UPDATE: This contest is now closed! Thank you to everyone who participated. The two winners are Sheila and Christina B. Congratulations, ladies and please check your email for an email from my assistant explaining what to do next. Thank you!

We’ve designed it with YOU in mind. Please take a few minutes to look around. I’d love to know what you think. And if some feature isn’t working well, please let me know, so we can get it fixed.

You may notice that we’ve implemented a new format for leaving comments. It’s called “Disqus.” (Pronounced discuss) I’m always looking for more inviting and fun ways to chat with reader friends and visitors, and this seems to be the best program yet. It should make it very easy for us to chat and for you to interact with one another. It doesn’t have all the fun features working just yet, but we’re working on that! 😉

To kick off this new blog format with a bang, I’m offering a few giveaways! Please scroll down to the section labeled “Giveaway Rules” for information on how to enter.

I have two books coming out this fall, and if you leave a comment, I’ll choose two winners to win BOTH books!

A Season for Tending, book one in Amish Vines and Orchards
(And each book in the series will come out approximately six months apart!)
Releases September 18!

Christmas in Apple Ridge
This is a three-in-one book with
The Sound of Sleigh Bells,
The Christmas Singing,
and the all-new, never released before
The Dawn of Christmas
Releases October 9!

I’m reading the final manuscript of The Dawn of Christmas right now, and it may be my FAVORITE novella to date. You’ll see Beth and Jonah’s story continue from The Sound of Sleigh Bells, and you’ll even catch a few wonderful glimpses of the characters from The Christmas Singing.

When my publisher came to me saying they were going to put the first two novellas into one book for this next Christmas, I asked if I could write a third. I wanted to give readers a gift of a new story to go inside the “bundling” of Christmas novellas. I was thrilled when they said yes. And I LOVED writing the third novella! It’s a story that hasn’t stopped resonating within my heart yet.

But here’s where my plans for my beloved readers took a little, unexpected turn; my aim in writing the third book was to give you something new to add into the “bundling” of Christmas novellas, right? But at the time, I didn’t think about what else it’d mean—that The Dawn of Christmas would only be part of an omnibus. Readers can’t buy it as an individual book. When I realized that, I asked my publisher about it, trying to see if we could “unbundle” it for you. But my publisher had good news: Christmas in Apple Ridge, which is all three Christmas novellas in one book, is only a couple of dollars more than when you purchased each novella individually. Also, if you own an e-reader of any kind (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or, if you have the right program or App, you can download it onto your laptop, iPad, etc.) you can purchase Christmas in Apple Ridge, which is the three-in-one book, for $9.99! The characters in The Dawn of Christmas—Sadie, Levi, Daniel, and Andy—have NOT stopped talking to me yet, and I finished writing that book a month ago! ;-)!!

Giveaway Rules

If you would like to enter for a chance to be one of TWO readers to win an autographed copy of A Season for Tending AND Christmas in Apple Ridge, simply leave a comment at the bottom of this post on my website. The two books will be shipped separately, each near its release date.

If you are reading this anywhere other than my website, such as on Facebook, in an email, or on Goodreads, please hop on over to my website and leave a comment at the bottom of my post to enter the giveaway. Only comments left on my website will be entered into the giveaway. (It’s just too hard to track down all the comments left in various places, and that means it’s too easy to miss some of the comments.)

The deadline for this contest is Friday, August 3, 2012, at noon. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be contacted privately, as well as announced on next week’s post.