Shannon McNear, Author

I’d hoped to be more faithful in blogging the last few weeks, and I do plan to continue the “what am I researching” thread, but for now I’m jumping back into the Christian Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog tour for this month. And I am SO glad I took the time to read this one! For January the CSFF blog tour is reviewing (and please note the separate links here in the author's name and book title) Jeffrey Overstreet’s Auralia’s Colors —an impressive first novel by someone who’s a professional reviewer himself, and who has an amazing grasp on the essentials of contemporary Christian artwork. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I haven’t been this impressed by a Christian fantasy novel since Karen Hancock. If you haven’t yet heard of this book, the story summary goes something like this: an abandoned baby girl is found by two former thieves, and taken in by their community, former criminals working toward restitution. Their kingdom has outlawed the wearing or displaying of bright co

Current read: Women of the Revolution: Bravery and Sacrifice on the Southern Battlefields by Robert M. Dunkerly. I saw this one on the new non-fiction shelf at our local library, and since this is right up my research alley right now, and I know the author and have corresponded with him recently, I snapped it up. So far it's been a smooth, interesting read, and I've even learned a few things. :-) (Something that's difficult when you've been doing research in a particular area for a while!) Cherryblossom left a comment on my last blog post, asking about my research, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to start at the beginning and explain about the historical novel I'm working on and how it came to be. A few years ago, I was introduced to the world of historical reenacting by homeschooling friends, who were involved in Civil War reenacting (the natural choice for people living in the South, one would think). I attended two different events--one held over