Margaret Skea, the award-winning Christian author, has just published her fifth novel; 'Katharina: Fortitude'. This novel is the sequel to 'Katharina: Deliverance', the compelling first part of the story of Martin Luther's wife, Katharina von Bora, which we reviewed earlier this year.

Margaret tells us that she felt prompted to write both of these books, and was delighted when 'Deliverance' was named 'Runner-up' in a totally secular, international competition last year. Since then, she has had quite a few opportunities to talk about it, and about faith, in secular contexts.

In the same vein, Margaret has entered 'Fortitude' into the Kindle Storyteller Award. One of the judges for this award is Mariella Frostrup, journalist and presenter of 'Open Book' (BBC Radio 4). To get a Christian book onto Mariella Frostrup's desk might open lots of other doors to witness, but Mariella will only see the shortlist, so making the shortlist is probably Margaret’s best (or indeed only) opportunity.

The competition closes on 31st August 2019, but the shortlist will be determined by ‘reader engagement’ on Amazon – which effectively means copies bought, ‘pages read’ via Kindle Unlimited, and reviews. The competition began in May and most entries have been out since then, but due to the recent publication date, Margaret now has only two weeks to try to garner support for 'Fortitude'. Therefore, she would be delighted if fellow Christians would be willing to help.

There are four things you can do:

• If you have a Kindle, or use the Kindle app (free to download), buy a copy of Fortitude for only 99p here.
• If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited it is free to read, but only pages read before the end of August will count - so read as many as you can!
• If you do have time to read it and enjoy it, please do leave a review on Amazon - a sentence or two will do.
• Share this information with anyone else who might be interested or willing to help.

Follow this link to get reading: https://books2read.com/u/4j11BX.

If you do get involved with Margaret's campaign, she would love to thank you personally. Send her an email here so she can!

Miriam Montgomery, Free Church Books