Did you know that October is National Book Month? Founded back in 2003, National Book Month is a month-long celebration focusing on the importance of reading, writing and literature. Here are our in new books, authors and news . . . our highlights below include new releases, contracts signed, notable reviews and PR events, new authors to the agency and other news of note by clients and agents.
New Releases
Congratulations to Walt Larimore with Mike Yorkey and Knox Press for the paperback release of At First Light: A True World War II Story of a Hero, His Bravery, and an Amazing Horse.
What makes 2nd Lieutenant Phil Larimore’s story special is what happened in World War II’s closing days and the people—and horses—he interacted with in this Forrest Gump-like tale that is emotional, heartbreaking, and inspiring.
Growing up in the 1930s in Memphis, Tennessee, Phil Larimore is the ultimate Boy Scout—able to read maps, put a compass to good use, and traverse wild swamps and desolate canyons. His other great skill is riding horses.
Phil does poorly in school, however, leading his parents send to him to a military academy. After Pearl Harbor, Phil realizes he is destined for war. Three weeks before his eighteenth birthday, he becomes the youngest candidate to ever graduate from Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Landing on the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, Phil is put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon in the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular forays into No Man’s Land.
As Phil fights his way up the Italian boot, into Southern France and across the Rhine River into Germany, he is caught up in some of the most intense combat ever. But it’s what happens in the final stages of the war and his homecoming that makes Phil’s story incredibly special and heartwarming.
An emotional tale of courage, daring, and heroism, At First Light will remind you of the indomitable human spirit that lives in all of us.
Congratulations to Lydia E. Harris and Knox Press for the September 13th release of GRAND Moments: Devotions Inspired by Grandkids.
40 Devotions Inspired by Grandkids. Get ready to smile, laugh, and perhaps shed a few tears as you read the encouraging devotions in GRAND Moments: Devotions Inspired by Grandkids. Lydia Harris (known as “Grandma Tea” to her grandkids) combines heartwarming stories from her grandchildren’s lives and wisdom from God’s Word to inspire grandparents in every season. She also includes thirteen tasty recipes to make and enjoy with grandchildren. Each of the forty devotions includes a “grand thought” takeaway, a prayer, creative ideas to spend time with grandchildren, and quotes from grandparents and grandkids. GRAND Moments offers practical tips to guide grandparents as they pray for their grandchildren, share and model their faith, and invest in their grandchildren’s lives. Whether grandchildren live near or far away, this book will help readers grow as intentional Christian grandparents and pass on a godly legacy to future generations.
Congratulations to Lanny Hunter with Blackstone Publishing for the October 10th release of Exit Wounds: A Vietnam Elegy.
More than just a war memoir, Exit Wounds is a powerful story of a medical officer in Vietnam that reflects on duty, ethics, faithfulness, and how individuals are impacted by war.
An intimate boots-on-the-ground story, Hunter’s memoir begins with an intimate portrayal of two men whose lives crossed in Vietnam in 1965 and became irrevocably linked. Lanny Hunter was a Green Beret surgeon and soldier, and Y-Kre Mlo was his Montagnard interpreter. Hunter left Vietnam after the war, only to return in 1995 in response to Y-Kre’s request for help.
Hunter served in Vietnam believing America occupied the moral high ground. He lived the experience “war is hell” but also noted its obverse: war as heaven. In his memoir he explores the notion of both the military and medicine as mystical vocations, and the ambiguities of duty, citizenship, cultural imperialism, spirituality, morality, loss, and recovery.
Peopled with real soldiers who were dedicated, courageous, gentle, proud, profane, and a little mad, and seasoned with Hunter’s personal insights on medicine and moral injury, Exit Wounds is an incredibly insightful book that reveals what happens when America’s leaders place personal ambition above honor and deliberately lie to each other, the citizens, and its army.
Congratulations to Grace Hamman with Beth Allison Barr and Zondervan for the October 31st release of Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages.
C.S. Lewis noted that the church has a problem: Whenever Christians are brainstorming together about who Jesus is and who we are, we go out and read mostly people who agree with us, or who live in our same time and place. It’s hard to separate the cultural wheat from the chaff. But what happens when we do read people’s answers to Jesus’s question from the past lives and places of the church–people who may be wholly unlike us? Who is Jesus? What is he like? And who am I, encountering Jesus?
The answers will surprise you.
Jesus through Medieval Eyes, by Grace Hamman, looks to the Christians of the Middle Ages, to a time and culture dissimilar to our own, for their answers to these questions. Medieval Europeans were also suffering through pandemics, dealing with political and ecclesial corruption and instability, and reckoning with gender, money, and power. Yet their concerns and imaginations are unlike ours. Their ideas, narratives, and art about Jesus open up paradoxically fresh and ancient ways to approach and adore Christ–and reveal where our own cultural ideals about the Messiah fall short.
