Lena Nelson Dooley's "McKenna's Daughters" series

My Mckenna’s Daughters series was published by Realms, the fiction imprint of Charisma Media.
The titles are: Maggie’s Journey, Mary’s Blessing, and Catherine’s Pursuit

1) Your cover blurb:
This is the blurb for the series: The heroines are identical triplets, born on one of the last wagon trains on the Oregon Trail. Their mother dies giving birth to them, and they’re separated. They don’t find out until near their 18th birthday that they have sisters. Each book is one of the sisters’ story.

2) How did this story come to you?
I’m not sure when this story first entered my mind. I do know that the idea came from the Lord, and it percolated in my brain for several years before I wrote the series.

3) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
I do remember now. When Tracie Peterson was the acquisition editor for Heartsong Presents, when they started the states series, she told the Heartsong authors that three of us could propose ideas for a three book series. I had the idea and I asked two of my friends to join me in the proposal. Tracie liked it a lot, and we thought she was going to buy it. After she resigned so she could concentrate on her own writing, the new editor decided to give the proposal back to us.

The idea wouldn’t let me know, so a few years later, I asked my friends if they would mind if I took my story and added two more, not at all like their stories, and submitted it. They agreed.

Three other editors liked the series, but finally gave it back for differing reasons. The LI Historical editor said it was too involved for their line, but she really liked it. When my agent sent it to the Realms editor soon after they started their new fiction line, she bought it right away.

4) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
I was raised in the Ozark Mountains on fish farms.
I graduated fourth of my graduating high school class of fifty.
I was not born a redhead.

5) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I am working on another three book series that my agent is shopping right now.
My actual next project is adapting Pola Muzyka’s novel Abducted to Kill into a screenplay for a Christian movie. We’re already in pre-production meetings.

6) Parting comments?
I’m giving away a pdf copy of the winner’s choice of any of the McKenna’s Daughters books.

7) Where can fans find you on the internet?
 I love my readers. I like to hear from them at any of these places:
Website: www.lenanelsondooley.com 
Blog: Http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/lenandooley/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lena.nelson.dooley
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lenandooley 
Official Fan Page: www.facebook.com/pages/Lena-Nelson-Dooley/42960748768?ref=ts
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/333031.Lena_Nelson_Dooley
Shoutlife: www.shoutlife.com/lenanelsondooley
Blogtalk Radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/gate-beautiful-radio-show/
Other blogs where I’m a regular contributor:
http://christianfictionhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/
http://justthewritecharisma.blogspot.com/

Nelson Dooley's "Catherine's Pursuit"

Title: Catherine’s Pursuit
Publisher: Realms, the fiction imprint of Charisma Media

Cover blurb: The search for her sisters will become a spiritual journey for the entire family.

Raised by her father, Catherine McKenna has never lacked for anything, surrounded by people to take care of her every need. On her eighteenth birthday she discovers that not only did her mother die when she was born, but she has two identical sisters. Although her father vowed not to look for his daughters, Catherine made no such promise. Setting out on her own with one clue and her maid in tow, she's determined to find her sisters.

Collin Elliott has seen better days. After losing his ship to a violent and unexpected storm, he is trying to recover--physically and emotionally. When Angus McKenna sends him to find, follow, and protect his daughter, he wants nothing more than to finish his task and return home. Can he help her find her sisters?

And will the discoveries they make along the way teach them both what's most important in life?

1) How did this story come to you?
The McKenna’s Daughters series percolated in my brain for several years before my agent sold it. Identical triplets, born on a wagon train and separated at birth when their mother dies, presented all kinds of possibilities. They are raised in different kinds of families. Catherine’s Pursuit is book three in the series.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
The story first came to me when Tracie Peterson, who was the Heartsong Present acquisition editor for already published Heartsong authors. This was when Heartsong started doing the three book states series. She was really interested in it, but the editors changed, and the next one didn’t buy it.

Then my agent and I decided I should expand the stories to longer novels, because it was hard to include all I wanted to in the Heartsong length. At the time Realms bought the series another editor was also interested in it.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
I like to try different kinds of things to eat. I love turtle and froglegs, but don’t like alligator as much.
I started first grade when I was 5 years old, so I was always the youngest person in each class.
One summer, I attended two colleges at the same time.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I’m writing a new series called Love’s Road Home, and there’s a major publishing company interested in it, but they can’t contract it right away. And I’ve been offered a exciting writing gig that can fill part of the time till then, but I can’t announce what it is until I sign the contract.

5) Parting comments?
I love my readers, and welcome new ones. Readers keep me writing books. I like for them to connect to me. There are lots of places they can find me.

9) Where can fans find you on the internet?
Website: www.lenanelsondooley.com
Blog: Http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/lenandooley
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lena.nelson.dooley
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lenandooley
Official Fan Page: www.facebook.com/pages/Lena-Nelson-Dooley/42960748768?ref=ts
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/333031.Lena_Nelson_Dooley
Shoutlife: www.shoutlife.com/lenanelsondooley
Blogs where I’m a part: http://justthewritecharisma.blogspot.com/ and http://www.bustlesandspurs.com/

Lena Nelson Dooley's "Christmas Love in Lake Tahoe"

Title: Maggie’s Journey
Publisher: Realms, a fiction imprint from Charisma House

Cover blurb:
A girl who’s been lied to her whole life…
Near her eighteenth birthday, Margaret Lenora Caine finds a chest hidden in the attic containing proof that she was adopted. The daughter of wealthy merchants in Seattle, she feels betrayed both by her real parents and by the ones who raised her.

