Interview with Beth Wiseman & spotlight of The Surf's Up collection

We're excited to meet best-selling author Beth Wiseman, who is with us today talking about her book collection, The Surf's Up.  Beth is a very prolific author, who has sold over two million books. To learn more about Beth and her books, read on!

Please tell us five random things we might not know about you.

I can play the clarinet. I whistle the theme song from The Flintstones when I’m alone. I’ve sold over two million books. If I wasn’t an author, I’d want to be a chef. I’m adopted and found my birth mother when I was twenty-five.      

Why did you choose to write this book?

As an author of over thirty-five Amish novels and novellas, I wanted to create something non-Amish. I still love writing about the Plain people, but when I take a break from buggies and bonnets to do something else, I think the alternating between the two genres keeps my writing fresh.

What one thing about writing do you wish non-writers would understand?

Just because I work at home, I make my living as an author. I have to put in the time just like everyone traveling to an eight-to-five job. While I try to balance my work with family and friends, I’ve been paid to do a job, and there are consequences if I fail to produce a promised book or round of revisions in a timely manner. 

What is the toughest test you've faced as a writer?

When I wrote the book The Promise, the subject matter was close to my heart. I’d helped someone dear to me escape from an abusive situation in Pakistan. I had to work with the Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate in Peshawar to help get this person back to the United States. While the story was fictional, some of the events in the book did take place. It was an emotional novel to write, and timely with regard to the events going on in the world. But I had to do many rewrites, and it was painful on several levels.  

What do you hope readers to take away from your novel?

I hope readers are able to escape to the peacefulness of the beach in each of the Surf’s Up novellas. And, as with all of my books, I hope something within the pages resonates with the reader and brings them to a better place, and possibly even move them toward a deeper relationship with God.  

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of, writing-related or not?

That I survived raising two boys during their teenage years, lol.   

Please give us the first page of the book.

A Tide Worth Turning

Chapter One

Addison paced across her mother’s living room as sweat dampened her temples and the base of her neck. May was already punishing them with Texas temperatures that were usually reserved for July and August. But Lee Ann Burke had a steadfast rule not to run the air conditioning until July. If there was any saving grace at all, it was the ocean pushing a breeze ashore, which wafted through the screened windows of the house Addison had grown up in. She breathed in the briny aroma, a smell she’d haul to her grave someday, with enough good and bad memories to keep her balanced on the plank she’d been walking since her father died.

            She glanced at her smartphone, wondering if she was going to make it to her next appointment on time. The continuous drip of the kitchen faucet around the corner felt like water torture against her left temple. She rubbed the source of the irritation. “Mom, are you sure the agency said three o’clock? It’s almost three thirty.”

            “That’s what they said.” Her mother didn’t glance up, but kept focused on the

jigsaw puzzle she was hunched over.

What do you do for fun when not writing?

If I’m not writing, I’m usually thinking about writing. Everything I see and hear is fair game for a story. But, when I am able to disconnect from my writer brain, I love fine dining, cooking, reading (of course), and spending time with family and friends.

What are you working on now?

I am wrapping up revisions on book #2 in a new series, An Amish Journey. Book #1—Hearts in Harmony—releases in March of this year, and the second book—Listening to Love—releases in September. I’m also working on revisions for a story that will be included in An Amish Christmas Bakery, a collection with three other authors that is slated to release in October. My story is titled Loaves of Love.     

  

Back cover blurb:

Each Surf’s Up novella takes the reader to a beach locale, weaving romance and adventure into a soul-soothing journey of hope.

A Tide Worth Turning
Addison and Logan aren’t in the market for love. She’s recovering from a breakup, and he is hiding out on Galveston Island, trying to save enough money to get back to his country of origin before his world crashes down around him. But when Addison awakens feelings in him that he thought died long ago, Logan begins to question whether or not fleeing from the past is worth leaving Addison forever. Can love triumph where currents are rough?

Message In A Bottle
Kyle loses the love of his life when girlfriend, Morgan, is whisked away by the CIA in the middle of the night. Almost six years later, two men show up at Kyle's door with news that he has a daughter who is ill. Her only chance of survival lies with Kyle, if he'll fly to an undisclosed island location in the Pacific. But reuniting with his first love and saving his daughter places his engagement to his fiancée, Lexie, at risk. Can love bridge the troubled waters of Kyle's past and present? 

The Shell Collector’s Daughter
Carianna isn’t like other twenty-six-year-old women. She’s never been on a date, never experienced the euphoria of a first kiss, and certainly never been in love. Can a man’s heart speak to hers in a way that she can understand? And if so, will any man believe that Carianna sings with the angels and has tea with God? Will he see the star dust twinkling in her eyes or hear the secret whispers of the ocean in a seashell? When the right man comes along, will Carianna’s father lift his protective wings and allow Carianna to soar into the life that God meant for her? And will Carianna hear this man’s heart speaking to hers in a way that she understands?

Christmas by the Sea
Parker McIntyre is late evacuating Galveston Island prior to a hurricane. When he becomes trapped in rising floodwaters, he is going to drown if help doesn't arrive soon. Alexandria Hanson is on her way off the island to escape the immediate storm threat, but she spots a person trapped in the water. Helping the man is going to require great personal risk, but she can't leave him to die. If Parker and Alex leave the island alive, will they have a chance to explore their feelings during the holiday season? Or will the opportunity be lost forever?

Bio:

Beth Wiseman is the best-selling author of the Daughters of the Promise series and the Land

of Canaan series. Having sold over two million books, her novels have held spots on the Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller List, the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) Bestseller List and the CBA (Christian Book Association) Bestseller List. She was the recipient of the prestigious Carol Award in 2011 and 2013. She is a three-time winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, and an INSPY Award winner. In 2013 she took home the coveted Holt Medallion. Her first book in the Land of Canaan series—Seek Me With All Your Heart—was selected as the 2011 Women of Faith Book of the Year. Beth and her husband are empty nesters enjoying country life in Texas.

Where else can readers find you online?

You can learn more about me and my books at www.BethWiseman.com. And, while you are there, please sign up for my newsletter. I offer contests exclusive to subscribers, cover reveals, and divulge the inside scoop about what I’m writing. I also recommend books when I’m allowing myself that luxury. I can be found hanging out at Fans of Beth Wiseman on Facebook, Instragram (BethWisemanAuthor), and on Twitter (@BethWiseman).