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Carol Raj and the Curious prayer life of Muriel Smith.




Blurb:
     One unlocked car door, one glance to the left, and suddenly impoverished retiree Muriel Smith is hurtling down the road at an alarming thirty miles per hour!
     Will the teenage carjacker really shoot to kill? Muriel can't die yet. Not until she's accomplished something to make her daughter proud. Not until she's seen her great-grandchild, the unborn baby her granddaughter isn't sure she wants to keep.
     It seems Muriel is running out of time. Especially if her survival depends on her driving skills!

Excerpt:
     “When the car starts moving, you’re going to steer it toward those trees. Try to get the car into the grove without hitting anything. Do you think you can do that?”
     Muriel was pretty sure she couldn’t. Then Kevin’s words from earlier in the day came back to her. Your driving ability’s the only thing keeping you alive….”Sure, I can do that.” She forced a smile onto her face…

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 As I've said before in several places, I LOVED this book. Yes that's loved all in capital letters. This is an amazing story. All Muriel asked God for was someone to mow her lawn. She didn’t quite get the answer she was expecting. At least not the way she wanted it. So nice to see a story where the heroine is much older, with real aches and pains and needs. Carol Raj has a fantastic way with words, creating a page turner of a story and one I didn't want to end.


Author Interview.

The best money I ever spent for my writing career allowed me to attend an ACFW Conference. Meetings with agents and editors gave me invaluable insight into problems with my then unpublished novel. I also met an editor who suggested two major revisions before she would accept it. If I had sent the manuscript to her without that personal contact, might I have gotten a form rejection? I sometimes wonder.

From a worldly point of view, literary success looks like Charles Dickens. He made a good living as a writer and his books are still read almost 200 years later. From a Christian point of view, I believe a successful book encourages believers or challenges non-believers. Preferably both. But to do either, it has to sell.

If I could be a fictional character for one day, I would be Jo March. No question about it. I’d love to sit in her garret and scribble while Marmee and my sisters worked below. Little Women was one of my favorite childhood books.

As a child, I read a lot of fiction. That I love to read at all is amazing, because my father made me finish every book I started.

A book I read recently that affected me is For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Like the main character, I realized all the sacrifices my mother made when it was too late to thank her. What a blessing it would be to see her one more day.

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