Carrie's Books and Writing



Coming in 2017




"Dime Novel Suitor" - a novella in Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Grooms (Barbour, June, 2017). A British aristocrat's son, third in line to the title and a new clergyman, seeks a last "hurrah" by visiting America's west but ends up penniless after being robbed. Devouring dime novels for a decade hasn't prepared him for the female innkeeper who thinks he's the answer to her advertisement for a mail-order husband.


My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island, a novel (Barbour, July 2017).  Maggie Award finalist in unpublished novels now being released! A Mackinac Island beauty fights her father's refusal to allow her to run the inn after her mother's death and secretly becomes a servant at the Grand Hotel to prove herself. But will an undercover journalist, seeking a sensational story, ruin her chances and run off with her heart?

2016



"Requilted with Love" - a novella in The Blue Ribbon Brides Collection (Barbour Publishing, November 2016). A quilter, who lost her first two fiancés, determines never to love again. But will a balloonist at the Michigan State Fair change her mind?  Other contributors in the collection include: Gina Wellborn, Cynthia Hickey, Jennifer AlLee, Angela Breidenbach, Darlene Franklin, Becca Witham and Tiffany Stockton.
Tea Cup Courtships Collection (Forget Me Not Romances, October, 2016). Includes Carrie's novella, Tea Shop Folly.


Tea Shop Folly - a novella (Forget Me Not Romance, July 2016). Having inherited a house crammed with antique teacups, Lilly can’t turn away the handsome bachelor who thinks her new home is a tea shop. Theo, a Soo Locks engineer, visits her frequently, claiming to be searching for the perfect teacup for his mother, from what is her great-aunt’s hoarded collection. When the genuine Tea Shoppe owner sets the police on Lilly for her lack of a business license and sparks begin to fly.




FOUR STAR REVIEW FROM ROMANTIC TIMES BOOK REVIEWS!!!
Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter, a novel (White Rose/Pelican Book Group, June 2016). A young aristocratic French flees for her life after her Huguenot family is exposed. A peasant woodsman from the German Palatinate rescues her only to bring misfortune upon his family. After being robbed and entering indenture contracts, can this unlikely couple survive a perilous journey to the American colonies?

The Steeplechase - a novella in Love's Sporting Chance Collection (Forget Me Not Romances, February 2016). Martha Osborne fears for her six-year-old brother, who was shuffled off to boarding school when his British mother departed to England. Set in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in the build-up to the War of 1812, expert rider Martha plans to substitute for her older brother in a “race to the steeple” to win the prize—and a bet with Phillip Paulson, equestrian trainer at Yorkview Academy, to help have her little brother returned home. When Phillip stumbles upon the real reasons behind the secret race he finds he may not be able to keep his end of the bargain. Can he save Martha and her brother? And will his heart be lost in the process?


ONE YEAR ON AMAZON'S LIST OF TOP-RATED CIVIL WAR BOOKS!
Return to Shirley Plantation: A Civil War Romance  2nd edition, novella re-released under new cover (Hearts Overcoming Press, January, 2016). My Christian fiction debut release in April 2013.  An Amazon bestselling Civil War book for seven months, and continued in the top-rated titles of Civil War book for a year.  Theater manager Matthew Scott is abducted and conscripted into the Confederate army because of his Copperhead senator father’s political leanings. Injured at Malvern Hill, Matthew is taken by the Union army to Shirley Plantation in Virginia where he is tended by seamstress Angelina Rose, a beautiful woman who unbeknownst to him is a freed slave. Given an opportunity to leave the South and start a new life for herself, Angelina remained for the sake of her sister’s orphaned twins who are still enslaved. Matthew must use his acting skills to remain safe, not realizing Angelina is merely playing the role of being a member of the Carter family, owners of the plantation. Will Matthew's return to Shirley Plantation settle a mystery concerning his father’s past? And will he and Angelina find the family they long for?

2015





MAGGIE AWARD PUBLISHED BOOK FINALIST 2016 FOR ROMANTIC NOVELLA!

The Substitute Bride - novella part of the O' Little Town of Christmas Collection (Hearts Overcoming Press, October, 2015). A letter for Sonja’s deceased friend arrives at the post office in Michigan, and with it a proposal. With her father threatening to kick her out of his home, Sonja impulsively responds, offering to travel west to be a substitute bride. At the same time, Louis’s railroad promotion sends him back to Michigan, the one place on earth he’d hoped to never return—where Christmas past was full of pain. A mysterious stranger leaves him marked copies of “A Christmas Carol” as he considers romancing Sonja in Christmas present. Will Louis discern the best choices for Christmas future? Does it include the Poor House, again? Even so—will God bring healing and love to him this year?


Family Fiction Book of the Year long list finalist.
Lilacs for Juliana, a novel (Hearts Overcoming Press, August, 2015) New lumber camp boss, Richard Christy, finds the town library mighty appealing -- as well as the petite librarian. A dashing beer baron, from Milwaukee, also pursues Juliana’s attention. When a library trustee determines to push out the female librarians, imperiling Juliana's ability to support her elderly infirm mother and sickly sister. Each man has a plan to help Juliana, but only one will win her heart. Will a mansion in Wisconsin, with a personal library, be Juliana’s new home -- or a small cabin in a lumber camp?




A  #1 Amazon Bestseller, continuing on the bestseller list into 2016.
“The Fruitcake Bride” is part of the Christmas Traditions Eight-in-One Collection (Forget Me Not Romance, July 2015.)  


Family Fiction Book of the Year finalist.
The Lumberjacks' Ball, a novel (Hearts Overcoming Press, April, 2015). A tale of betrayal and starting anew. When mercantile owner Rebecca Jane opens her new business over a hundred miles away and across the beautiful Straits of Mackinac, she's flabbergasted to find that a man from her past has followed her -- the handsome lumberjack who had saved her life a decade earlier. And what she doesn't know is that another man, too, has followed her North -- the man who nearly killed her. Will his plans succeed, or does God have another plan for Rebecca Jane?

2014


Selah Award Finalist and Family Fiction Book of the Year finalist.
2014 The Fruitcake Challenge (Hearts Overcoming Press, September 2014). Part of The Christmas Traditions Collection and also Book One in The Christy Lumber Camp Series. 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 better than 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!


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“The Quilting Contest,” award WINNER in historical category. 
Published in“The Story 2014” Anthology (Family Fiction, 2014.) A young female physician encounters unexpected resistance to having her friend’s state fair awarded quilt entered into a local county fair.



2013



"Snowed In," in A Cup of Christmas Cheer (Guideposts Books, October, 2013) a two-volume hardcover set. A WWII injured veteran experiences his first Christmas back home, determined to get to the girl he plans to make his wife, when she is snowed in at his grandmother’s cabin.

God's Provision in Tough Times

"When Health Impacts Employment,” a chapter in God's Provision in Tough Times by Cynthia Howerter and La-Tan Murphy (Lighthouse Press of the Carolinas, July 2013).  Fifteen authors contributed, including Dan Walsh, Eva Marie Everson, Ramona Richards, Dee Dee Parker, Torry Martin, Cecil Stokes, and more!

Participant in online serial story "A Vow Fulfilled" with MaryLu Tyndall, Roseanna White, Laurie Alice Eakes, Debbie Lynne Costello, and Gina Welborn, winter 2013. Published online on various websites.

2012

Lead writer for the Colonial Quills' Frontier Fiction Holiday anthology A Forted Frontier Christmas published online in 2012-2013. Here is the link to the anthology (click here.)