Coming in 2011 from Zondervan

I'm excited to share with you some more Zondervan releases coming out this year.

Michael's A Stand-Up Guy is reposted with it's new cover (you can check out the old cover here). I'm particularly keen to get my hands on Erynn and Camy's books (love the covers!) and my love of history has me fascinated with Hitler in the Crosshairs.

How about you?

A Stand-Up Guy by Michael Snyder

It is often said that every good joke contains some basic truth.

In A Stand-Up Guy, aspiring comedian Oliver Miles puts that axiom to the test when he revamps his comedy act by filling it with darkly personal truths about friends and family. But, as the edgy humor begins to attract more attention, the young comic's personal life gets more complicated. When he realizes he has managed to turn the two women he cares about most into props for his act, he wonders if his honesty on-stage is making him dishonest in life. Despite the sobering reality of his world off stage, the laughter and the success is intoxicating, even for a stand-up guy.

A Stand-Up Guy is a real story about real people struggling with life's rights and wrongs. It will appeal to anyone who enjoys a uniquely-woven relational drama threaded with a little mystery and delivered with a lot of humor and insight.

July, 2011




Hitler in the Crosshairs by Maurice Possley & John Woodbridge

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist teams up with a university scholar in this compelling, untold historical tale of a young man’s courage at a critical time in United States history, and the saga of a dictator’s pistol that continues today.

The time is World War II. Young soldier Ira “Teen” Palm and his men burst into a Munich apartment, hoping to capture Adolph Hitler. Instead, they find an empty apartment … and a golden gun. As the authors trace the story of the man and the gun, they examine a time and place that shaped men like Palm and transformed them into heroes. They also follow the strange journey of Hitler’s pistol.

April, 2011




Insight by Diana Greenwood

Some secrets won’t let you go.

Elvira Witsil lives about as far away from civilization as you can get, in a remote corner of Wisconsin where nothing much ever happens. In a house crowded with her mother, her cantankerous grandmother, and her little sister, Jessie, Elvira feels forgotten and alone. Their house also contains numerous secrets, and Elvira’s family holds their secrets closely. Secrets about the father that Jessie never knew, and that Elvira can’t forget. Secrets about that day five years ago. And the one secret that Elvira can’t quite understand: that Jessie sees things no one else can see.

These secrets will lead Elvira and her family on a journey far away from home—on a journey toward redemption and healing—if she can just bring herself to believe.

April, 2011




Belonging by Robin Lee Hatcher

In the high desert town of Frenchman’s Bluff, Idaho, Felicia Kristoffersen has set out to create a future for herself that is better than her painful past. Alone in the world with only her faith to sustain her, she must prove herself as this tiny community’s new school teacher. She cannot, must not, fail. But, there are those who never wanted her there to begin with.

Five years after the death of his wife, local merchant Colin Murphy cares about just one thing: raising his daughter, Charity. Colin wants to give her the educational advantages he never had. The new schoolmarm’s inexperience doesn’t sit well with him, and if this teacher up and marries like the last one did, Charity’s heart will be broken once again.

A woman who hasn’t known love. A man who lost the love he had. In the midst of the wide, sage-covered plains, each is about to discover that life’s bitterest circumstances truly can work together for good.

August, 2011



Sketchy Behavior by Erynn Mangum

Drawing conclusions or drafting disaster?

Other than harboring a somewhat obsessive fondness for Crispix and completely swearing-off boys after a bad date (don’t ask), sixteen-year-old Kate Carter is about as ordinary as they come, except for her two notable talents: art and sarcasm. After an introduction to forensic sketching in her elective art class, Kate discovers a third and most unexpected gift—criminal profiling. Her photo-quality sketch helps the police catch a wanted murderer and earns her celebrity status in South Woodhaven Falls. But when that murderer appears to be using his friends to exact revenge, Kate goes from local hero to possible target.

Will she manage to survive? Will life ever be normal again? And will local news anchor Ted Deffle ever stop sending her flowers?

August, 2011




Barcelona Calling by Jane Kirkpatrick

From bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick comes this relational story about a close-knit group of five women and their pursuit of life goals. You’ll be encouraged and entertained!

In the tradition of Neta Jackson’s Yada Yada Prayer Group series, Kirkpatrick invites you into the lives of five women friends who promise to help each other achieve their life goals.

Annie Shaw's goal is far from simple: become famous. But she’s in trouble after quitting her day job to write full-time. Her second novel tanked, and her new editor wants her to re-write the ending of her latest work to ensure this one is more successful. In order to pursue fame and an elusive bestseller, Annie travels to Chicago, acquires a rambunctious dog, and participates in antics better suited to a television reality show than real life. Can Annie’s best friends help her achieve her goals without destroying her future?

Award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick, known for her superb historical novels, writes this bold, fresh, contemporary story she always threatened she’d one day “put down on paper to make people laugh and consider the true treasures of their hearts.”

September, 2011




Falling to Pieces by Vannetta Chapman

In this first book of a three-book series, author Vannetta Chapman brings a fresh twist to the popular Amish fiction genre. She blends the familiar components consumers love in Amish books—faith, community, simplicity, family—with an innovative who-done-it plot that keeps readers guessing right up to the last stitch in the quilt.

