My book is being spotlighted here today. Come check it out!

Roseanna White posted about how she designed my fabulous cover here. It's really fascinating to follow along and see all the changes she went through to get it just right. What do you think? Did we make the right choice?
BONUS: She's doing a giveaway for a copy of my book until 2/27!

Over on Alexis Goring's blog, she's been running a theme the last few weeks called book boyfriends. It's full of fun posts where different authors interviewed the main guy from one of their novels so you could get to know these dreamy men a little better. Want to get to know Chad Manning, the hero from An Unexpected Legacy, a little better? Go read his interview here.

Enough Joy is Sarah Floyd's second book in her Finding Joy series. It follows the continuing story of Joy Carnegie, a girl who has given up basically everything she ever knew and traveled to Vermont to start her life over. I will try to give you enough to snag your interest without giving too much away from either story. Joy is surrounded by friends and family, including her aunt and boyfriend. They all support her as she goes through various trials, but still she can't seem to find peace. As you journey with her through this book, your heart aches for her as she battles through everything life is throwing at her, but the author ends the book perfectly, lessons learned and characters strengthened.

While I can't relate to everything in the book, being a girl who has only lived in the south, I love the imagery Sarah incorporates in the story. It definitely gives you an idea of what a winter in the north is like. And it's interesting to me, as well, to read about how different the church is up there as opposed to down here. But even though it's smaller, it still has the same heart and love and giving attitude. 
Sarah weaves a story that keeps you turning the pages to find out how things work out. I look forward to seeing what all the characters have to endure in the next novel as they continue to grow closer together and closer to God.
The only thing that kept me from enjoying the story completely is that the author uses third person omniscient point-of-view, which kept me from being completely immersed in the head of any one character. That's my personal preference coming in, though, and it hopefully won't bother you! :-)

Have I piqued your interest? Check out Sarah's book here.

See below for a sneak peek of Sarah's first book, Finding Joy. It's the prequel to the one I just reviewed, and I recommend starting with it, if you haven't already read them.

Some of you may remember that my novel started out with the title, For the Love of Smoothies. Want to hear the story of how it changed? Go here to check out my guest post on Roseanna's blog (PS -- she's the one who designed the beautiful cover for my book!)

​I am always excited to meet another author who is just as passionate about writing wholesome Christian fiction as I am. So, when I found out I had a fellow Freed-Hardeman alum who published her second book recently, I reached out via social media and "met" her. She was several years behind me in school, so she actually knows my younger sister, but had never met me in person. We've chatted several times lately and I thought it would be fun to let you get to know her as well. She agreed to do an interview and I plan to post a review of her latest book in another week or so.

Hi Sarah, Welcome to my blog! One of my favorite questions for other authors is, when did you decide you wanted to be author?

​I think I was in 3rd grade when I started telling people that I wanted to be an author someday…I also
wanted to be several other things, but once I reached my early teens, being an author became my most important career goal (other than wife and mommy someday).

Being a mommy was one of my main goals, too! Isn't it fun?

Do you have a favorite author or genre when you get the chance to read?

I almost always read fiction, usually Christian fiction. I don’t enjoy fantasy or science fiction; I prefer realistic plots. I could never choose just one favorite author! Some of my all-time favorites include Louisa May Alcott, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and L.M. Montgomery, and more recently, I’ve enjoyed Lisa Wingate, Lisa Samson, Jamie Langston Turner, and Jennifer Rogers Spinola.

I'll have to check some of those out myself. I'm not familiar with a few of them!

Your stories are set in the Northeast and Canada -- have you always lived up there, or is there something special about that area to you? Why did you choose it for your setting?

