Easy Jon, easy. This is one of those subjects that could get you on the couch. It’s true, my wife has a stack o’ Christian romance fiction. It’s right next to her bag of knitting on our bedside table. And should I open up one of those books and poke the genre a little on Stuff Christians Like, I’d be in a world of trouble.
So I’m not going to. I’m not going to write about the books. But what I am going to do is create one. Instead of picking on Christian Romance Fiction, I created my own. It’s called “Lonesome Crick” and I’m debuting it today.
Best part? It’s a choose your own adventure. I went back through the Stuff Christians Like site and hid parts of “Lonesome Crick” at the bottom of old posts. When you choose a path for the characters to take, you’ll get to a page that has the next section of content on the very bottom of the page.
Ready to roll? Ready to fall in love with “Dalton McCoy?” (He’s the main character and spoiler alert, he’s just moved into town and he’s got a troubled past but a heart of gold.)
Lonesome Crick
A novel by Jonathan Acuff
Chapter One
The sun rose high and strong, the way it always did on main street in Lonesome Crick. A small Western town that was barely a footnote on the journey to California, Lonesome Crick was a quiet sort of place. Kids played in the street, chickens ran free on farms, apples tasted sweet and crisp in trees that were tall and generous. It was simply one more fall day in 1869, with simply one more sunrise lighting up the dirt covered streets, until …
Click here if a stranger with a mysterious past rides in on a horse.
Click here if some sort of orc or other mythological creature walks into town for an epic battle.
Comments
i loved that!
I’ve been reading your stuff for some time now…. and i love it all!
your pretty cool in my book Jon….pretty cool….
To be a true Christian romance novel there have to be Amish people involved.
I see a new wave for blogs. As always, fun stuff!
I loved this post! I read a lot of Christian romance fiction as a teenager, and a fair bit in my twenties too, partly because I was given the books (or would be given one of a series and I couldn't not read the rest), and partly because I enjoyed some of them. These days, I would only read Francine Rivers (in terms of Christian fiction), as I'm so tired of the badly written trash that permeates the market – I'm not too big on the romance side, and get pretty sick of the mushiness, but her books are at least well-written, and I love the Mark of the Lion series. And, in one of her books, the heroine DOES NOT end up married!!
I have friends and family who are fans of … Karen Kingsbury. I've read some of her books. I even enjoyed some of them. But please! Someone get that woman an editor, and try to persuade her to slow down!!! I thought that the first two books of the Redemption series were good; I continued to read the "Baxter Family" books right through the next series, even with the ridiculous storyline. However, when the next series started, and I was still reading every two pages how lucky one particular character felt to be married to another (even though they were no longer major characters in the book), I had to give up, and I haven't read any new Christian fiction since then.
Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to rant like that. I just wanted to say "Fantastic post"!
I read this novella out loud to my husband and we both ended up nearly in tears of laughter. It's the best date night we've had in a while what with small kids running amuck. The "love on" post was a special added bonus. And for the record, a bloomin' onion, a steak and a movie would be a world class date if it meant escaping the hooligan children who run our household at the moment. But for now, Lonesome Crick did the trick. Thanks for that. There's nothing like getting your laugh on!
This is hilarious, you absolutely nailed Christian romance novels.
I've read a ton of Christian romance novels because when I first became a Christian I was under the impression that I should throw all of my secular books out and only read Christian books. Which meant Christian romance novels. I could just kick myself now for tossing all of my books out in favor of Janette Oak and Karen Kingsbury. Most Christians just do this with music but I was dumb enough to do it with books.
This is the reason so many of us women like Jane Austin. – a good romance, no graphic sex and no mandatory forced writing where the character gets saved. Those poking fun at Janette Oak though, come on, it was a better choice than Sweet Vally High as a teen. Pray your preteen chooses Oak. And you can't hate on Rivers, her saved pages are more realistic and she veers from the prairie / Amish sub-genre. On second thought, your wife should make you sleep on the couch.
HA! Thanks for making me laugh out loud!
This idea is made of epic win.
That is all.
I'm trying to post a comment that links to one of my previous comments.
I got a kick out of this but I have to say I LOVE Bevery Lewis, Janette Oke, and Karen Kingsbury fiction!
Haha excellent, your skills at prolonging a seemingly trivial topic are most commendable.
The sun broke through from behind the clouds and Pfff the post was gone! Dont know what happened to it but I was just congratulating you on your ability to elongate a seeming non-event of a subject.