New Releases | December 2024 New Releases

Welcome to December’s new releases.

Today we have 6 books to share with you. Congratulations on your new releases.

Always in My Heart: A Trinity Lakes Romance by Iola Goulton

Publisher: Iola Goulton (Release date: December 24, 2024)

Sparks fly when an aspiring attorney comes face to face with his past mistakes.

Broke solo mother Maya Allen is raising her daughter, Sarah, as well as her dead best friend’s daughter … who just happens to be her own daughter’s half sister (thanks, cheating college boyfriend). When her lowlife landlord doubles her rent, she realizes it’s time to make a new plan and return to New Zealand with her children. First she has to do the unthinkable: make contact with her ex and compel him to relinquish his parental rights so they can legally leave the country … and not let her still-strong feelings for Trent get in the way.

Trent Thomas is an intern competing for a role in a prestigious Seattle law firm known for their family values. He figures he’s got the job sewn up when Sterling, Noble, and Wright send him to his hometown of Trinity Lakes to research a dodgy property deal under the guise of offering the townsfolk pro bono legal services. After all, no one will know the ins and outs of small-town Trinity Lakes gossip better than a lifelong resident.

But he hadn’t bargained on Maya, Sarah, and Kacey stealing his chance to get his dream job, stealing his opportunity to leave Trinity Lakes behind forever, or stealing his heart.

A second-chance small town contemporary Christian romance.

Welcome to Trinity Lakes, a warm and welcoming small town in east Washington, filled with charm, family, and friends, where fresh starts, second chances, and romance abound. You’ll meet swoony bachelors, cowboys, and adventurers, sweet and sassy ladies, and your new best friends. This series of standalone Christian romances will warm your heart, inspire your faith, and bring a smile to your soul.

Link to buy

A Wind in The Hebrides by Donna Fletcher Crow

 Independently published (Released: November 27, 2024)

Anguish and ecstasy in the midst of a spiritual outpouring on the Isle of Lewis.

The Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island in the Outer Hebrides, a dot in the ocean, but the scene of a powerful event that changed lives in the years following World War II—including that of Aileana Mackay who is dragged back much against her will. Today, Felicity Sherwood, a young American woman, is drawn to Aileana’s story. Two women, two generations apart, and yet their lives coincide in strange ways.

Link to buy

River of Life by Carol Ashby

Publisher: Cerrillo Press (Released: December 2, 2024)

A Roman-era adventure with dangerous choices, unlikely friendships, world views in conflict, and a love story you won’t forget.

When the future you dreamed of looks impossible, maybe God has a better one planned.

Driven from home because of her Christian faith, Neferu lands a position tutoring Jason, her childhood friend’s young son. Jason’s father despises him and banishes both the boy and Neferu to his ancestral estate, where Jason becomes the target of a family member who wants Jason’s inheritance for her own boys. How can a mere servant thwart her mistress before her young charge is killed? Knowing what she does, is her life at risk as well?

When Lusario’s new master, Caelus Martinus, decided they would train together to work as architects, Lusario’s once-bleak future seemed bright. But if they don’t get a commission within a month to design a building, both will lose the future they long for.

During their trip up the Nile to compete for a building contract, disaster strikes, forcing Neferu to rescue Lusario and Caelus from certain death. As the threat to Neferu and Jason grows, both men would do anything to protect her and the boy. Might death await them all if they fail?

River of Life is another exciting addition to the stand-alone Light in the Empire series of Early Church Biblical fiction novels. The story is complete in itself, but if you’re curious about how the men’s friendship started three years earlier, you’ll enjoy Carol Ashby’s novella, Crushed Hopes and Hopeful Beginnings.

Link to buy

Surviving Chronic Illness by Steph Penny

Self Published (Released: November 2024)

Most of us get sick at one time or other. But what happens when illness never goes away? How do we carry on with normal life—and what does normal even mean? 

