Spotlight & Giveaway: Moving Forward by Shelley Shepard Gray

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Shelley Shepard Gray to HJ!

Hi Shelley and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Moving Forward!

 
Thank you so much! I’m delighted to join y’all today.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

MOVING FORWARD is the second book in my Woodland Park, CO firefighter series. The hero is Greg Tebo. He’s a former Army captain firefighter secretly suffering from PTSD. When he meets heroine Kristen Werner while on a 911 call, he knows there’s something special about her. Kristen hails from Houston, owns a garden center, and is still trying to recover from a broken relationship. She also has some health issues she’d pretending aren’t as serious as they really are. Both must learn to ‘move forward’ in order to find happiness.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“For so much of my life, I wished I was different than I was. I wished was whole and undamaged and perfect. But everything ‘wrong’ was what actually made me better.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Greg Tebo is on a firemen’s calendar and everyone gives him grief about it for most of the book.
• He’s also from West Virginia, which enabled me to put a slight ‘twang’ in his voice.
• Kristen is from Houston, which is where I grew up.
• Woodland Park is a real place, only about 30 minutes from Colorado Springs.
• I wrote most of the novel while I still lived in Colorado and interviewed several Army nurses and veterans to help get some of the facts right.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Greg is first attracted to Kristen because she’s spunky and determined and panicked about the idea of being helpless. He can relate to that!
Kristen doesn’t fall for Greg right away because he’s really handsome and she’s attracted to him almost immediately. She’s afraid to fall in love again. But Greg wins her over because he refuses to give up-even saying that they could ‘just be friends’

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

Honestly, my favorite scene is when Greg is mentoring Jen, a recent high school graduate who wants to enter a training program. In it, each starts to believe in themselves and their future.

He stood up and held out a hand to help her up. “Now, what’s gotten you and these hoses in such a tizzy?”
“They’re tangled in a spaghetti nightmare. I’m worried I didn’t roll them back properly.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Just fix them, yeah?”
“Yes. But, um, I also can’t seem to pull them out fast enough. I don’t know why.”
“Speed counts, but making sure the hose is free of kinks matters more. First, show me how to roll them properly.”
“Fast?”
“No. Don’t worry about the speed. Or anyone else here. Just focus on one thing at a time. Worry about the task you are asked to do. That’s it.”
Taking a deep breath, she rolled the hoses up carefully like Sam and Greg had shown her the other day.
“Good,” he said as he deposited them easily back in the truck. “Now, show me what you’ve got.”
Pulling her gloves back on, she glanced at the clock, mentally preparing herself to go faster than she had so far.
“No, Jen,” Greg said in a clear, firm voice. “Stop worrying about the time. Empty your mind of all the negative and only think about what you have to do. All you need to do right now is pull these hoses. That’s it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
His voice deepened. “What do you have to do, Jen?”
“I need to grab the nozzle with one hand, the loop with the other, put both ends over my shoulders, and pull them down. I need to advance one hundred feet in less than a minute, then—”
“Stop. Don’t worry about what happens next or the clock. Just do it right.” He looked down at her. “Do you understand?”
He sounded like he was back in the army, which was kind of freaking her out. “Yeah.” She looked up at him.
His expression was like stone. “Let’s pretend you’re speaking to someone in charge, Jennifer. Now, what do you say?”
“Yes, sir or Roger that.”
“Jennifer, do you want to be a firefighter?”
Again, his voice was hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then stop focusing on obstacles. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“Good. Now go.”
She pulled up on the step, grabbed the loop with her left hand and the nozzle with the right, jumped down, positioned each over a shoulder, and started walking as fast as she could.
“There you go. Good job. How many feet is that hose?”
“One hundred.”
“Good. Pull down the next. Go.”
“Yes, sir.” She jumped up the step and did it again.
When the hose was laid flat, she said, “A hundred feet is out, sir.”
“What’s the next step?”
“Um, call out to the engineer to hook up to the water source?”
“Are you ready to do that?”
Remembering what she’d read in the manual, she shook her head. “No, sir. I need to check for kinks.”
“Correct. Do it.”
Sam and Chip had explained to her how important it was to make sure the hoses had no kinks. Kinks would slow the water and possibly prevent enough water from coming out to extinguish the fire. She carefully eyed the hose, found a kink, and righted it. “It’s good.”
“Hustle to the nozzle, then. Remember the position?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” She picked up the hose.
“What’s the next step?”
“I say Charge the line.”
“Say it, then.”
“Charge the line.”
Greg shook his head. “No one’s going to hear that. Say it like you mean it, Jennifer. Say it like you want to be here.”
“Charge the line!”
“There you go.” He sounded so kind, she turned to face him. He was smiling. Then, started clapping.
And then she heard more people clapping.
Everyone was there. Even the captain. Even Dave.
“Good job, Jennifer!” Captain DeWitt called out.

Readers should read this book….

if they are looking for a sweet romance with a lot of heart.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m currently working on two Amish books which will be published in 2024.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A Print copy of Shelley Shepard Gray’s MOVING FORWARD

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Since most people know me as an Amish author, I hope readers might be delightfully surprised by this action-packed, sweet romance about firefighters. What is the last book that you picked up on a whim and were delightfully surprised by?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Book Info:

Romance blossoms in the Colorado foothills in this sweet romance by New York Times bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray

Former Army captain Greg Tebo loves his new life in Woodland Park. In the two years since he joined the WPFD, he’s gained a reputation as a fearless firefighter, and after being stationed all around the country and overseas, he can’t wait to settle down with a wife and kids.

When a call comes in about a possible heart attack at the scene of a fire at the Garden Center, Greg assumes they’re going to be helping an elderly customer—not the beautiful, feisty proprietor in her late twenties. Kristen Werner has been determined to pretend everything is fine. She refuses to leave the company she’s carefully nurtured and move home to her loving but meddling family in Houston. Since her devastating diagnosis caused her fiancé to dump her, she’s given up on love and thrown herself into cultivating her blooming business instead—even if the hard work further weakens her heart.

Greg is drawn to Kristen’s vibrant, independent spirit and hopes romance will flower. But she’s had enough trouble with her heart to last a lifetime, and can’t trust Greg not to break it—especially if he finds out she can never give him the houseful of children he longs for….

Meet the Author:

Shelley Shepard Gray is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, a finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers’ prestigious Carol Award, and a two-time HOLT Medallion winner. She lives in southern Ohio, where she writes full-time, bakes too much, and can often be found walking her dachshunds on her town’s bike trail.