Book Boyfriends: Kristen's hero

Interview with Chad from Time and Tide (book) by Kristen Terrette:

Kristen: Tell me about your childhood.

Chad: I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. My dad traveled all the time, growing his real estate business, so it was just my mom and me most of the time. I played a lot of sports when I was young but focused on basketball in high school. After I graduated, I went to Washington University in downtown Atlanta, but that was there most of my problems started. 

Kristen: What kind of problems?

Chad: My parents had moved to Savannah when I started college, so even though I lived forty minutes away from my childhood home, I couldn’t actually go home anymore. Then, my dad passed away suddenly my sophomore year, and… after a bunch of therapy… I’ve realized that event sent me into a spiral. I wasn’t given the chance to reconcile our relationship (me and my dad) so I turned to drugs to cope.

Kristen: That’s hard to hear. But you’re doing good now. What changed?

Chad: A ton of things. But my road to redemption truly began when I drove from the swanky Atlanta home I’d bought after my dad died, to a party. I was very out of it on drugs and didn’t make it to the shindig. I caused a car accident that almost killed another driver, as well as myself. I should have died and suffered a major leg injury, which placed me in the hospital for a while. That hospital stay helped to kick-start my sobriety. It was a reality check.

Kristen: I bet. Well, how’d you end up on Moanna Island?

Chad: I mentioned my mom moved to Savannah, and my family’s business main hub is based out of there now. So after my rehab, and physical therapy, I decided I needed to be closer to her, and realized I’d never be ready to take over the business unless I knew all the ins and outs. We have a family home on Moanna, which is only forty-five minutes away. I decided to move there and adjust to the area for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, then start my new job at our Savannah office. I’m very glad I did.

Kristen: And why’s that?

Chad: Because God was chasing after me and planned on using a beautiful woman to show me what love is, and through her love, show me who He is.

Kristen: Tell me about this!

Chad: I met my wife, Ryan, on the island. It wasn’t the first time I’d laid eyes on her, but that part of the story is for another time. But our first interaction was at the Moanna General Store, where she worked. I was buying dog food for a stray I’d come across, and though I was immediately struck by how hot…I mean beautiful…she was, I made a terrible first impression. But she was gracious after a bit of prodding and let me make up for my fumble. 

God continued to place us in each other’s path, and she ended up showing me around the island on what she called adventures. I watched Ryan have joy through the chaos of life. I wanted to know how she was able to do it. She’s dealt with some tragedies in her past, but unlike me, she turned to God to get her through them. That was her secret, what made her, her. First, I fell in love with Ryan, but my love for Jesus soon followed. He used her to help me find Him.

Kristen: Wow. So tell us about your newlywed life. How has it changed?

Chad: My life is very different from what it was a few years ago. Ryan and I married and decided to make Moanna our home forever. It’s our place, and we couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it. I help my mom run our real estate firm which has me traveling some. Ryan doesn’t seem to mind because she keeps busy too. She still takes shifts at the General Store and is back in school online to finish her degree, a dream she had to give up when her brother got sick. But I think the craziest thing to rock my world is the fact I help run a Wednesday night worship service at the Savannah Mental Health and Rehabilitation Center. I help recovering addicts, like me, learn about Jesus and His great love for us. 

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Author Bio: Kristen has a Master's degree in Theological Studies and was on staff as a Children's Ministry Director for over five years. She cherishes her Southern roots and currently lives forty-five minutes outside of Atlanta, GA. With the support of her husband and two children, she stays at home writing Christian fiction, making up fantasy places and characters, allowing God to take the story where He needs it to go. 

She serves on the women's leadership and teaching team at her church and writes for Wholly Loved ministries at WhollyLoved.com, as well as Crosswalk.com. To see her blog and current novels, check out her website at www.kristenterrette.com.

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Book Blurb for Time and Tide: Addictions destroy lives. Chad Cusher’s own dependencies change everything he thought he knew about his future.

After almost killing himself and someone else, Chad’s legal problems, addiction recovery therapy, and physical therapy if he ever wants to walk normally again, are a part of his everyday life. He believes there is no chance at true happiness, certainly not love, and only hopes to become a better man than he was, to find redemption somehow.

Chad moves to Moanna Island, a small island close to Savannah off the Atlantic coast, to begin a job with his family’s real estate empire, a job he was supposed to have taken years ago.

Free-spirited Ryan Mason is a Moanna local girl from a blue-collar family. She’s dropped her own dreams to help her father care for her schizophrenic brother.

Their paths first cross at a Rehabilitation Center where Chad attends therapy and Ryan’s brother lives. Chad can’t believe his luck when he finds her on Moanna Island, forty-five minutes away from the Center, only days later.

Chad is drawn to Ryan’s joy, even through the pain and grief life tries to throw her way. His lonely void begins to dissipate with every island adventure spent with her. He soon finds out what her secret is. But is it possible to start over and be restored? Even so, can Ryan except Chad’s horrible, even criminal past? Can their crazy worlds ever fit together once she finds out he is the sole heir to the Cusher Empire?