These and others are the questions that plague many people living with chronic illness. Prolonged, unabating pain and disease has a way of wearing away not just our bodies but our fortitude, relationships, capacity to work, sanity and sense of humour. And let’s not get started on the impact on the bank account. 

Chronic illness can even impact our faith. It can be difficult to follow a God who chooses not to heal us and who often doesn’t tell us why. Yet there is grace too, waiting for us in every flare up and doctor’s appointment and new diagnosis. Grace awaits us in the flames of illness, gently restoring hope when all hope is lost, granting us breathing space when we can’t breathe, and gradually bringing about regrowth after the bushfire has wrought its devastation. 

In Surviving Chronic Illness: Grace in the Flames, Steph Penny shares her own lived experience of lupus (also known as ‘the great chameleon’) and invites us to see the beauty and wonder still available to us; and to perceive the God who sits with us, even in the trauma and grief of illness. With humour, searing honesty and a sprinkling of metaphors throughout, Steph encourages us to find stillness and rest in the God who gives us not answers but himself. 

If you’re seeking a safe space for both lament and hope—if you’re tired of people suggesting you try prayer or yoga or sniffing oregano—if faking well has you reaching for a sick bag—then Surviving Chronic Illness is for you. 

Links to buy: Koorong Website.

The Truth About Irene by Suzie Peace Pybus

Publisher: Echidna Ink (Released: 28 November 2024)

Sixty and widowed, Irene flees her big house on a farm for a tiny flat in a Tasmanian tourist town, leaving behind everything but a few personal belongings and her notebooks.

In her oasis by the river, she can forget the past and start afresh – make new friends, open the gift shop she’s always wanted, pursue romance with the handsome Max…

But Irene can’t ignore her secrets forever. Years ago, while battling cancer and fearing the disease was affecting her mental capacity, she hid messages for herself in notebooks to test her memory.

But even Irene didn’t know the truth she was inadvertently recording.

When her cancer returns, Irene must decide what to do about the notebooks. Destroy them? Or risk revealing them, knowing the truth will have devastating consequences for her family?

Link to buy

Tales From the Top End the First Three Years by Stefanie Mainey

Self Published (Release date: November)

From the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, to working as houseparents at a remote college for Indigenous teens, to other adventures, seven years in the Northern Territory forever changed who Stefanie and Philip Mainey thought they were.

This book is not a manual of survival tips for enduring life in Australia’s tough northern frontier. It is a journal about Stef and Phil’s life with the 28 young Indigenous women who entered the doors of ‘Bethel House’, at the college the Maineys called home for nearly three years. It is the story of their wild life amongst the unique wildlife, of cane toad dating rituals, of 14-hour return journeys to the west coast in small school buses for student pick-ups and drop-offs, of inexplicable and often unnerving night-time happenings, and of the exploits of a group of girls from remote Territorian communities who were determined to give Stef and Phil the adventure of a lifetime, whether they wanted it or not!

With humour and compassion, Stef relates how she learned to walk by faith in God in difficult and unsettling circumstances, often in the midst of fierce spiritual battles, harsh weather conditions, and a perfect storm of teenage hormones. Stef considers this memoir to be, most of all, a testament to the Indigenous children of the Northern Territory who face incredible challenges to survive and thrive.

This, then, is the story of Stef and Phil’s first three Territory years…

Link to website

Narelle Atkins has started a weekly round up of books on preorder. It is posted each Friday night Australian time.

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Author

  • Jenny Blake @ausjenny

    Jenny Blake (Ausjenny) is a cricket fanatic who loves reading although not reading as much as she use to. She loves to be able to help promote good Christian books and support authors. In her spare time she is enjoying the company of her two cats, enjoys jigsaws and watching cricket.

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Published by Jenny Blake @ausjenny

Jenny Blake (Ausjenny) is a cricket fanatic who loves reading although not reading as much as she use to. She loves to be able to help promote good Christian books and support authors. In her spare time she is enjoying the company of her two cats, enjoys jigsaws and watching cricket.

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