The Face Behind the Book

This is Janet Tronstad here, with a few thoughts on book dedications and bios. Finding just the right dedication (that goes with the book and the person I'm thinking of) is often a challenge, but I'm determined to do more than generic dedications and bios because I love reading those bits and pieces in other author's books. I feel I get a glimpse of the face behind the book.

My 'Wife Wanted in Dry Creek' releases this month. and I, of course, needed a bio and a dedication.You might guess by the title of the book that part of the set-up is that someone had put an ad for a wife in the prayer bulletin from church -- well, it was listed as a prayer, but sounded like an ad. The wife was intended for Conrad, the hero of my book, but he didn't place the ad and was none too pleased that his uncle had. I use alot of family dynamics in my Dry Creek series and this book is filled with them.

I also have a lot of family dymanics of my own and I have been dedicating my books to various members of my family. It was my eight-year-old nephew's turn, so I dedicated the book to him with these words, "For my nephew, Orion MacDonald, with love and prayers that, in due time, he will find exactly the right wife. Meanwhile, of course, he's more concerned with his puppy. And getting through the second grade."

My bio read, in part, "Janet Tronstad would never presume to tell anyone who they should marry. But she does admit to a little matchmaking between the pages of her twenty-some books...Janet is a full-time writer and, when she's not at her computer, she enjoys spending time with family and friends."

I'm hopeful that readers will enjoy both the bio and the dedication. I don't really have a favorite dedication (either one I've read or written), but perhaps you do. If so, I'd love to hear it. And let me know if you also read those extra bits and pieces from the authors.