Coffee With David

I have decided to try something new with Coffee with David. With all the confusion lately, don’t be worried. I am going to continue to write blogs on writing and about the “behind the scenes” that I go through. I am borrowing an idea from another blog I am writing for. Beginning with this post, I am going to begin to hold a give-away sweepstakes every month.

For this month, I am going to give you a chance to win a book that is very personal. Writing runs in my family. I write, I have two cousins who write and one of my grandmothers wrote. Thanks to my cousin, Sarah M. Anderson (Sarah M. Anderson is a author of modern-day cowboy-and-Indian stories for Harlequin Desire. Look for her debut novel, A MAN OF HIS WORD, in December 2011. She reviews western novels for Romance Novel News and is a founding member of the Authorial Moms blog. She finished her grandmother Goldie M. Lucas' book, ELEANORE GRAY and published it in June, 2011.), she has brought my grandmother’s unfinished novel to completion 60 years after she passed away. I never met my grandmother, Goldie Lucas, as she passed away before I was born. However, she left behind her writing. A native of the Ozark Mountains, Goldie M. Lucas was a published poet whose works were printed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Globe Democrat. ELEANORE GRAY was her first novel. The story draws heavily upon her childhood memories of growing up in Dean's Creek. Goldie died in 1960, leaving ELEANORE GRAY nearly finished. Now, over fifty years later, Goldie's final work has finally seen the light of day.

A little bit about ELEANORE GRAY: When Dr. Bob Gray drowns, he leaves his young wife, Eleanore, and their three children with a mountain of bills. In 1902, there are few options open to a young widow, so Eleanore takes the scandalous step to relocate her young children to an abandoned farm deep in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. There, nestled in the verdant Hill country, Eleanore transforms from a delicate housewife to a self-reliant farm woman. Eleanore struggles to understand the backward ways of the Hill people. Her brother-in-law, Will Gray, tries to shield her from the rough ways of her neighbors, but Eleanore is done being shielded. She makes it her Christian mission to save two girls everyone else has written off, and in doing so, finds peace with her woman’s place in the world. But when Will professes his love, Eleanore finds herself struggling not with the question of what she can do for others, but with what she should do for herself.

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment or question on the Coffee with David blog between November 1st, and midnight November 30th, 2011. Please include your email so I can reach you if you win. The more comments you leave, the greater your chance of winning the contest. The winner will be chosen after midnight on November 30th and the announcement made on December 7th.

As always, I thank you for reading.

If you wish to learn more about me, please visit www.davidalanlucas.com