Thursday, August 10, 2023

Celebrate Lit Blog Tour: Love's True Calling by Lori DeJong

Book: Love’s True Calling

Author: Lori DeJong

Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance

Release Date: June 27, 2023

After years of jumping through other people’s hoops to be all they thought she should be, and enduring a tragedy no mother should, self-described “newbie” Christian, Harper Townsend, has finally found her true calling … and her true love. Until it appears that to follow one may mean leaving the other behind.

Adolescent Psychologist, Wyatt McCowan, is beyond delighted to have the girl that got away back in his life and his heart. But even as they fall more in love, he realizes that being obedient to God’s calling on each of their lives may pull them apart. She rejected him once in favor of another, which left him hurt and angry. But this time, he can’t fault her for following hard after the God she loves with all her heart, even if it means leaving him once again.

Click here to get your copy!

Christian Romance books are a favorite Genre of mine. I recently read the Debut Novel for a new Author. Love's True Calling by Lori DeJong is Book 1 in the True Calling Series. I was excited to read a Debut Novel for a new Author and the Synopsis was intriguing!

Harper Townsend is a new Christian and has been through many struggles in life. She is finally at a point in her life where she feels she needs to follow her plans and God's plan for her life, instead of conforming to how others thought she should live. She also has finally found her True Calling in life and has reunited with a former love interest. Wyatt McCowan is an Adolescent Psychologist and is excited that Harper is back in his life. Wyatt and Harper had a relationship at one time, but Harper found someone else and she ended the relationship with Wyatt. Wyatt and Harper both realize that they want to Obey God for their True Calling in life, they also are falling deeply in love with one another. Will Wyatt and Harper follow God's Calling for their individual lives? Will they also follow their hearts for the LOVE they have for another?

A Sweet LOVE Story for Harper and Wyatt! I enjoyed this book as soon as I started reading it and did not put it down until I was done reading. I really LOVE how both Wyatt and Harper are wanting to put God first in their lives, especially being that Harper is a New Christian. Wyatt is a caring person and he really wants Harper to be happy in life and puts her feelings first. The book is Faith Filled and has a great Christian Message. A Book about Faith, LOVE, and Second Chances. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Christian Romance books. FANTASTIC BOOK!

Lori enjoys writing stories full of grace and the redemptive power of God’s love that inspire hope, joy, laughter, and perhaps even touch a soul or two to get to know Him better. She resides in Georgetown, Texas, with her husband and two fur-babies and is the mother of one grown daughter. Love’s True Calling is the 2022 winner of the ACFW Genesis Award for Romance.

More from Lori

I’ve had a dream for a very long time. In fact, I had this dream long before I was even doing anything to achieve it! Turns out I’ve wanted to be a published author since the 1990’s. And I didn’t even start writing, join writers’ groups, or attend conferences to learn the craft until 2002. Something inside me apparently knew more than I did when I put on my 1996 long-term goals list: To be a published author.

Fast forward to 2023 and my debut novel is being published. I’m not great at math, but even I know that’s A LOT of years that have gone by since I first identified that long-term goal. So the take-away from that should be, if you set a goal, no matter what it is, make a plan. Immediately. Not years later. Seriously. Don’t be me.

So, I chugged away at this writing goal for a few years, until my husband was laid off when the economy tanked in 2009 and our lives turned upside down. I didn’t write again until 2020, when we found ourselves empty-nesters and I started listening once again to those voices in my head begging me to write their stories.

Which brings me to how my first published novel was born. Would you believe it was homework? True story! When I came back to writing in 2020, I needed to re-hone my skills. So I took an online class that required us to plot an entire manuscript based on our characters’ motivations. What do they want out of life and why do they want it?

That’s how I came up with Wyatt, the high school geek now an accomplished and handsome college professor and adolescent psychologist, and Harper, the high school Miss Everything who’d weathered plenty of storms in her life before going back to school a decade after graduation to finally get her degree. What happens when Wyatt sees the girl who broke his teenage heart sitting in his class?

I plotted out this story as homework, never intending to write it. But I fell in love with these two and they were clamoring for me to tell their story. Two years later, that story won the ACFW Genesis award and is now being published by Scrivenings Press. Best takeaway from that? Never. Ever. Give. Up.

Who knew that a class assignment could bring about the realization of a twenty-some-odd-year-old goal? Make a dream come true? God did. And I’m so glad I listened to Him as I put this story to paper.

I hope you’ll read and enjoy Love’s True Calling, a story of love rediscovered, the joy of finding purpose, and the blessing of obedience.