I’ve only lived in the Northeast for five years…before that, I lived in Tennessee, South Korea, Georgia, Texas, and California! Vermont has been special to me since I was about ten years old, though. I was the child who read encyclopedias for fun, and I became fascinated with the encyclopedia photos of Vermont. I did a big report on it for school in fourth or fifth grade, and I began to use Vermont as the setting for the stories I was already writing. When I was 15, I was finally able to travel to Vermont for a few hours as my family was passing through the area on vacation, and I loved it so much. When I met the man who would later become my husband, I told him about my passion for Vermont, so he suggested we take a trip up there in the fall so that I could see the leaves changing. To my surprise, he proposed to me as we were riding in a ski lift up the highest peak in Vermont. The next year, we returned for our honeymoon. By that time, my husband was a big fan of the area too, and we began to pray that he could find a job in Vermont specifically. He applied for literally hundreds of jobs all over the world, and, after we had been married almost three years, he was hired to work in Albany, NY, just a few miles from the Vermont line. We moved up here and live two miles into Vermont! And I still love it!

Wow! It's so neat that you basically lived out your own romance story up there in the area you loved so much. I bet that made it extra special.

Where did you come up with the idea for your series? Is any of it based on real life?

In 2011, I visited a congregation that met in a house, and I heard that someone lived in the house and took care of it for them the rest of the week. I thought that was a neat idea for a book, and I wrote three or four pages about it. Not long afterward, we moved to South Korea, taking with us only four suitcases and our carry-on luggage. I realized after several weeks that I’d left behind my tiny bit of a book idea, and I decided not to continue it right then. When we returned to the U.S. a year later, I came across it again and resumed writing about it. None of the characters in the book are exactly like any one person I know; they are all combinations of real-life people and fiction. I do try to be fairly authentic in describing many of the places in the book, but some of them are fictional as well. I had written about 75% of Finding Joy (Book 1) before I moved to Vermont, so I didn’t base much of it on anything that had happened to me personally. However, several events from the book have happened my own life after the fact…I worship with a congregation that meets in a house, for example!

I know from personal experience that it's probably safer to not base your characters on real people. Ha!

The boyfriend in your book isn't what we typically expect for a romantic interest. I'd love to hear your
reasoning behind why you made him "homely."

It wasn’t actually a conscious decision initially for Paul to be so ordinary-looking…I say ordinary, because he’s not unattractive, just not a head-turner. Once I began developing his character, though, it fit the theme of my first book perfectly. Joy is running from a superficial life so that she can find a deeper, more meaningful existence. Paul wouldn’t have had a place in her old life because of his unexciting appearance and rural manner, but she learns to appreciate him as a whole person once she discards some of her shallow ways. Paul also represents one of my major goals with this series…to call attention to the beauty of unconventional people. No, the characters are not outlandish or bizarre…some of them, like Paul and Joann, look quite unspectacular and are pursuing tedious jobs…but they are exactly who Joy needs.

I know you have a whole other book planned for this series. Any other ideas running around in your head for future writing projects?

Yes, I’m writing Book 3 sloooooowly. After that, I may also publish a much shorter prequel or possibly some short stories about the same characters. I also have an unrelated book that I may finish next…it is set in South Korea. At this rate, though, it will be a long time before I can even finish Book 3 of the Voice of Joy series!

I know how hard it is to find time to write and edit with little ones around. I applaud you for even trying.

As we close, could you leave us with a random tidbit about you that can help us get to know you even
better?

It’s hard to choose one random thing about me! Hmm…well, to go along with my love for Vermont, I am also obsessed with covered bridges. There are about 100 authentic old covered bridges in the state of Vermont, and I have been to all of them! My poor hubby has taken me to every single one, as well as to several in other states. We used to go “covered bridge hunting” all day long for special occasions.

That sounds like so much fun! What a good husband! Thanks so much for stopping by for a chat, Sarah. Now that we know you better, we look forward to reading more of your writing in the future, too. To all my readers, be on the lookout soon for my review of Sarah's latest book.

​Author bio:
Sarah Floyd lives deep in a Vermont hollow with her husband, two boys (3 and 1), and Australian Shepherd dog. It took her more than fifteen years of dreaming to get to Vermont, but she finally made it. Sarah enjoys reading, writing, traveling, crafts, sports and games, and spending time with family and friends. She doesn't enjoy folding fitted sheets.

Sarah grew up in California, Texas, and Georgia and went to college at Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee, where she majored in Spanish and minored in French. She taught Spanish for 2.5 years while earning a master's degree in secondary education, and then she taught English as a second language in South Korea for a year. She is now a stay-at-home mommy.

Find out more about Sarah here.