I’m delighted to share Ane Mulligan’s debut, Chapel Springs Revival, with you today. I love a book cover that doubles as a work of art, don’t you?  The colors, textures … it’s perfect. I could totally frame it and hang it in my home.

Book Blurb:

With a friend like Claire, you need a gurney, a mop, and a guardian angel.

Everybody in the small town of Chapel Springs, Georgia, knows best friends Claire and Patsy. It’s impossible not to, what with Claire’s zany antics and Patsy’s self-appointed mission to keep her friend out of trouble. And trouble abounds. Chapel Springs has grown dilapidated and the tourist trade has slackened. With their livelihoods threatened, they join forces to revitalize the town. No one could have guessed the real issue needing restoration is their marriages.

With their personal lives in as much disarray as the town, Claire and Patsy embark on a mission of mishaps and miscommunication, determined to restore warmth to Chapel Springs —and their lives. That is if they can convince their husbands and the town council, led by two curmudgeons who would prefer to see Chapel Springs left in the fifties and closed to traffic.

Ane’s Author Bio:

While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, bestselling novelist Ane Mulligan has worn many different ones:    hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that’s a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, humor  columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction. She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. President of the award-winning literary site, Novel Rocket, Ane resides in Suwanee, GA, with her artist husband, her chef son, and two dogs of Biblical proportion. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried Fiction website, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Five Questions with Ane Mulligan:

What was the inspiration for your novel?  

I had a “Titus 2:4 moment” with her, but that conversation stuck with me. If one woman thought that, there had to be others. So I decided to explore what would happen if a woman in her forties, who had been married for a long time just learned that God had the perfect mate picked out for her.

Years ago, a young women at church told me when she married, she didn’t know she should have prayed for the husband God had picked out for her, so she was going to get a divorce and go look for that other man.

If you could have dinner with three people (living or dead), who would you choose and why? 

Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, and Madeline Kahn. They were some of the best comediennes ever. I’d love to pick their brains.

In terms of writing a novel, are you a plotter or a pantser? Or a hybrid combo? 

I’m a hybrid combo. Rachel Hauck calls it Planster and it fits me perfectly. First I do extensive character development by interview and by writing a totally pantster backstory for each main character. Then I storyboard to get the basics of where I want to go. After that, I let the characters take over.

What can your readers expect from you in the future? Prequel, sequel, novella, etc. 

The second book in the Chapel Lake series, Chapel Springs Survival, is done and I’m working on the third, Dreamkeeper.

Please share one piece of advice for aspiring writers you wish you’d known before you started this writing journey.

Factor God’s timing into your publishing dream.

Thank you so much for participating in my 31 Days blog series, Ane. Congratulations on the release of Chapel Springs Revival.