Gregg and I recently came back from the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. We already knew that Word of Honor and Honor’s Refuge in the Love and Honor series had semi-finaled in the Carol Awards for the romantic suspense category. What we didn’t know was that BOTH had finaled! Out of the three finalists, I had two books.
It was so exciting to go through the rest of the conference in anticipation of the Awards Gala on Saturday night. Gregg spent the conference reminding me to write an acceptance speech. Finally, in some down time on Saturday afternoon, I made some notes. When I tried to practice my speech, I kept crying – something I really, really didn’t want to do!
So, the Romantic Suspense category came up and I won! Word of Honor is the 2023 Best Romantic Suspense Novel in the Carol Awards.
Ya’ll – this is like the Oscars of Christian Fiction.
How cool is that?
In my acceptance speech, I talked about writing this series and my love and respect for the members of our military. Then, of course, I started crying as I thanked everyone for their sustaining prayers in the four months since Jeb died. I told everyone that when we cleaned out his room, we found almost all of my books in some form or fashion – all dog-eared, bookmarked, and highlighted. He was truly my biggest fan and so proud of me. It made the award bittersweet, because he isn’t here to see it. But I believe he was yelling down the walls of heaven when they said my name. I dedicated the award to him.
Now every book in the series has won or finaled in a contest. I am so proud of that.
You can see the video here. Start at about 57 minutes:
https://www.facebook.com/ACFWOfficialPage/videos/293698020024484/
