Fabulous Friday Feature-Candace Calvert

Today we welcome author: 

Candace Calvert

To win a copy
of Candace's new release:
By Your Side

Scroll to the end of the post 
to see how to get your copy.

Mary Vee here. One of my absolute favorite classes at ACFW this last year was the medical fiction class. That wasn't the real title, I can't remember what snazzy name the instructors gave it--BUT three stellar medical professionals, who are also Christian Fiction writers, presented great information then opened the time for questions. We students asked them all kinds of questions like what kind of poison would kill a ..., and tons of other questions. It was sooooo much fun, and informative.   

I asked Candace, who was one of those fabulous teachers, to join us and share how God has led her on her writing journey. Here is what she said:

God Gave Me a Wake-up Fall

The story won’t surprise folks who have read my website bio, but I’ll start off with a brief recap of the 1997 incident that jumpstarted my writing journey. Though “jump” is hardly the right word. “Fall” is even a bit of a stretch. The painful truth is that I was catapulted from the back of a bucking thoroughbred and hit the ground like a pile driver, fracturing my back and seven ribs, bruising a lung, and breaking my neck in three places—causing partial paralysis of my dominant arm. The neurosurgeon said I was lucky; I’d come perilously close to the fate of Christopher Reeve.

I was an ER nurse strapped to a trauma gurney. It happened (I thought) with the worst possible timing. I’d only recently survived the painful and unexpected loss of a 24-year marriage, followed by a flood that threatened my home. I prided myself on resilience then injuries threatened my career. My life, I wailed, had become the lyrics to a bad country song.

But God had a plan.

He used the long weeks in physical rehab to heal my spirit as well as my body. He gently taught me the difference between a “strong” woman and a woman of “strength.” That difference is faith.

God wasn’t finished.

The inspirational account of my injury and recovery, “By Accident,” was selected for Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul and became my first published work.

And God kept calling.

Since then, I have been immensely blessed to team with Tyndale House publishers to bring readers exciting and soul-stirring medical fiction: The Mercy Hospital series, Grace Medical series, and now By Your Side, the first story in my new Crisis Team series. My long career in emergency medicine has, of course, provided much story material. But so have my personal challenges. In Disaster Status, the nurse heroine must learn the true source of her strength; the breath-catching action of Code Triage unfolds as the clock ticks toward the hero and heroine’s divorce; and San Antonio-set Trauma Plan features a nurse whose career has been sidelined by spinal injuries. Write what you know. And, yes, the skydiving scene in Trauma Plan was from personal experience, too!

Nearly two decades after God gave me that dramatic “wake up fall,” I am still amazed at what He set in motion that day. And I’m so very, very grateful. I love that I’m often called the author of “medical hope opera”.  Hope, after all, is amazing medicine.

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Candace Calvert is a former ER nurse who believes love, laughter and faith are the best medicines. Her Mercy Hospital, Grace Medical, and Crisis Team series offer readers a chance to "scrub in" on the exciting world of emergency medicine—along with a soul-soothing prescription for hope. Wife, mother, and very proud grandmother, she makes her home in northern California.

Contact Candace through: 

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Amazon 

She loves to hear from her readers!

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Click HERE to buy or
see "By Your Side"

By Your Side:

ER nurse Macy Wynn learned essential, gritty lessons in the California foster care system: land on your feet and trust no one. She’s finally located the fellow foster child she loves like a sister, but the girl’s in deep trouble. Macy’s determined to help, no matter what it takes. Her motto is to “make it happen” in any situation life throws at her—even when she butts heads with an idealistic cop.

Deputy Fletcher Holt believes in a higher plan, the fair outcome—and his ability to handle that by himself if necessary. Now he’s been yanked from Houston, his mother is battling cancer, and he’s attracted to a strong-willed nurse who could be the target of a brutal sniper.

When everything goes wrong, where do they put their trust?

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To enter the contest for a copy of 

Candace's  new release: 

"By Your Side"

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The winner will be announced on my facebook page.

Thank you, Candace, for Joining us This Weekend!

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