*Cue announcer voice* I’m interrupting our normal posting schedule with this special announcement:

Counterfeit Love has been selected as a semi-finalist for the Carol Awards!!!!!

The Carol Award is a major publishing award given by American Christian Fiction Writers for outstanding work in Christian fiction. To be listed among the same amazing authors I admire is a truly humbling and exciting moment.  Check out the other authors who also are semi-finalists in my category:

Debut Author

Sara Brunsvold – The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip

Crystal Caudill – Counterfeit Love

Dawn Ford – The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes

Elizabeth Jacobson – Not by Sight: a novel of the patriarchs

Anna Rose Johnson – The Star That Always Stays

Kathy Maresca – Porch Music

Linda W. Rooks – Pieces of Dark, Pieces of Light

Have you read any of them? 

It is an honor to have made it this far, and I hope you’ll join me at the ACFW Conference in St. Louis from August 24 to August 26 for a lot of bookish fun, including a massive book signing in conjunction with StoryFest. Just check out this lineup!

The finalists will be announced on that first night, and then the winner will be announced at the fancy gala on the last night. . . and you could be there with me. You can check out more information about StoryFest here, and if you do register, be sure to put Crystal Caudill as your “referred by” person. I won’t lie. It gives me a shot at getting a free hotel night off my conference stay. 🙂 

Here’s a bit about Counterfeit Love if you haven’t read it yet:

Can this undercover agent save the woman he loves–or is her heart as counterfeit as the money he’s been sent to track down?

After all that Grandfather has sacrificed to raise her, Theresa Plane owes it to him to save the family name–and that means clearing their debt with creditors before she marries Edward Greystone. But when one of the creditors’ threats leads her to stumble across a midnight meeting, she discovers that the money he owes isn’t all Grandfather was hiding. And the secrets he kept have now trapped Theresa in a life-threatening fight for her home–and the truth.

After months of undercover work, Secret Service operative Broderick Cosgrove is finally about to uncover the identity of the leader of a notorious counterfeiting ring. That moment of triumph turns to horror, however, when he finds undeniable proof that his former fiancée is connected. Can he really believe the woman he loved is a willing participant? Protecting Theresa and proving her innocence may destroy his career–but that’s better than failing her twice in one lifetime.

They must form a partnership, tentative though it is. But there’s no question they’re both still keeping secrets–and that lack of trust, along with the dangerous criminals out for their blood, threatens their hearts, their faith, and their very survival.

And here’s a snippet from one of my favorite moments:

The window above him slid open, and a pair of boy’s boots thudded to the ground inches from where he crouched. If shoes fell, a body was bound to follow. Broderick crept behind an unkempt bush and waited.

Black-stockinged feet and legs protruded from the sill’s edge, followed by blue skirts. Delicate hands adjusted the material before the familiar slender body swung from the ledge’s safety to straining twigs.

Of all the dangerous stunts! It was one thing for him to climb up, another for her to attempt climbing down. The little imp would get herself killed.

Broderick moved from the bush’s safety and resisted the urge to call out. Startling her could end in disaster, but words of rebuke played through his mind as displaced snow plopped around him. She couldn’t possibly see her next step beneath those skirts. Making it to the ground without mishap would be—

A branch snapped.

Theresa screamed. Blue and white material waved in surrender to the inevitable as she fell. Broderick lunged for her. The tree limbs cracked like a grand finale of fireworks, stopping moments before she crashed into his arms. His legs buckled, and they dropped to the ground with Theresa landing on his chest.

He lay still, his lungs begging for air but refusing to accept it. Given the force of their impact, a human-shaped crater would exist once he moved—if he ever moved again.

Theresa rolled to her knees beside him and stared in dazed silence.

Pain seared his arms as he pushed to a sitting position. “Are you hurt?”

Confusion creased her face as she blinked at him. She might be sorting through a touch of shock, but no discomfort contorted her features, which was more than he could say for himself. He rotated his shoulders and then flexed his arms. In a few years he might laugh about catching an angel, but right now he felt like he’d caught an anvil.

You can buy it now on sale from Amazon, Baker Book House, and Christianbook.

Have you read Counterfeit Love? What was your favorite part? If not, does it sound like something you’d like to check out?