Historical Christmas in July

I have the pleasure of joining fourteen other authors in a week long promotion of our Christmas books, which includes my Christmas novella, the Perfect Gift, and Amber Schamel's the Swaddling Clothes.

What a great time to be thinking of Christmas. Crisp cold  weather--just cool if you live in the South--but such a refreshing thought during this heat wave most of us are going through. Holidays. Parties. Good food. Celebrating the birth of the Savior, Who is with us all year long.

Anyway, I wanted to share this opportunity with all our STT friends.

It isn't too soon to think about Christmas shopping. Otherwise, you might find yourself like me, waiting until the week of, and shopping till you drop. That's the theme of my book. Looking for that perfect gift, hoping to touch the heart of the one you love.

You see, this story was a gift to me from God and very unexpected. In October of 2015 I decided to write a Christmas novella and began frantically searching through my research papers for ideas. Almost immediately I found an old manuscript I'd written when I was in middle school. It was yellowed and typed on a manual typewriter. I have no idea how it got there. I'd moved several times and almost everything from my childhood or teen years was long gone. I'd swear I had not seen that manuscript since I'd written it fifty years ago.

But I remembered exactly how I'd come to write it. I'd received my first typewriter the Christmas I'd turned twelve or thirteen, and we were studying O. Henry in Lit Class. I was inspired by the author's gift of irony. This story had that ironic twist he was famous for. Not a swap of foolish gifts by a young couple, but about a poor college girl and her rich fiance. And her desire to give him a gift he was worthy of.

The writing was mushy and not well crafted, but what do you expect of a twelve-year-old? But the story was golden. I considered it a God thing. He'd dropped into my lap exactly what my heart desired. Without my even having to ask for it.

I revised the twenty pages into a novella length book and published it before Christmas.

The Christmas in July promotion is a $.99 sale which includes nineteen other Christmas stories guaranteed to put you in the spirit.

It also includes a rafflecopter contest for a chance to win all twenty books. I invite you to enter now so you'll have plenty of good reading for the upcoming Christmas season.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/822e967c4/

Have you ever received something you needed or desired in an unexpected way?