I started keeping a blog nearly five years ago, when I was a sophomore in college.  My friends told me that the blogging fad was about to go out of style and that I shouldn't even try, but how could I help myself? I wanted to be a writer, and blogging, to me, was an opportunity to write.

The same friends that told me blogging was going out of style also told me that I wasn't going to last as a blogger. I have a pretty strong tendency of starting things and not finishing them, so I could see their point. As evidence of my good intentions, look at the five or six unfinished scrapbooks on my shelf, the stack of letters in my desk drawer that I've written but not sent over the past year, and the bags of craft supplies in the trunk of my car that are just waiting to be turned into something more than a pile of stuff. I didn't want my blog to be another in the long list of things I'd started, but never finished.  I was insistent that I was going to be dedicated to it.

Most weekends find flame-haired Mona VanderMolen scouting for rare finds. A former teacher who quit her job after a family tragedy, she's been the owner of Stewartville Antiques for eighteen months now and is finally learning the ropes. But life isn't easy in the antique business. Dealers often outbid her at auctions, and things are tight. Someone has already offered to buy her out. But she's a fighter, and she intends to make it through the tough times.

Mona's dire financial situation isn't her only problem. Her relationship with her beloved fifteen-year-old niece Hallie was shattered eighteen months ago, thanks to Mona's sister. She blames Mona for the accident that left the family reeling and refuses to allow aunt and niece to see each other. But that's about to change. Hallie has plans her mother and Mona know nothing about. Can Mona get through to her niece with the love and forgiveness she so desperately needs? Or will that tragedy that shook their family take them both down for good?

What do you do when the unthinkable happens? When someone you love is taken away from you in a most horrible manner, is there any way to come back from that? How on earth do you truly heal and overcome your grief? These are only a few of the questions that protagonist Colin Scott has to deal with in Travis Thrasher's latest offering, Sky Blue.

Colin is a successful but jaded literary agent. He and his wife Jen are struggling in their marriage, partly because they cannot have children and partly because her work on various movie sets keeps her as busy as Colin's publishing work does. There is a serious disconnect between the two when we are first introduced to them, with tension seemingly around every corner.

Deciding that a break from their lives is in order, the two of them take a trip to Cancun. They eat, enjoy the scenery, make love, laugh; everything is going swimmingly. But when they go parasailing one day and the line breaks while Jen is in the air, tragedy strikes and Colin crumbles.

Bayou Justice is Robin Caroll's debut novel, released under the Love-Inspired Suspense line by Steeple Hill. In other words, it's very much a Christian novel, with overt Christian themes - salvation, marriage of believers to unbelievers, spirituality in fairly large doses. And, to be fair, I think the book is a fair bit more love-inspired than it is suspense.

Students in need of some help with mid-term papers can now glean inspiration from a new feature at Teddekker.com. The Christian fiction author's site recently added a section containing a biographical summary, essays, and Dekker trivia. This feature was added in response to numerous students requesting more information about this popular author for their school writing assignments.

The new feature will also interest less academically-minded Dekker fans, containing interesting opinion pieces, his memories about becoming an author, and even details including the name of his cat and his top favorite movies. Check out this feature for more information.

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