Maggie desires a place where she belongs. But her mother’s constant criticism and reminders that she doesn't fit the mold of a young woman of their social standing have already created tension in their home. With the discovery of the family secret, all sense of her identity is lost.

When Maggie asks to visit her grandmother in Arkansas, her father agrees on the condition that she take her Aunt Georgia as a chaperone and his young partner, Charles Stanton, as protection on the journey. Will she discover who she really is and, more importantly, what truly matters most in life?

1) How did this story come to you?
This story had been percolating in my brain and heart for several years. It’s book one in my McKenna’s Daughters series about identical triplets separated at birth.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
Several years ago, when Tracie Peterson was the acquisitions editor for Heartsong, she was interested in the series, but she left the company to concentrate on her own writing before it was contracted.

In the intervening time, my agent Joyce Hart has sent it to several editors. At least three of them were very interested, but the series didn’t make it through committee. Then in 2010, she sent it to Strang/Realms, which later became Charisma House, and they bought the series very quickly.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
For the first 20 years of my life, I was painfully shy.
I wear a brace on my left leg.
I wasn’t a redhead, but I became one as soon as I could.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
Book 2 of McKenna’s Daughters, Mary’s Blessing, has been written and will release May 2012. I’m writing book 3, Catherine’s Pursuit, right now, and it will release January 2013. I’m also contracted for another series with Realms—Restored Hearts—so l’ll plunge right into writing them.

5) Parting comments?
I love my readers. They’re the reason I write. I love to connect with them, and I love to hear from them.

6) Where can fans find you on the internet?
http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/lenandooley
http://www.shoutlife.com/lenanelsondooley
www.facebook.com/pages/Lena-Nelson-Dooley/42960748768?ref=ts – my official fan page
http://www.facebook.com/lena.nelson.dooley - my profile
http://www.bustlesandspurs.com/ – Bustles and Spurs
http://justthewritecharisma.blogspot.com/  – Just the Write Charisma

I will give away a copy of Christmas Love in Lake Tahoe.

Clash of the Titles & Lena Nelson Dooley

Clash of the Titles, Where Authors Compete and Readers Judge

The literary website, Clash of the Titles, launched with a bang, and has increased in momentum ever since. They’ve had phenomenal authors, from historical romance writer, Lena Nelson Dooley to fantasy writer extraordinaire, Janalyn Voigt. Today Jennifer Slattery, Marketing Representative for Clash of the Titles, will highlight six COTT participants.

Lena Nelson Dooley, author of Love Finds You in Golden New Mexico competed in our Best Opening Hook Historical.

“I took part in the COTT because I felt it gave the author and readers another way to connect,” Lena said. “And it got our words in front of readers. I was pleased with the outcome and pray for its continued success. I was glad to haveLove Finds You in Golden, New Mexico, featured. This Heroine-in-Peril, Mail-Order-Bride-gone-awry story was a good fit. Readers have fallen in love with the secondary characters as well as the main characters in this historical.”

In Love Finds You in Golden New Mexico, Lena takes us back to an 1890, Golden New Mexico, mining town where men far outnumber women. So when an old wealthy miner named Philip Smith finds himself in need of a nursemaid, he places an ad for a mail-order bride--despite the protests of his friend Jeremiah. Hoping to escape a perilous situation back East, young Madeleine Mercer answers the ad and arrives in town under a cloud of suspicion. But just as she begins to win over Philip--and Jeremiah himself--the secrets she left behind threaten to follow her to Golden...and tarnish her reputation beyond redemption.

You’re dying to know what happens next, aren’t you? Now you have two must have’s for your winter reading list! Visit Lena’s website and blog to find out more about her and her plethora of novels! http://www.lenanelsondooley.com/, http://www.lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Slattery is a freelance writer, columnist, novelist and the marketing representative for Clash of the Titles. In 2009 she won first place in the HAWCN writing contest, book category and in 2010 she placed second in the Dixie Kane and fourth in the Golden Pen, Inspirational category for both. She has a weekly marriage column on the Reflections in Hindsight website and has been published in numerous other publications. You can find out more about her and her writing at http://jenniferslatterylivesoutloud.com/



Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico

Lena Nelson Dooley's "Love Finds you in Golden, New Mexico"

We're happy to have Lena Nelson Dooley with us today talking about her new book, Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico. To learn more about Lena and her book, read on!


1) How did this story come to you?
Actually, two other authors and I first proposed a mail-order bride proposal for a three book series. The proposal was rejected. So two of us took our stories and reworked them to propose to different publishing houses.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
When my agent Joyce Hart sent it to Summerside Press, the editor liked it right away. The company asked if I would be willing to wait for the contract. Since I really wanted to sell to Summerside, Joyce and I decided it was worth waiting for. The rest, as they say, is history.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
* I was a runner-up in a beauty contest when I was a senior in high school.
* I was painfully shy until I was a senior in high school.
* I grew up on fish farms.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I’m working on a contemporary women’s fiction titled Beyond Redemption. It hasn’t been contracted, but a major house is considering it right now. I also have proposals for two separate 3-book series at publishers right now. I’m waiting for something to sell. In the meantime, I’m scheduled to speak several places this year. Readers can find out where on the Newsletter page of my blog: http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/

5) Parting comments?
The print edition of Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico releases May 1, but the Kindle edition is already available from Amazon.

6) Where can fans find you on the internet?
http://www.lenanelsondooley.com/
http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/ - Author interviews/Free books
http://www.bustlesandspurs.com/ - Regular Blogger
www.facebook.com/lena.nelson.dooley
www.twitter.com/lenandooley
www.shoutlife.com/lenanelsondooley