When two women—one Amish, one English—each with different motives, join forces to organize a successful on-line quilt auction, neither expects nor wants a friendship. As different as night and day, Deborah and Callie are uneasy partners who simply want to make the best of a temporary situation. But a murder, a surprising prime suspect, a stubborn detective, and the town's reaction throw the two women together, and they form an unlikely alliance to solve a mystery and catch a killer.

Set in the well-known Amish community of Shipshewana, Falling to Pieces will attract both devoted fans of the rapidly-growing Amish fiction genre, as well as those who are captivated by the Amish way of life.

September, 2011




Longing by Karen Kingsbury

Longing, book three in the Bailey Flanigan Series, picks up where Learning ended. After a long and lonely silence from Cody Coleman, Bailey Flanigan becomes closer to her one-time Hollywood co-star, Brandon Paul. Nights on the town in New York City and long talks on the balcony of Brandon's Malibu Beach home make Bailey dizzy with new feelings and cause her to wonder if her days with Cody are over forever.

Meanwhile, Cody's work coaching a small-town football team has brought him and his players national attention. In the midst of the celebration and success, Cody finds himself much closer to a woman who seems to better understand him and his new life. Even so, never does much time go by without Bailey and Cody experiencing deep feelings of longing for each other, longing both for the past and for answers before they can move forward.

Will an unexpected loss be the turning point for Cody? Will Cody and Bailey find a way back together again for the first time in more than a year? And if they do, will their brief time together be enough to help them remember all they've been longing for?

October, 2011




Lost Melody by Lori Copeland & Virginia Smith

The beautiful piano sitting in the corner of Jill King’s apartment begs to be played. For over a year, it has sat untouched, ever since a terrible accident shattered Jill’s ambition of becoming a concert pianist. The ragged scar on her left hand is a cruel and constant reminder of the death of her dream. But another dream is about to come to life—an unexpected, horrifying dream that will present Jill with a responsibility she never wanted. And choices she never wanted to make.

Hundreds of lives depend on Jill’s willingness to warn her small, oceanside town in Nova Scotia of a nameless, looming disaster. But doing so could cost Jill her reputation, jeopardize the political career of the man she loves, and ruin their plans for a future together.

The fate of an entire community hangs in the balance as Jill wrestles with the cost of heeding one still, small voice.

October, 2011




Protection for Hire by Camy Tang

Tessa Lancaster’s skills first earned her a position as an enforcer in her Uncle Teruo’s Japanese Mafia gang. Then they landed her in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

Now, three months after her release, Tessa’s abilities have gained her a job as bodyguard for wealthy socialite Elizabeth St. Amant and her three-year-old son. But there’s a problem or two … or three …. There’s Elizabeth’s abusive husband whose relentless pursuit goes deeper than mere vengeance. There’s Uncle Teruo, who doesn’t understand why Tessa’s new faith as a Christian prevents her from returning to the yakuza. And then there’s Elizabeth’s lawyer, Charles Britton, who Tessa doesn’t know is the one who ensured that she did maximum time behind bars.

Now Tessa and Charles must work together in order to protect their client, while new truths emerge and circumstances spiral to a deadly fever pitch. Factor in both Tessa’s and Charles’s families and you’ve got some wild dynamics—and an action-packed, romantic read as Tessa and Charles discover the reality of being made new in Christ.

October, 2011




The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

Annabel Chapman was once a wealthy merchant’s daughter, but due to her father’s death and the actions of her mother and brothers, Annabel is now an indentured servant to the new lord, Ranulf de Wyse. While the villagers spread rumors the lord is a terrifying and beastly man, Annabel has a much deeper worry—that Ranulf’s bailiff will continue his unwelcome and frightening advances on her, advances that have made her fear the intentions of men as a whole. Annabel sees life at a nunnery as her only escape from the bailiff’s intentions, although as her servant status brings her closer to Ranulf, Annabel begins to feel safe and secure. But are her feelings really a stirring of her heart?

As Annabel struggles to confront her feelings, she finds herself in a situation that could place Ranulf in grave danger. Ranulf’s future, and heart, may rest in her hands, and Annabel must decide whether to follow the dreams of her mind or the calling God has placed on her heart.

November, 2011




A Life of Joy by Amy Clipston

Take a trip to Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where you’ll meet the women of the Kauffman Amish Bakery in Lancaster County. As each woman’s story unfolds, you will share in her heartaches, trials, joys, dreams … and secrets. You’ll discover how the simplicity of the Amish lifestyle can clash with the “English” way of life—and the decisions and consequences that follow. Most importantly, you will be encouraged by the hope and faith of these women, and the importance they place on their families.

In A Life of Joy, the fourth installment in the series, eighteen-year-old Lindsay Bedford has reached a crossroads. Should she stay in the small Amish community she's known and loved for four years or return to the English life in her hometown in Virginia where her older sister is a college student? An extended visit to Virginia might just tip the scales as Lindsay reconnects with friends, joins a new church, works on her GED, and is pressured by her sister to stay and "make something of herself."

Will Lindsay leave her aunt Rebecca and become English or settle in Bird-in-Hand and join the Amish church?

November, 2011