I was so honored to launch Transforming Love at the amazing Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, Michigan – a truly wonderful bookstore. Here’s the Facebook live link (in the photo above), which includes a gospel imaginative prayer exercise for you to calm yourself for a few moments and encounter our living God.
If you can buy the book from a bricks-and-mortar bookshop like Baker, please do!
I’m thrilled to be launching my newest book, Transforming Love: How Friendship with Jesus Changes Us. It’s a fresh look at the Mary-Martha-Lazarus story and how their relationship with Jesus made all of the difference in their lives. And how our friendship with Jesus changes us!
The official pub date is 4 May, and we’ll have three events in the coming weeks to give thanks and pray for its arrival into the world. (Yes, books are like babies! You work hard on birthing them and then relinquish them and hope they thrive.)
Might you be able to attend one of these?
[PS – I have TWO books coming out this year! Another lovely art book with my dad in November, called Holding onto Hope. My dad and I will host a Minnesota event in early November, so in-state friends and family may want to wait for that event.]
The day has come – today is the official launch day for The Living Cross: Exploring God’s Gift of Forgiveness and New Life, published by the Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF). In the times of old in publishing, the launch date may have been met with a bubbly-infused luncheon or a glitzy party at night. Times have changed, however, and those publisher-sponsored events are largely a thing of the past – at least at my level of authorship!
But we have marked the birth of this second book-baby by hosting two events, one on each side of the Atlantic. Babies come at all sorts of odd times in life – I have a friend, for instance, who gave birth on her birthday, and I am glad that a family member has a September 13 birthday and not a September 11 one. This book-baby arrived at a time of sadness in our family. Days after my husband and kids arrived in Minnesota, laden with copies of The Living Cross that had arrived while I was in Michigan, Nicholas’s mother died unexpectedly. He was able to cut short our visit and fly back home to England to be at her bedside when she died, for which we were grateful. We decided to go ahead with the already-planned book celebration a couple of days later, feeling the loss of her but sensing she’d want us not to cancel the celebration. For Olwen always so encouraged me in my writing, and one of our last conversations was about how happy she was that Finding Myself in Britain had won an award. I honour her memory with this book on the gift of forgiveness – a gift to be unwrapped in the close proximity of family life.
I think too on this launch day about the advice from another who has moved onto glory, Marion Stroud. In her last post for the ACW blog, just weeks before she died, she spoke of author Cynthia Ruchti’s practice of praying on a launch day. Praying for all those who would read the book; praying for those going through the struggles that her characters experienced. I too am embracing this practice today.
Starting next week, I’ll be hosting another guest blog series, Forgiveness Fridays. I’m so excited to share with you some fantastic posts on the freeing gift of forgiveness, written by an interesting range of people.
Lent is a long ways away – we haven’t even entered Advent yet! But if you’d like to buy copies of The Living Cross (maybe as a Christmas present?), I’d be happy to sign copies and send them out to you. They retail at £8.99 but I’m selling them for £8 each or two for £15, plus postage. Email me at amy@amyboucherpye.com. You can also buy it from:
I leave you with photographs from the two book parties, the US one was hosted in Minnesota by our lovely friends Tim and Heather Peterson. The UK one was held at our church, St Paul’s Finchley, on Remembrance Sunday. I started off my sermon with the opening of my book, exploring the question posed by a Jewish prisoner of a concentration camp – Should I forgive?
Photos from St Paul’s Finchley:
Photos from the Minnesota book party:
I brim with excitement to share with you the birth of book baby #2. Yes, I know, I’m still reeling from my lovely firstborn, dashing around the country sharing it from Hove to Glasgow, so how this second-born has gestated is a bit of a mystery! I don’t think there will be any sibling rivalry – at least I hope not. As with real children, these are different babies.
The Living Cross: Exploring God’s Gift of Forgiveness and New Life looks at this life-giving theme of forgiveness in the Old Testament and the New. I interweave modern-day stories alongside the biblical, and when I was writing I never failed to be inspired by the freedom this gift imparts – to the giver and the receiver.
