#7 Amazon Kindle Best Seller List

Thanks, friends, for making TO WHISPER HER NAME's "Daily Deal Day" FOR $1.99 such fun. You guys nudged the book all the way to #7 on Amazon's Kindle Best Seller List. And I'm so grateful!

Fun in the Sun Writes of Passage Blog Giveaway

Hilton Head Beach, South Carolina

It's summertime! Time for vacations and stay-vacations and everything in between. 

If you could travel anywhere this summer, all expenses paid, where would you go? South of France? Disneyland? A patisserie in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower?

Would you climb Machu Picchu? Or brave Mount Everest? What about snagging a lazy patch of beach on the Florida coast? Or perhaps the sun-drenched west coast is your preference. Or fishing in Alaska? Or cruising the Mediterranean? Or how about touring the castles of Europe?

Machu Picchu (Lost City of the Incas)

built in 1480, at the height

of the Inca Empire (Peru)

Personally, the last one would be my first choice. I'd love to tour the castles of Europe. That's been on my bucket list for years. I'd start with Highclere Castle just in case the Granthams are home, then I'd move on from there. Wanna come?

It's fun to dream! If you're like me, wherever and whenever you go on vacation, you take a book (or several) with you. No vacation is complete for me without time to read.

I was cooking turkey burgers Sunday afternoon and making Black Bean Salsa (oh so delicious, recipe here) while also listening to an audiobook, and my husband came in shaking his head. "You're reading even as you're cooking?"

Yep! Never waste a minute.

Reading allows me to take mini-vacations. I can travel back in time to 19th century Colorado Territory, to Missouri, Michigan, Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, Montana––even 18th century England––and never leave my cozy reading chair. And so can you!

The authors at Writes of Passage are hosting a Fun in the Sun Giveaway in which you can win 12 bestselling print novels to enhance your "fun in the sun" this summer.

The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen

To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer

A Noble Groom by Jody Hedlund

Trouble in Store by Carol Cox

The Quarryman's Bride by Tracie Peterson

A Hidden Truth by Judith Miller

Betrayal by Robin Lee Hatcher

From a Distance by Tamera Alexander

Eve's Daughters by Lynn Austin

My Heart Remembers by Kim Vogel Sawyer

The Promise Box by Tricia Goyer

Forevermore by Cathy Marie Hake

Click here to enter the giveaway 

which ends on July 1st at 11:59 p.m. (central time).

The winner will be announced on Writes of Passage on my post Tuesday, July 2nd.

It's easy to enter. All you need to do is LIKE all twelve of our Facebook pages. That's it. Then you're in the drawing. And if you're having issues, please check your JAVA settings. You must have JAVA "on" to enter Rafflecopter contests.

Now tell me, if you could go anywhere this summer, where would it be? And if you're free to join me on an all-expenses-paid tour of the castles of Europe, leave a comment. As soon as I happen upon a wealthy benefactor, I'll buy our tickets!

Tammy

Friends and Cimetieres

Got this note and picture on Facebook yesterday from fabulous reader and friend Sue Beldyga who's currently in Paris…

Amy & I visited Cimetiere De Montmartre in Paris today 

and thought of you! Thanks for the memories!

How cool is this! Thanks, Sue, for visiting Cimetiere de Montmartre where the opening scene in Remembered takes place (after I visited that same cemetery in 2006). Love it!



Here's a picture of me and Sue when we met last fall (finally! after being FB friends forever) at Belle Meade Plantation for the release of To Whisper Her Name. 

Hugs to you, Sue! And have fun in Paris!

Walking through Proverbs

I'm reading through Proverbs each month this year, and since it's the 4th… 

This scripture stood out to me this morning. And this was my prayer… Lord, teach me to prize wisdom far more than I do right now, not for earthly gain or for any tangible measure of achievement here. But so that I may be closer to you, Jesus. And more like you.

Thanks to my husband, Joe, for snapping this picture with his iPhone the other evening after a storm blew through. Glorious! (And this is the "raw" picture, no Instagram or iPhoto touch ups.)

I've said it before, but I'll say it again… If the fallen earth is this beautiful, just imagine what Heaven will be like!

We usually take walks every day. Are you a walker? And do you take pics as you journey along? 

The bestseller you've never heard of

Maria Susanna Cummins

1827-1866

Do you know the name of the bestselling novel of the 19th century? 

Come on... Think. You know it.

You've most likely (oh, I hope!) read it… 

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Now, do you know the second bestselling novel of the 19th century? Second in sales only to Harriet's book? 

It's the bestseller you've never heard of…

The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins, and it was her first book. Within eight weeks of publication, it sold 40,000 copies, and totaled 70,000 by the end of its first year in print. Not too shabby, Miss Cummins. Even by today's standards. 

She wrote it "without any thought of achieving reputation," the publishers note in a 1902 edition records. "It was written originally for the entertainment of one of her nieces during a period of illness, with no intention of publication." Can you imagine? (I can't.)

The Lamplighter was first published as the work of an anonymous author, but Miss Cummins' identity was soon linked with the book, and she became a frequent contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, and other popular periodicals of her time.

Today, the novel is almost completely unknown, and as I read online, "its very popularity was used to condemn the novel in literary critical circles" during Miss Cummins' lifetime. (Not to worry, Miss Cummins, you showed them!)

She wrote other books, including Mabel Vaughan (1857), but none of which had the same success as her first…

About the book: 

The Lamplighter tells the story of the development of a young, orphaned girl into a resilient, capable young woman who gets her man––her childhood compatriot––but does just fine on her own, thank you, until he returns at the end of the book from his quest to make his fortune overseas. 

About the author (from online sources):

Maria Susanna Cummins was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on April 9, 1827. She was the daughter of Honorable Judge David Cummins and Maria F. Kittredge, and was the eldest of four children from that marriage. 

The Cummins family resided in the neighborhood of Dorchester in Boston, Massachusetts. Cummins' father encouraged her to become a writer at an early age. She studied at Mrs. Charles Sedgwick's Young Ladies School in Lenox, Massachusetts.

In 1854, at age 27, she published the novel The Lamplighter, a sentimental book which was widely popular and which made its author well-known. One reviewer called it "one of the most original and natural narratives". 

And the best thing for us today: 

It's free on Amazon for your Kindle. Also for your Nook. 

I've already started reading it and am really enjoying it. Hope you'll check it out. There's something about reading a book that was popular in another era that gives insight to that era like nothing else. After all, we are what we read, right?

Do you ever read classics like this? What are you currently reading? Me? I'm reading The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins  and The Storykeeper by Jodi Picoult, among others.

Thanks for helping keep history alive,

Tammy