A little more about her accomplishments: Carrie Fancett Pagels, Ph.D. “Hearts Overcoming Through
Time,” is an award-winning Christian historical romance author. In 2015,
Carrie’s novel Saving the Marquise’s
Granddaughter will release with Pelican Book Group. Carrie’s Amazon Christian
Historical Romance #1 Amazon bestselling Christian historical romance novella, The Fruitcake Challenge, released
September, 2014. Her short story, “Snowed In,” appears in Guidepost Books’ A Christmas Cup of Cheer (2013). She’s
the Amazon best-selling and top-rated author of Return to Shirley
Plantation: A Civil War Romance (2013). Her short story, “The Quilting
Contest,” appears in Family Fiction’s The
Story 2014 anthology. Carrie received Honorable Mention for the 2014 Maggie
Awards for Excellence for her unpublished novel Grand Exposé. Former
psychologist (25 years) and mother of two.
Welcome Carrie! We're so glad you could visit Stitches Thru Time
today!
Thanks for having me on, Amber!!! Glad to be here!!!
What made you decide to become a writer?
I wanted to be a writer since I was a child. But then I was
drawn toward psychology. I became a psychologist for 25 years. Although I felt
the calling from God to be an author, very honestly I’d still be a psychologist
if it weren’t for my disability from multiple forms of arthritis. You can’t
schedule clients for appointment just when you “might” feel well enough. But
with the writing, I can do that any time I feel up to it.
If your question is really “why” I write—it is to please God and
obey Him. And I hope that I bless others with my stories and draw them closer
to Christ!
Where did the inspiration for your latest book come from?
I wrote a story “Snowed In” that was published in A Cup of Christmas
Cheer by Guidepost Books last year. The girls in the story had come out of a
lumber camp for their “best Christmas ever” but I’d wanted to do a story about
a great Christmas spent IN the lumber camp! And when I went up to Michigan to
do a book signing at the Tahquamenon Logging Museum, I kept thinking about a
Christmas revolving around the cook house. My mother and grandmother are the
inspiration for the story. I never met my grandmother, who died in her early
forties from cancer. My mom, who’d survived cancer when I was 12, died four
years ago. I’d like to think that this story would make both of them smile!
How does your faith and spirituality work in with your writing?
No nudge from God—no writing. It’s that simple. He’s told me to stop
at times and I stop. Also, I write Christian fiction for the Christian market.
My stories all have a strong method of faith. That’s the difference between a
Christian fiction and a clean secular fiction. Here’s a link to an article I
wrote for Seekerville about this matter. http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2013/12/whats-point-of-christian-fiction.html
What are you working on next?
PTL I am under contract with Pelican for my first published full
length novel. I have another half dozen novels written but this is the first
one that will be published. “Saving the Marquise’s Granddaughter” is the
working title and should release in 2015. So I’ll be editing that a couple of
times. Set in the mid 1700’s, my heroine has escaped Versailles, after her
Protestant nobleman father has been killed for his Huguenot beliefs. A woodsman
accompanies her to the German Palatinate and makes plans to get her to the
American colonies. But the plans go awry!
I’m also writing one, possibly two, sequels to The Fruitcake
Challenge. Jo’s brothers will get their own stories. In the next one, which should
release in February, her talented wood-working brother also wants to leave the
lumber camp life. He’s obtained a job making cabinets for a mercantile. The
owner’s daughter, who has survived a murderous assault years earlier, begins to
trust the big burly man who so lovingly constructs the masterful cabinets in
their shop. As the Lumberjack’s Ball approaches, he asks her to attend. But
will her fears keep her back? And possibly result in a terrible outcome? It’s a
little creepy and was inspired by a real-life lumberjack song that I listened
to on the internet. But the love story is tender and sweet! And justice will
prevail!
That's great! Jo's brother's really cracked me up, so I'll be interested in reading their stories as well.
Amber, Thanks for having me and I’d like to offer a giveaway of
ebook to any reader OR a paperback (or ebook) USA-only. Glad to be on your blog again. Blessings!
Carrie, thank you so much for joining us, and for your generosity. All right folks, you heard the lady, so leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for this fantastic story!
The
Fruitcake Challenge
When new
lumberjack, Tom Jeffries, tells the camp cook, Jo Christy, that he’ll marry her
if she can make a fruitcake, “as good as the one my mother makes,” she rises to
the occasion. After all, he’s the handsomest, smartest, and strongest axman her
camp-boss father has ever had in his camp—and the cockiest. And she intends to
bring this lumberjack down a notch or three by refusing his proposal. The
fruitcake wars are on! All the shanty boys and Jo’s cooking helpers chip in
with their recipes but Jo finds she’ll have to enlist more help—and begins
corresponding with Tom’s mother.
Step back in
time to 1890, in beautiful Northern Michigan, near the sapphire straits of
Mackinac, when the white pines were “white gold” and lumber camps were a way of
life. Jo is ready to find another life outside of the camps and plans that
don’t include any shanty boys. But will a lumberjack keep her in the very place
she’s sworn to leave?
Keep up with Carrie:
Twitter https://twitter.com/cfpagels
Website: carriefancettpagels.com
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