ECPA's Rush To PressAbingdon Press authors to host live Quilts of Love Spring Fling chat


Facebook party encourages interaction between authors and readers about popular series

Contact:Audra Jennings
Litfuse Publicity Group
audra@litfusegroup.com
903-874-8363
@litfuse

On April 1 at 8:00 PM EDT, Abingdon Press authors Barbara Cameron, Linda Clare and Joyce Magnin will host the Quilts of Love Spring Fling, a live Facebook event, to interact with readers about their new releases. The Spring Fling will highlight the latest three installments in the popular Quilts of Love series: Cameron’s Scraps of Evidence (January 21, 2014 / ISBN 978-1426752780), Clare’s A Sky without Stars (February 18, 2014 / ISBN 978-1426752797) and Magnin’s Maybelle in Stitches (March 18, 2014 / ISBN 978-1426752803).

The Spring Fling is one of a series of quarterly chats hosted by Abingdon Press and the Quilts of Love authors. The live online event will center around a fun chat with the authors, who will share the inspiration behind their stories, as well as ask discussion questions so readers can participate as one large book club, meeting together all over the country and world. Throughout the evening, participants in the chat will be eligible for prizes, including copies of books from the series and gift cards.

“I love our Abingdon Press Facebook chats! They give us a chance to interact with our readers from every corner of our country and even other countries,” says Cameron. “I can’t wait to talk about Scraps of Evidence, my Quilts of Love release!”

Clare adds, “I can’t wait to chat with Quilts of Love readers at the Spring Fling! And it’s even more exciting to be teaming up with authors such as Barbara Cameron and Joyce Magnin.”

At the end of the hour, the winner of a Kindle Fire HDX will be announced. The grand prize drawing is being held in conjunction with blog tours and social media campaigns coordinated by Litfuse Publicity Group for the Cameron and Clare books. The party will also launch Magnin’s blog tour. More details about the contest and reviews from the tours can be viewed on the Litfuse website.

“For me, spring always sparks creativity. My paints come out and the scrapbooks are dusted off. Sewing? Cross-stitching? Quilting? Sure! The Spring Fling offers a great place to inspire and be inspired by creativity,” explains Cat Hoort, marketing and publicity manager for Abingdon Fiction. “I look forward to chatting with other readers about their spring projects and sharing the creativity that went into the latest Quilts of Love books by Linda, Joyce and Barbara!”

The series centers on the idea that quilts tell stories of love and loss, hope and faith, tradition and new beginnings. The Quilts of Love series focuses on the women who quilted all of these things into their family history. Featuring contemporary and historical romances, as well as Amish fiction, women’s fiction and the occasional light mystery, readers are drawn into the endearing characters and touched by their stories. A new book will be released each month through January 2015. A special tradition the authors have instituted with each release is the donation of a quilt to their chosen charity or individual in need.

“Spring is a time of renewal, rebirth and re-stocking those to-be-read lists. Quilts of Love books make great reads, and for me, April Fools’ Day is kind of apropos – if you know the back story to Maybelle in Stitches,” muses Magnin. “If you don’t, then be sure to stop by the Fling and find out.”

Readers can RSVP to the Facebook chat any time between now and April 1 by visiting the Quilts of Love Facebook page. All fans are encouraged to invite their friends to join in the fun.

Keep up with the Quilts of Love series online at:

quiltsoflovebooks.com

pinterest.com/quiltsoflove/

facebook.com/quiltsoflovebooks

twitter.com/TheQuiltsofLove

About the authors and their books:

Scraps of Evidence by Barbara Cameron (January)
Tess has taken some ribbing from her fellow officer, Logan,for her quilting hobby. He finds it hard to align the brisk professional officer he patrols with during the day with the one who quilts in her off-time. Besides, he’s been trying to get to know her better and he’d like to be seeing her during those couple nights a week she spends with her quilting guild.

Then one afternoon Tess and Logan visit her aunt in the nursing home and she acts agitated when Tess covers her with the story quilt. Aunt Susan seems to be communicating a message to them about Tess’s uncle. There’s a story behind this quilt, they realize, one that may lead them to a serial killer. Will they have a chance to have a future together or will the killer choose Tess for his next victim before they find him?

Barbara Cameron is the CBD, CBA and ECPA bestselling author of 24 books including the new Stitches in Times series for Abingdon Press. Barbara has written fiction and non-fiction books for Abingdon Press, Thomas Nelson, Harlequin and other publishers. She sold three films to HBO/Cinemax and is the first winner of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award. Barbara’s first two novellas won 2nd and 3rd place in the Inspirational Readers Choice Contest from the Faith, Love, and Hope chapter of RWA. Both were finalists for the novella category of the Carol Award of the American Christian Writers Award (ACFW).

To keep up with Barbara Cameron, visit BarbaraCameron.comor become a fan on Facebook (Barbara Cameron Reader Page).

A Sky without Stars by Linda S. Clare (February)
In 1951, Frankie Chasing Bear is a Lakota caught between cultures. She wants to raise her son Harold to revere his Lakota heritage, but she knows he will need to become as a white man to succeed. After his father’s killed in a barroom brawl, Harold and Frankie move to Arizona, where she begins a Lakota Star pattern quilt for Harold with tribal wisdom sung, sewn and prayed into it.

She distrusts Christians, as her own parents were forced to convert at an Indian School, until she meets BIA agent Nick Vandergriff, a half-Lakota who’s also caught between cultures. Nick must convince Frankie that white men and Christians aren’t all bad as he tries to win her heart in order to put the stars back into her sky.

Linda S. Clare is an award-winning co-author of three books, including Lost Boys and the Moms Who Love Them (with Melody Carlson and Heather Kopp), Revealed: Spiritual Reality in a Makeover World and Making Peace with a Dangerous God (with Kristen Johnson Ingram). She is also the author of The Fence My Father Built. She has taught college-level creative writing classes for seven years and edits and mentors writers. She also is a frequent writing conference presenter and church retreat leader. She and her husband of 31 years have four grown children, including a set of twins. They live in Eugene, Oregon.

Learn more about Linda S. Clare and her books at www.lindasclare.com, her Facebook page (Linda Clare Books & Teaching) or Twitter (@Lindasclare).

Maybelle in Stitches by Joyce Magnin (March)
Maybelle Kazinzki can’t sew. She was after all, the only girl in the seventh grade Home Economics class to sew the zipper in the neck hole of the A-Line dress they were supposed to make. But when she finds an unfinished quilt in the attic of her mother’s house she gets the crazy idea to finish it-somehow, come heck or high water. She thinks it will help fill the lonely nights while her husband, Holden, is serving overseas during World War II.

Her recently departed mother’s quilt is made from scraps of material Maybelle traces back to her mother’s childhood, her grandmother’s childhood and her own childhood. She tries to add one of Holden’s stripes to it but the sewing is not going well and neither is her life. After receiving some harsh news, Maybelle’s faith falters and she puts the quilt away and stops trusting God. But God is faithful- no matter what. And it’ll take a group of neighborhood women armed with quilting needles to help Maybelle believe that.

Joyce Magnin is the author of the Bright’s Pond novels, including the award-winning The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow. A member of the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Fellowship, Joyce is a frequent workshop leader and the organizer of the StoryCrafters fiction group. She lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Joyce Magnin’s online home is http://joycemagnin.blogspot.com/, and readers can also interact with her on Facebook.

For more information about the live Facebook chat, contact Audra Jennings: audra@litfusegroup.com.