INSTAGRAM GIVEAWAY: A Signed Copy of Erin's Ring

I am currently running a giveaway on Instagram.  On July 25, I will randomly pick the winner who will receive one signed copy of my YA novel, Erin's Ring.

If you're interested in entering to win, you can go to my Instagram feed (where I go by @laura.h.pearl) and find this recent post.  (I also have a tab on the sidebar here at my blog's home page that will take you right over to my IG account.)

Erin's Ring was published way back in 2014, and I haven't been as good at promoting and marketing the novel as I could/should have been.  It is a book that I never thought I'd have time to write, as my family was beginning to grow by leaps and bounds right around the time that my publisher, Cheryl Dickow of Bezalel Books, approached me with an offer to fund a second novel--one that would be appropriate for younger readers than my first novel, Finding Grace, which was published by Bezalel in 2012.  All I could see ahead of me were the weddings of my sons (one of whom got married shortly before I finished writing the book, and one shortly after) and the imminent births of new grandchildren.  I was also suffering from some strange symptoms which turned out to be caused by hypoparathyroidism, and I had to have a non-malignant parathyroid tumor removed from my neck. We hadn't moved down to VA to be near our married boys yet, and I knew that I would be doing a lot of traveling from NH for all the upcoming family events.  I had no idea how in the world I was going to be able to write a novel (even a relatively short one) in six months' time, with all that was going on in my life and in the Pearl clan.  I am a wife/mother/Grammy first, always and forever, and the role of writer takes a back seat to those vocations.  But somehow, I got it done.  And not only that, but I wrote without panic or stress, in a state of almost complete joy.

I can only attribute this almost otherworldly happiness I experienced while working on Erin's Ring to the Holy Spirit, who was definitely working in me bigtime.  I almost turned down my publisher's generous offer, for fear that my life was just too busy and I wouldn't be able to concentrate properly and meet the requisite deadlines.  Left to my own devices, I would have said no; but during that whole time I was trying to figure out what I should do, my husband's faith in me never wavered.  Even knowing how I sometimes suffer from an extreme lack of confidence, he convinced me that I could do it.  I prayed.  I prayed hard, very much aware that if I turned down this amazing offer, there would most likely never be another opportunity like it for me. And once I signed the contract, the first thing Cheryl did was to take it with her to Adoration, to pray for the success of the book while in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  (With a start like that, how could I doubt that I had made the right decision?!)

Of course, we all know that true success, the kind that is pleasing to God (the only Book Reviewer whose opinion matters at all!), is not measured by the world's standards.  By worldly standards, my poor little novel has not had a very good run--despite being the recipient of two Book Awards from the Catholic Press Association in 2015.  But I do believe that it can do some good in the world.  And that's what convinced me to have this giveaway, hoping that a copy of Erin's Ring will find its way into the hands of the very reader who needs it, who might be inspired or edified by it.

Thanks for stopping by, dear readers.  And if you do decide to enter the giveaway contest, may the luck of the Irish be with you!