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Buy Kristen's book on Amazon

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Connect with Kristen:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/authorkristenterrette/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/KTerrette
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/kterrette2/
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35481335-time-and-tide

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kterrette/

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Fall into Love: Kristen Terrette's story

Labor, Delivery, and A First Look at Love

A Fall into Love story by Kristen Terrette

It was a hot summer evening in Georgia when I got a call (on a landline) saying my friend was in labor. We’d only just graduated high school, so this baby was a big deal, a first for my young friends and I. I arrived at the hospital with six friends to wait as long as needed to see the new baby girl arrive. We found ourselves sitting in uncomfortable, dated hospital chairs, watching the muted nightly newscast from a boxy TV attached to the wall in the corner. As if eighteen-year-old girls hanging out in a labor and delivery ward weren’t unique enough, a super cute handful of nineteen-year-old boys were sitting opposite us.

Most of us had yet to meet the buddies of the dad-to-be. They were from a different high school and had never been on our radar, but they sure were after that night. My friends and I chatted softly, excited about the baby and the hotties breathing the same air as us, though neither group made an effort to meet one another. We were all content to simply stare.

One of my friends, the only one to have met a few of the boys previously, told us the cutest of them was named…let’s call him Joel. I scoped out the herd, and located Joel in his faded red Georgia Bulldog hat and a white t-shirt. He was gloriously tanned which only amplified his light blue eyes. He was fit and lean like only an athlete could pull off well. One look had me agreeing with my friends. Joel was the cutest.

After a few hours, we’d lost count. My friends and I were standing by the big double doors leading to the elevators, preparing to leave. Joel, who I’d watched relentlessly, got up to from his chair and walked to the doors…towards us…towards me. I can still remember him glancing over his shoulder to tell his buds goodbye. When he swung his head back around, he was only a foot away, and his eyes caught mine, sealing the deal. It was love at first sight¾at least on my part. (Not really…but kind of.)

I’ll never forget the flush on my cheeks and how my mind replayed our brief eye contact over and over in slow motion. After he was long gone, my girlfriends kept talking about Joel. I was very confused and finally spoke up, telling them Joel had already left the hospital. My friends gave me raised eyebrows and creased foreheads cueing me in that I’d missed something. They told me Joel was still there and nodded to a guy who was cute, but definitely not my Joel, the guy who’d already left the hospital. When my friend realized the mistake I’d made, she told me the guy who’d left was named Ashley, not Joel.

It was an interesting name. One I would never forget. And God had a plan for our future.

A few weeks later, my girlfriend wanted to set me up with a guy who’d started working for her dad. I was very against any “set up” at first, but then she remembered a very important fact. She told me it was Ashley, the guy whose identity I’d mistaken at the lobby.

After I’d recovered and picked up my stomach from the floor, I agreed to meet him. Our brief meeting ended with him later getting my home phone number from my friend. He called that evening and asked me out on our first date the next day, a Friday. We ended up talking for a couple hours. Not only was he cute, but he was sweet and hilarious too. Our first date was followed by our second the very next day. After it, I came home and told my mom I was going to marry Ashley. And that I did.

This past summer we had a special anniversary. We had our first date when I was eighteen, and just had the eighteenth anniversary of that first date. The love of my life has now been with me for half of my life. And it’s only getting better. 

~*~

Author Bio: Kristen has a Master's degree in Theological Studies and was on staff as a Children's Ministry Director for over five years. She cherishes her Southern roots and currently lives forty-five minutes outside of Atlanta, GA. 

With the support of her husband and two children, she stays at home writing Christian fiction, making up fantasy places and characters, allowing God to take the story where He needs it to go. She is also involved in the women's leadership team at her church, and writes for Wholly Loved ministry at WhollyLoved.com. To see her blog and current novels, check out her website at www.kristenterrette.com.

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Book Blurb for Safe Harbor: Eva Elliott is left with a jaded heart after the death of her boyfriend while she was pregnant. She pushed away the idea of God and love, focusing solely on her daughter, Willow. 

She accepts an offer from her mom to move to Moanna Island, off the coast of Georgia. She hopes the move will help her tuck away the guilt for the role she thinks she played in her boyfriend’s death.

Thad Smith’s Pro-Football career came to a crashing and embarrassing halt, sending him running to Moanna Island. He enjoys living under the radar and finds a new purpose as he dedicates his life back to Jesus, but he feels guilty for the sting of loneliness that’s crept into his seemingly full life.

When he saves Willow from drowning in the ocean the first day Eva arrives on the island, he can’t deny the electricity between them. Eva stubbornly fights the stirring in her heart the moment Thad smiles, but since Thad coaches the football team where Eva teaches and lives down the street, God continues to intertwine their lives. When he tells Eva he’s not only falling for her, but Willow as well, she thinks maybe…just maybe, it would work between them.

She doesn’t expect Thad’s ex to throw a kink in the fragile plan, nor for Thad’s relationship with God to convict her own shame and brokenness. Just when she opens the door to God, finally ready to make things right, an accident occurs that could leave Willow an orphan and Thad all alone again.

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Buy Kristen's book:
Amazon ~ Kobo ~ Nook 

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Connect with Kristen:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/authorkristenterrette/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/KTerrette
Instagram - @kterrette

Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/kterrette2/

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