Keeping Christmas
2nd EDITION (Read Dan’s Note at Beginning and Only Most Recent Reviews – After 2020)
For the first time since their children were born, empty nesters Judith and Stan Winters spent Thanksgiving alone, without the kids and grandkids. It’s looking like Christmas will be the same. Judith can hardly bear the thought and struggles even to decorate the house. But soon some wonderful and totally unexpected events turn things completely around, starting with that box of “ugly ornaments” (as Stan calls them). Could they be the key to rescuing their Christmas this year? A “beautifully written story” for the holiday season, or any time of the year.
There are 2 primary reasons for this new edition of Keeping Christmas. Both are related to the fact that I was able to get the book rights back from its original publisher. The first reason then, is that contractual obligations mandated the creation of a new edition with a new cover design. The second reason is even more important to me. As of this moment, I have 20 published novels in circulation. The first edition of Keeping Christmas (released in September 2015), was number 13. It was perhaps my only novel, certainly my only Christmas novel, where I had real concerns about certain parts of the story after it was submitted to and accepted by my publisher. Since its release, the book has received mostly favorable reader reviews (4.2 out of 5 Star-Average on Amazon). But it’s also received more negative reviews than any of my other books (even from readers who love those other books). The thing is, I agreed with most of the concerns raised in these negative reviews but, at the time, couldn’t do anything to fix it. I determined if I ever got the rights back to Keeping Christmas, I would do a significant rewrite. And now, here it is. The main storyline, setting and most of the characters in Keeping Christmas remain the same, but this 2nd Edition includes many significant changes. It IS NOW the Christmas story I always wanted it to be.
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“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”
Kids get asked that question all the time. When my son was five, he knew. “I wanna be a green Batman.” By high school I knew. I wanted to be an author of novels. My composition teacher was the spark that lit this fire. She went out of her way to encourage my feeble offerings. “You could really be a writer if you wanted to,” she said. Secretly, I began to write poems and short stories. Only my teacher and mother could read them (such things clashed badly with the surfer-guy persona I’d worked so hard to fabricate at school).
After becoming a Christian, my attention shifted in a different direction. I met Cindi, my wife-to-be. Then came a call to pastoral ministry. Then fatherhood. I still loved to write, but found little time for it. In the mid-90′s, we decided I needed a relaxing hobby. Cindi suggested I start writing again. I read some great how-to books and found some wonderful friends on a Christian fiction writer’s board on AOL (back when AOL was the Internet). A year later, my first novel was complete.
It was soon picked up by a top literary agent, but she found it difficult to market. Not much interest back then in a faith-based suspense thriller with a military edge. Shortly after that, the idea for The Unfinished Gift came to me…. Read on.