In thoughtful and accessible chapters, medievalist scholar Grace Hamman explores and meditates upon medieval representations of Jesus in theology and literature. These representations of Jesus span from the familiar, like Jesus as the Judge at the End of Days, or Jesus as the Lover of the Song of Songs, to the more unusual, like Jesus as Our Mother. Through the words of medieval people like Julian of Norwich, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Margery Kempe, and St. Thomas Aquinas, we meet these faces of Jesus and find renewed ways to love the Savior, in the words of St. Augustine, that “beauty so ancient and so new.”
Congratulations to Kara Powell with Jen Bradbury and Brad Griffin and Zondervan for the November 7th release of Faith Beyond Youth Group: Five Ways to Form Character and Cultivate Lifelong Discipleship.
Most typical youth ministries today produce nice, obedient kids who behave themselves—and then leave the church and the faith. Even those who remain struggle to extend their own faith beyond youth group. They seem like “good kids,” but their lives and decisions outside youth group aren’t oriented toward Jesus. Clearly that is not our goal. So what are we doing wrong? And how can we better serve the unique needs of the most anxious, adaptive, and diverse generation in history?
If you’re tired of youth ministry that fails to change lives, it’s time to change youth ministry.
Building on two decades of the Fuller Youth Institute’s work and incorporating extensive new research and interviews, Faith Beyond Youth Group identifies the reasons youth ministry often flops both short-term and long-term, and offers five ways adult youth leaders can cultivate character for a lifetime of growing closer to Jesus rather than drifting away. It shows leaders how to cultivate trust, model growth, teach for transformation, practice together, and make meaning so that teenagers can become adults who hold fast to Jesus and boldly live out a robust faith in a watching world.
Congratulations to Jay Hewitt and Zondervan for the November 14th release of I Am Weak, I Am Strong: Building a Resilient Faith for a Resilient Life.
Even on the days you struggle to stay strong, you can live a resilient and hopeful life.
After receiving a devastating brain cancer diagnosis, Jay Hewitt had a decision to make: Should he give up on faith or practice what he preached and trust that with God all things are possible? In I Am Weak, I Am Strong, Jay chronicles his journey of turning toward Jesus even when circumstances urged him to turn away. Faith in action for Jay included competing in an IRONMAN triathlon while undergoing cancer treatment. His race was a grand gesture of love for his young daughter–and a call to resilience for all of us.
I Am Weak, I Am Strong reminds us that our true “superpower” comes from God. As you read Jay’s honest and inspiring words, you will:
- Understand the counterintuitive wisdom of strength in weakness
- Learn to discern the voice of God and his calling for your life
- Live with resilience in the face of any trial
- Discover how God moves mountains–even when you least expect it
- Feel empowered to pray authentically, boldly, and continually
For anyone who is searching for hope in anxiety and grief, needs validation and compassion in times of doubt, is curious about faith in the face of death, or longs for a more authentic relationship with God, I Am Weak, I Am Strong will teach you that faith grows from the freedom to doubt.
Strength grows from realizing how weak we are on our own. And light grows when we follow God’s dreams for us, even through the darkness.
Contracts
Eric A Clayton signed with Brazos Press for the May 2025 release of Peace is Now Hear Waiting.
Sarah Varland signed with Harlequin for the February 2025 releasee of K-9 Theme novels.
New Clients
Hilda Labrada Gore, Jerry Lathan, Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, Doug Schmidt, Jennifer Balou and Marissa Burt recently signed with WordServe. Welcome!
What We’re Celebrating
Congratulations to us! It was November 1, 2003, that WordServe Literary was birthed by founder and president Greg Johnson.
“It’s been a huge honor and privilege to shepherd authors and books to greater levels of success these last 20 years. The industry has gone through monumental changes during these past two decades, and as it continues to evolve, myself and our agents: Keely, Nick and Emma will continue to do what is needed to get great reads and important books to market.”
Congratulations Natalie Runion! Raised to Stay: Persevering in Ministry When You Have a Million Reasons to Walk Away is ranked #1 on the ECPA Bestseller list.
Congratulations, Linda MacKillop! The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon is a 2023 Christy Award Finalist under the category of “First Novel“.
Congratulations Bryan Clark! God’s Not Like That: Redeeming Inherited Beliefs and Finding the Father You Long For is ranked #5 on the ECPA Bestseller list.
Congratulations Katie Powner! Where the Blue Sky Begins is a 2023 Christy Award Finalist under the category of “General Fiction“.
WordServe Water Cooler 