And the winners are… This is when the announcers always pause to heighten suspense. No suspense for my winners. I’ve already contacted them all by e-mail and they’ve all already responded with the books they want. Such fun that so many different titles were picked. It’s sort of a smorgasbord of my books. Who knows? If I’d picked more winners (you all would have been fine with that, I’m sure), I might have given away one of all my recent titles.
As always, I feel like the winner when I have one of these contests. That’s because I get to hear from so many of you and also get to read the stories some of you shared. I didn’t get very many homecoming stories, but the ones I did get were great. I’ve already shared some of them here and I’m sharing a couple more tonight. Here’s one from Denise about reunion time homecomings.
can play with each other, and their differences don’t matter–it’s not until we
age that some people let the differences separate them, rather than embracing
each other. My mom was raised Plain in Lancaster, PA, but she
didn’t stay Plain. As I aged, I realized I was the
‘outsider’ in the family. I was the one who dressed differently, had
a television, didn’t wear my hair up in a covering, etc… than my cousins. To
the outside world, they were ‘different,’ but to them, I was the
oddball.
And, then, the Appalachian side always seemed to
look at me sideways–I’m a Yankee, after all! And that was back when Southern
Living magazine was only available to Southern states, and Delaware
counted as a Southern state–but I was still a Yankee!”
Thanks for sharing your reunion story, Denise. You got to experience several different worlds and I’m sure it made you stronger and more tolerant of others’ differences as you grew up.
Last of all here’s a story that proves even four-legged friends can have good homecomings. Alicia shares this sweet story.
“Special family homecoming that comes to mind is when I was able to bring our little dachshund home from the animal emergency care. He stayed at 2 different places for a night at each, and we were so sad and worried. What a blessing when we were able to bring him back to his family. He is a rescue and had been mistreated prior to joining our family, so we were extra worried that he would feel abandoned.”
And now for the winners. Are you hearing the drumroll? The first place winner of my Love Comes Home Celebration giveaway is Chris from FL who picked the heart necklace and my new Rosey Corner book, Love Comes Home. Debbie from GA, the 2nd prize winner then gets the Forget-Me-Not Willow Tree figurine and she picked Love Comes Home too. Mary from Australia can’t say she “never wins” anymore. She picked my first Heart of Hollyhill book, Scent of Lilacs to go with the Praying the Names of God Journal.
The 5 winners of the blog contest here are as follows. LL of CA chose Small Town Girl. Karen C of OH wants Christmas at Harmony Hill. Melanie of TX is heading to Rosey Corner for the first time so she picked Angel Sister. Nancy L of SC wants to visit Harmony Hill and read The Outsider, and Nancy W of IN wants The Believer. A fun mixture of my titles. I’m planning more giveaways here in the months to come. I’ve got a stack of autographed books from other authors and I’m ready to send some of them your way. So come back to see what you might win next.
I do appreciate all of you who commented here and to those who shared stories or enjoyed the stories others shared. Some of you commented and had your name in the hat several times. Maybe I’ll look back through the entries and see who entered the most and give an extra prize. Think I should?
As always thanks for reading!