But we’re starting to settle in and will move into our new home over New Years’ weekend, God-willing.

Through all the upheaval, missing some of my things stuck in another location, dealing with cramped spaces and high rent, it’s easy to focus only on the things that have gone wrong, the negative points, the things that didn’t happen as planned. Especially when a certain three-year-old girl colors on the wall only weeks before we’re supposed to move out. Thank goodness for Magic Erasers! Hopefully, it saved our deposit. I discovered I needed to really stop and force myself to remember all the good things. My husband has a job that he loves for the first time in years, which improves so much about our home life. Our kids are both healthy and growing like they should. Even though we don’t get to date as much as we would like, our marriage is strong. We have found new friends and a warm, welcoming church family. And God has worked everything out beautifully for this house we’re buying. While we’ve lived in this townhouse, we’ve had easy access to a playground, my little girl has discovered the joy of sending drawings and notes to friends far away, and we’ve had everything we needed, plus some. So many blessings that would be so easy to miss if we focused only on how long it took for things to happen or how frustrating it was that my Halloween decorations were in storage instead of adorning my home this year.

In my book, An Unexpected Legacy, my character Aunt Ruth had to do some waiting in her past. Her waiting didn’t end as well as mine has so far, but she also didn’t look for the joy in it. Because she couldn’t find the joy in the waiting, it was even harder for her to find joy in anything that happened afterward, either, and it causes trouble for everyone around her. I won’t give away more right now, but I’d love to hear if you enjoy should you choose to pick up a copy and see for yourself. If you’re going through a period of waiting, I hope you choose to focus more on the joy than the negatives. God is with you even when it doesn’t feel like it. And remember: He had to go through some times of waiting, too, when He came to earth as Jesus.

“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31 [NKJV]

When Chad Manning introduces himself to Jessica Garcia at her favorite smoothie shop, it's like he stepped out of one of her romance novels. But as she tentatively walks into a relationship with this man of her dreams, secrets from their past threaten to shatter their already fragile bond.  Chad and Jessica must struggle to figure out if their relationship has a chance or if there is nothing between them but a love of smoothies.

Amy Anguish grew up a preacher's kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a cat or two. Amy graduated with a degree in English from Freed-Hardeman University and hopes in all her creative endeavors to glorify God, but especially in her writing. She wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.