NO OTHER WILL DO - Karen Witemeyer - One Free Book

I've always been enamored with story. I was a serious bookworm as a kid, preferring to hide away in my room with my nose buried in a book to nearly everything else. I never expected to be an author, though. Authors were amazing, creative people who transport a person into another place and time. I was just me. A math and band nerd whose only artistic expression was following someone else�s patterns, whether in music or in my one artistic hobby�cross-stitch. I was great at following directions, but creating from scratch? Not a chance.

Apparently, God had different ideas. He�d laid the foundation in my passion for reading, then sprinkled seeds along the way through English teachers and college professors who complimented my writing ability. Then finally, he took away my safety net when my husband lost his job in 2003 and as a young mother with three babies at home, I knew I had to do something to contribute to the family income. I ended up finding a day job, but God used that shock to jumpstart a dream of writing inside me. The bug had bitten, and I wasn't going to let it go. I started writing short pieces, then longer one. I attended national conferences and learned all I could about the industry. Then, six years later, in 2009, I signed my first 3 book contract with Bethany House. Only God could have brought to fruition a dream I didn�t even realize I possessed.

Well, actually, I still work a day job in addition to writing. I�m not sure it is my dreamjob. I work for a university in the registrar�s office revising the catalog, attending academic council meetings, and managing the course-related information in our school data system. It�s a good job with great co-workers, and I�m very thankful for the position. But dream job? That would probably entail a mountain cabin with a path leading through a forest to a waterfall where people paid me an unrealistic sum to host secluded book clubs/cross-stitch camps on the weekends, leaving me the freedom to write during the week.

I write historical stories, and I love romanticizing the 19^thcentury. Things were so much simpler back then. Families stayed closer together. God was a more vibrant part of the community. But in reality, there was no air conditioning, no washing machines, and no memory foam mattresses. Body odor was the norm and lice infested more heads than not. Would I like to jump in a time machine and visit the 1880's and 1890's that I write about? Absolutely! Would I want to live there? No thank you.

I�ve never been to Montana. I�d love to visit a dude ranch up there and experience 19^th century life in 21^st century comfort.

Over the past year, I�ve had the privilege to visit both The Netherlands and Germanyon book tours. What a fabulous experience! Europehas such rich history and architecture. The history nerd in me eats it up. One place that I�ve never visited that I would love to try is New Zealand. I�m a sucker for waterfalls and places with lush vegetation, and New Zealandseems to fit the bill. Maybe someday I�ll get the chance to see them firsthand.

He always seems to have something new to show me. Lately, I�ve been thinking a lot on his command to be fruitful. We are instructed to abide in the vine of Christ and to bear fruit. The fruit is designed to nourish others and to point them to Jesus. It struck me the other day as we were discussing this idea at ladies� Bible class, that we are also encouraged to scatter seed for the kingdom. We often think of scattering seed as teaching the good news. But it occurred to me that by being fruitful and sharing that fruit generously with those around us, we are also scattering seed. For fruit, by definition, is a food that contains seeds. When people are touched by our love and kindness and nourished by the fruit of our good deeds, the seeds hidden inside are planted in them, perhaps without them even being aware. Others may water those seeds, and when the time is right, God will give the increase and bring about a harvest for his kingdom.

Men are optional. That was the credo Emma Chandler�s suffragette aunts taught her and why she started a successful women�s colony in Harper�s Station, Texas. But when an unknown assailant tries repeatedly to drive the women out, Emma is forced to admit they might need a man after all. One who can fight. And there is only one she trusts enough to ask.

Malachi Shaw has finally earned the respect he�s always craved by becoming an explosives expert for the railroad. Yet when Emma�s telegram arrives, he leaves his job behind and rushes to Harper�s Station to repay the girl who once saved his life. Only she�s not a girl any longer. She�s a woman with a mind of her own and a smile that makes a man imagine a future he doesn�t deserve.

As the danger intensifies, old feelings grow into something more, but Emma and Mal will need more than love to survive.

Prologue

Malachi Shaw made the arduous climb back into consciousness with great effort. But then, everything Mal had accomplished so far in his thirteen years of life had required great effort. Not that he had achieved anything worth bragging about. Orphaned. Starving. And . . . cold.

That�s what his senses picked up first. The cold. And not just the huddling-under-the-saloon-stairs-in-a-too-thin-coat-during-a-blue-norther kind of cold. No. This was a cold so harsh it burned. Which made exactly zero sense.

With a groan, Mal lifted his head and tried to draw his arms beneath him to push himself up. That�s when the rest of the pain hit. His shoulder throbbed, his ribs ached, and his head felt like it had collided with a train. Oh, that�s right. It had.

Memories swirled through his mind as he slowly crawled out of the snowdrift that must have broken his fall. He�d hopped the train, just as he�d done a half dozen times over the last month since his drunk of a father finally got himself killed, run over by a wagon while trying to cross the street. The old man hadn�t been good for much, leaving Mal to scrounge for food in garbage bins while he spent whatever coins he managed to earn at the card tables on whiskey. But at least he�d kept a roof over their heads�a rundown, leaky roof supported by slanted, rickety walls that couldn�t even hold the wind out�but a roof nonetheless. The morning after they laid his father in the ground, the lady who owned the shack kicked Mal out on his ear. Barely gave him time to gather his one pathetic sac of belongings. A sac, Mal discovered as he frantically searched the area around him, that was nowhere to be found.

�No!� He slammed his fist into the frozen earth near his hip then slumped forward.

http://karenwitemeyer.com- The best place to connect with me online is at my website. I offer monthly drawings for free books, bonus material like deleted epilogues and behind-the-scenes peeks into my books, as well as free excerpts for all of my stories.

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