CFBA: Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs

This week, the


Christian Fiction Blog Alliance


is introducing


Here Burns My Candle


WaterBrook Press (March 16, 2010)


by


Liz Curtis Higgs





ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

In her best-selling series of Bad Girls of the Bible books, workbooks, and videos, Liz Curtis Higgs breathes new life into ancient tales about the most infamous—and intriguing—women in scriptural history, from Jezebel to Mary Magdalene. Biblically sound and cutting-edge fresh, these popular titles have helped more than one million women around the world experience God's grace anew. Her best-selling historical novels, which transport the stories of Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, and Dinah to eighteenth-century Scotland, have also helped her readers view these familiar characters in a new light. And her nonfiction book, Embrace Grace, winner of a 2007 Retailers Choice Award, presents her message of hope in an engaging and personal way, speaking directly to the hearts of her readers.



A veteran speaker, Liz has presented more than 1,600 encouraging programs for audiences in all 50 states and 10 foreign countries: South Africa, Indonesia, Germany, France, England, Canada, Ecuador, Scotland, Portugal, and New Zealand. In 1995, she received the Council of Peers Award for Excellence from the National Speakers Association, becoming one of only 32 women in the world named to their CPAE-Speaker Hall of Fame.



Feature articles about Liz have appeared in more than 250 major newspapers and magazines across the country, as well as online with Salon.com, Beliefnet.com and Spirituality.com. She has also been interviewed on more than 600 radio and television stations, including guest appearances on PBS, A&E, MSNBC, NPR, TBN with Kirk Cameron, CBC Canada, BBC Radio Scotland, Rhema Broadcasting New Zealand, Radio Pulpit South Africa, LifeToday with James Robison, Focus on the Family, Janet Parshall's America, 100 Huntley Street and Midday Connection.



Liz is the author of twenty-six books, with more than three million copies in print.



Her fiction includes two contemporary novels, one novella, and four historical novels. And she has written five books for young children.





ABOUT THE BOOK

A mother who cannot face her future.

A daughter who cannot escape her past.



Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.



Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.



His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.



One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.



A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.



Watch the book video:







If you would like to read the first chapter of Here Burns My Candle, go HERE.

Liz was my introduction to Christian Historical Fiction that opened the doorway to all of the books that I thrive upon today. I'm currently reading this one in between naps, spit up and playtime... Look for a review next week! 
 

Waiting on Wednesday: March 10th, 2010 HISTORICAL

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

“No moon in sight,” Donald observed, resting his forehead lightly on the glass. “No Highlanders either.”
“They’ll arrive soon enough.” Marjory extinguished the candle by her bed,
shrouding the room in darkness. “Sleep while you can. And keep that bonny wife
of yours close at hand.”
“Aye.” The smile in his voice was unmistakable. “So I shall.”


September 1745


Edinburgh is a bustling city of fifty thousand inhabitants, the narrow closes and wynds crowded with rich and poor alike. Tongues are wagging over the impending arrival of Charles Edward Stuart—the young pretender to the throne—and his Highland army. Scotland, though bound by English law, is thick with Jacobites, who support the restoration of James and the overthrow of King George II.


Safely ensconced in their well appointed rooms overlooking the High Street are the Kerrs of Selkirk. Landed gentry from the Scottish Borders, the Kerrs have called Edinburgh home for a decade, all but abandoning their quiet country estate in Selkirkshire, turning their back on the simple folk of the Borders in favor of Edinburgh’s heady mix of culture, commerce, and political intrigue.


A spiritual famine has inflicted this family, a waning devotion to God. The Kerrs don’t belong in the city, and instinctively they know it. Edinburgh is foreign, unfamiliar, and even dangerous. Yet, they remain.


Dowager Lady Marjory Kerr is a widow of substantial means, whose two abiding passions in life are maintaining her place in society and coddling her two grown sons, Donald and Andrew. Her late husband, Lord John, succumbed to a weak heart on a cold winter’s morn seven years past, leaving her to weather life’s storms on her own.


Lady Elisabeth Kerr adores her husband, Lord Donald, who treats her as an equal, discussing books and politics and society as if she’d grown up in a gentleman’s household. Despite her present happiness, Elisabeth harbors a dark family secret, and seeks the help of the Nameless One to overcome her shameful legacy.


Mistress Janet Kerr, newly married to Andrew, is a woman of good breeding from an ancient Highland family. Many people of quality call Janet handsome or regal, and rightly so. Her dress and manner are impeccable, her wit sharp. But they do not call Janet beautiful. Or kind.


Bound by marriage, then torn asunder by cruel circumstance, the three Kerr women will soon be forced to depend upon one another. And that's when things will get verra interesting...


A mother who cannot face her future.
A daughter who cannot escape her past.
A timeless tale of loss and redemption,
flickering against the vivid backdrop
of eighteenth-century Scotland.


Here Burns My Candle is based on the beloved Old Testament book of Ruth.

For all intensive purposes, aside from Lois Gladys Leppard, Liz Curtis Higgs was my introduction to Christian Fiction. Her Scottish Lowlands series was the open door that brought me and taught me the wonders of Christian Historical Fiction and I have been addicted and crave it with a healthy passion ever since. It has been years and I have been waiting rather impatiently, but now March 16th, 2010 WaterBrook Multnomah brings us that latest of Liz in Here Burns My Candle.