To celebrate the birth, we’re having a book launch at our church, St Paul’s Finchley, at 10am on 13 November. As it’s Remembrance Day, I’ll be starting my sermon with the opening illustration in the book, taken from the thought-provoking book The Sunflower, which asks the question posed by a Jewish survivor of World War 2: Would you forgive? We’ll follow by a book signing and lunch.
You’re welcome to come, especially if an ocean doesn’t separate us! Do let me know if you plan to attend so we can sort the catering: amy@amyboucherpye.com.
Ya hoo and hooray and thank you, Lord!
To preorder The Living Cross, click here, as well as to read some amazing endorsements.
How we find our lives when we lose them… the subject of the sermon I gave at our church at the book launch on Sunday, 27 September. Have a listen; I’d love to hear what you think.
Celebration is such an important spiritual discipline, but we often overlook it. Perhaps we feel indulgent if we are celebrating an accomplishment – such as the publication of my book. But I’m all for celebration, and I know that Finding Myself in Britain was written only with the help of so many people – those at the publisher (MD, editors, typesetters, proofreaders, designers, marketers and sales people) as well as friends and family (reviewers, readers, encouragers, putter-up-ers-when-she’s-cranky!). So it was right and good and wonderful to launch my book-baby into the world on Sunday at our church.
Later I may post the link to my sermon – or maybe not if I feel shy! (I don’t have the copy yet.) It was a privilege to preach on Matthew 10, the calling of the apostles to share the good news of Jesus. He outlines to them some of the challenges they will face, and he calls for their complete devotion. One of the key verses I was speaking on was Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” For as I’ve “lost” my life by moving to Britain, I’ve actually found it.
After the service I got to sign books – what a joy and a privilege that was! Seeing my book-baby going into the hands of so many whom I love was a humbling honor and delight. We were especially delighted to welcome our closest friends in the UK – from Staffordshire and Gloucestshire and Southampton and outside London.
We had a fantastic buffet lunch with lots of lovely chicken (made by the wonderful Alie Teale), salads (my friends indulged me and made some of the recipes from the book) and desserts – also with an American theme (and thus they were not that day called “puddings”). Oreo cheesecake and Oreo truffles and brownies and blonde brownies and red velvet cake and rice krispy treats and even (one of my favorites) a Costco cake.
Book-baby, go well. I give thanks you’re out there in the world.
Nerves on high alert, stomach tight, trying to breathe deeply, I hear the words from the presenter, “We’re live.”
I love doing live radio – I feel the rush of adrenaline and the wonder of being able to speak to people dotted around in their homes up and down the country. But there’s definitely the rush of emotions and the reaction of the body with an increased pulse and the feeling of expectancy as we go on air.
I feel like that now as my book-baby lands into the world this weekend. On Sunday at our church we’re having a book launch for friends and the church family, and I’m overwhelmed by the number of people who are coming – those lifelong friends who have walked with us for decades, some lovely social-media friends I’ve not yet met in person, and people representing my amazing publisher, Authentic Media. I’m humbled and grateful and just might burst either into tears or song, or both!
The book has now also landed into (many of – post times vary) the hands of those who endorsed it and gave editorial feedback. And I’ve seen this morning that the copies to bloggers and media are shooting into offices and letter boxes around the country and soon across the Pond as well.
With my sense of expectancy and joy lies the undercurrent of fear. Will people like the writing? What if they disagree? What if I’ve got it all wrong? And yet, as a book editor and reviewer, I’ve dished out plenty of feedback and critiques over the years, and I know that not everyone will like Finding Myself in Britain. For instance, I try and try but I still can’t read works of fantasy – yep, I’ve still not read the Lord of the Rings. So I push down the fear and know that whatever the likes or dislikes, now is the time to give thanks and enjoy the moment.
Thank you family. Thank you friends. Thank you wonderful publisher. To God be the Glory!
And Houston, we have lift off.
PS – have now figured out Paypal so am happy to sell you a copy. Message me if you’re interested: amy@amyboucherpye.com. I discount but postage is crazy outside of the UK.