Welcome!

Introducing Robin Patchen!

Robin Patchen is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of Christian romantic suspense.

She grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, the setting of her Nutfield Saga books, and then headed to Boston to earn a journalism degree. Working in marketing and public relations, she discovered how much she loathed the nine-to-five ball and chain. After relocating to the Southwest, she started writing her first novel while she homeschooled her three children. The novel was dreadful, but her passion for storytelling didn’t wane. Thankfully, as her children grew, so did her writing ability.

Now that her kids are adults, she has more time to play with the lives of fictional heroes and heroines, wreaking havoc and working magic to give her characters happy endings.

When she’s not writing, she’s editing or reading, proving that most of her life revolves around the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

Visit https://robinpatchen.com/subscribe to receive a free book and stay informed about Robin’s latest projects.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobinPatchen/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/robin-patchen

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5187882.Robin_Patchen

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Robin-Patchen/e/B00A289790/

Interview with Robin

• If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Cheerful, focused, and eager-to-please.

• What book is currently on your bedside table?

Well, it’s not on my bedside table but in my bedside Kindle, but I’m currently reading “Luther and Katharina: A Novel of Love and Rebellion” by Jody Hedlund. It’s not a genre I usually read, but I’m loving it.

• Is writing your full-time career? Or would you like it to be?

I am both a writer and a freelance editor. Five years ago, I made the bulk of my money—and spent the bulk of my time—on my editing business. I enjoyed it, but all along the goal has been to shrink the editing income and grow the writing income. Today, I spend about half my business day writing and another couple of hours doing office work, including reading and responding to emails, sending newsletters, dealing with the many aspects of publishing my own books. I still dedicate ten to fifteen hours a week to editing, but that number shrinks every year. I hope that, within the next few years, I will be earning enough that I could quit editing. I probably won’t quit entirely—some of my clients are also my dearest friends. But it’ll be good to know I’m doing it because I want to, not because I have to.

• What has been your favorite part of the publishing journey?

I’m not going to lie: It’s pretty awesome to make up stories for a living, but my favorite part of my publishing journey is something I didn’t anticipate before I began—all the great people I’ve met along the way. Some of my dearest friends are fellow novelists. We plot together—stories, not heists—and brainstorm together. We learn about writing, about publishing, and about marketing together. We share our hopes and dreams together, we pray together, and sometimes we cry together. For all the books and positive reviews and orange “bestseller” tags on Amazon, what I love most about this life is the people I get to live it with. 

• Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?

All of my characters are like me in some ways, and Carly is no exception. She struggles with her own worth. She struggles with the desire to be loved. In the story, she thinks about herself, “Carly wasn’t strong, though. She never had been. She’d always been a people-pleaser, a keep-the-peacer.” Like Carly, I spent years fighting my tendency to please people. I used to be so desperate to be loved and accepted that I’d put up with almost anything. Praise God, He taught me that I am loved, and I deserve to be treated with respect. Sure, I still struggle with the desire to make everybody happy. But I recognize it now. It doesn’t rule me like it used to.

• What is the key theme and/or message in the book?

What gives a human being worth? Carly, the heroine in Traces of Virtue, suffers from the lie that she is only valuable to the degree that she contributes, that if she quits helping, if she quits taking care of the people in her life, then she will quit being valuable. At one time, she was loved by her mother and by a good man, but her mother died, and that good man left her (he’s the hero, by the way. I love a good second-chance romance). All she has left are a stepfather and stepsisters who don’t appreciate her. And then, at the start of the story, she discovers she’s expecting a baby—a product of an ex-boyfriend’s uninvited visit to her apartment one night. The story isn’t about Carly’s rape, though, or even about the baby. It’s about her worth. Carly is forced to ask herself some very difficult questions: Is her child valuable, despite how he came to be conceived? Is she valuable, even if nobody loves her?

And of course, there’s murder and romance and a whole lot of suspense to keep it fun.

• Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

Find out more about me and my stories—and download a free novel!–at my website, http://robinpatchen.com.

• Any current or upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

I’m so excited about the book I’m writing right now. It’ll be the fifth book in the Coventry Saga, called Touch of Innocence, and it’ll release this winter. Here’s the working blurb:

How can she save the little girl next from being exploited if nobody believes her?

Grace used to try to save people, but that was before she realized how powerless she is. Now, she avoids emotional ties, working from her secluded cabin, content with her aloneness. When eight-year-old Lily starts hanging around, Grace enjoys her company but carefully keeps her distance—until she discovers the girl is being exploited. Little though she wants to, she must get involved, even if it means risking her own safety to secure Lily’s.

Andrew can’t help but be drawn to his new neighbor and her beautiful foster child. When he learns about Lily’s disturbing history, he offers to help Grace prove her suspicions about the girl’s father. But the more they learn, the more puzzling Lily’s history seems. They work together to unravel the mystery, determined to ensure Lily ends up with a family who loves her. 

But Lily’s father isn’t giving up his muse—or his obsession—that easily. He believes Lily is rightfully his, and he’ll do anything to get her back.

About the Book

Name of Book: Traces of Virtue

Series: Coventry Saga

Genre of Book: Christian Romantic Suspense

Name of Publisher: JDO Publishing

Release Date: October 19, 2021

Back Cover Blurb:

Don’t miss this plot-twisting thriller, the latest in the addictive Coventry Saga from a USA Today bestselling author.

When doing what’s right goes terribly wrong… 

From her deathbed, Carly Garcia’s mother asked Carly to look after her stepfather and stepsisters. Carly is trying to keep that promise, but now she has a new life to protect, this one innocent and vulnerable. She visits her ex to tell him a truth he doesn’t deserve to know… and witnesses his murder. Now, Carly’s on the run from killers whose faces she never saw. 

Braden Reilly is building a career in Coventry, New Hampshire, happy to put the drama of his crime-ridden Boston neighborhood behind him. When a woman he’s spent years trying to forget shows up on his doorstep, his first instinct is to turn her away. But the wounds on her arms and the fear in her eyes have him offering sanctuary. The story she tells makes his blood curdle. 

Join Carly and Braden as they seek to discover who’s behind a murder nobody believes occurred before the killers catch up to Carly and her unborn child. 

Giveaway

Comment below to win a Paperback copy of Traces of Virtue.