Crazy about Writing: Why Pure Amore? by Dora Hiers

So you’re browsing the bookstore and a gorgeous cover screams at you to pick it up. You don’t recognize the author’s name, but intrigued by the back cover blurb, you buy it and hustle home. Settling back in your recliner with a steaming cup of tea, you dig into the pages, quickly becoming immersed in the plot and enjoying where the story’s taking you…until you find yourself peering through the bedroom door.

What do you do? Do you keep reading or slam the cover down on the book? Do you read more books by that author or publisher? And what do you do with the book? Hide it from your kids? Donate it to the library? Toss it in the recycling bin?

Pelican Book Group recently launched a new imprint, Pure Amore. Pure…as in undefiled, wholesome. As in romances you can trust won’t propel you through the bedroom door. Books you can feel safe leaving out on the table in plain sight, without fear that your preteen might skim the pages.

Topping out at 45k words, these petite gems feature heroes and heroines between 21-33 years of age, one or both sexually pure, and Christians from page one. No preaching, no conversion scenes, no controversy, no judgment. Just two flawed characters trying to hold tight to ideals the world no longer values.

I’m thrilled that two of my books, When Love Triumphs and When Hope Rises are included in this line. How could I resist the opportunity to create stories with hunky heroes who just might need a little shove from a feisty heroine to overcome their fears?

Take Tanner Random, from When Love Triumphs, for example. After years of being a Navy SEAL, he’s back in Promise Lake to care for his abandoned niece. He hopes Winter will recognize that he’s not the same guy she rejected years ago, that he buried his old ways along with his best SEAL bud. But even if she does, he has his niece to care for now…and an alcoholic father who rarely leaves his chair or strays far from a bottle of whiskey. Does the same gene course through his blood?

Or Tate Malone, a guidance counselor in When Hope Rises. Growing up, Tate lugged buckets of water home from a nearby park for bathing and cooking, and studied by candlelight. His parents had moving down to an art, knowing the exact number of rent payments they could skip before being evicted. Then, just before his junior year, they moved again…without telling him. He gave up dating after his last girlfriend called him a freak for refusing to be intimate. When Shelby seeks his help for a student, he’s forced to confront his insecurity...would she abandon him, too?

 

We each have fears and flaws, experiences and struggles, hopes and dreams. We bring all of that with us into our relationships. We love, we laugh, we argue, we fall short...in every way.

Sure. We mess up. But that’s not the end of the story. The end is so much better, sweeter. There’s…Grace. Forgiveness. Restoration. Hope. Love. And perfect love covers it all. That’s why I write, and that’s what I hope readers will take away from all my stories.

Pure Amore…available by subscription, a book delivered to your mailbox or inbox every month for an entire year.

It’s your turn. Do you prefer romances where the bedroom door is closed?

Why or why not?

Blurb for When Love Triumphs:

Police Officer Winter Evan and Navy SEAL Tanner Random are wrong for each other. Winter fears the water. Tanner skims through seas for a living. So four years ago, Winter convinced herself she’d be better off not worrying about his months at sea and his increased cajoling for physical intimacy.

But when she walked away, she lost a giant chunk of her heart.

Now Tanner’s back in town to care for his abandoned niece. No longer a SEAL, he’s sticking to the safety of the North Carolina mountains as a paramedic. Should Winter risk losing her heart all over again? Will God help them build what started years ago into something solid and secure? When love triumphs...

Blurb for When Hope Rises:

Art teacher Shelby Coltman transforms junk into treasure and longs for a place to showcase her creations. She’s thrilled when her friend volunteers to room with her. Shelby can finally buy a storefront. Unfortunately, Kennedi’s brother can't seem to let go.

Abandoned as a teenager, guidance counselor Tate Malone has become surrogate and over-protective father to his sister. Life is great until Shelby Coltman wheedles his impressionable sister into sharing an apartment. Raised in wealth, the beautiful Shelby could never understand poverty or rejection, and Tate doesn't appreciate her uprooting his sister.

When Shelby hands over her savings to a homeless student, will God obliterate Tate's fears and deliver all of Shelby’s dreams...when hope rises?