Review/Giveaway: Screen Play

A WINNING READINGS GIVEAWAY!

Title: Screen Play
Author: Chris Coppernoll

Genre: Christian fiction
How to enter: Leave a comment on THIS post right here! If you're a subscriber or a follower, leave a second comment for a second entry.

Entry deadline: April 10, 2010

Restrictions: Open internationally!

That's right, enter right here for this giveaway. This is my review copy, so it has been gently read.

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Screen Play, written by Chris Coppernoll, is published by David C. Cook.  This 352-page paperback has a list price of $14.99.

Here's the publisher's synopsis:

At thirty, Harper fears her chances for a thriving acting career and finding true love are both fading fast. After a devastating year of unemployment and isolation in Chicago, Harper is offered an unexpected role in a Broadway play—as understudy to New York's biggest diva—and everything in Harper's world changes.

Harper also hopes to find love in NYC, but when it doesn't happen, she reluctantly signs up to an online matchmaking site. Frustration mounts when the only match Harper is even remotely interested in lives in a remote territory on the opposite coast, thousands of miles away. A faith conversation during her year in Chicago shapes how Harper sees everything. She wants to see God at work in her life, but His ways are mysterious, and she's faced with challenges in the secular world of Broadway. Harper feels like an actress who doesn't act, and a woman in love with someone she's never even seen, but God's about to change all that.

Linked through the contemporary, text message world of internet dating, Harper learns it's possible to care for someone outside her own universe, even when that someone can't be touched, and ultimately how to love. She reaches out through the impersonal world of cyberspace, and becomes more aware than ever of God reaching out to her. Sometimes the person farthest away from you, she discovers, is the one who's closest to your heart.

And some info about the author:

Chris Coppernoll is the founder of Soul2Soul Ministries, with radio programming heard in more than six hundred outlets worldwide. He has conducted hundreds of interviews on faith issues with personalities such as Amy Grant, Max Lucado, Michael W. Smith, and Kathie Lee Gifford. He also serves as a Deacon at The People’s Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and is currently working toward a Masters in Ministry Leadership degree through Rockbridge Seminary. Providence, his first novel, is his fourth book.

I REALLY enjoyed reading this book.  I've been trying to pinpoint exactly why.  The storyline itself seems somewhat predictable, though there are a few surprise twists and fun throughout.  And Harper, the main character, at first glance wouldn't be someone I think I could relate to - how many of us CAN relate to the Hollywood set?

Yet there was something about Harper that drew me in.  For starters, the book begins with her at rock bottom, and then she rises to stardom while maintaining her genuineness and humble attitude.  It's that Cinderella twist we each fantasize about for ourselves.

More importantly, though, the author did a great job of personalizing this character and portraying her spiritual challenges.  I found myself totally relating to some of the decisions she has to make; e.g. do I go to the nightclub with coworkers to socialize, or to a prayer meeting?  Deep down, no matter where we are in life, we have to make those moment-by-moment decisions that lead us the right way or the wrong way.  And I found myself very much admiring the choices Harper made and being inspired to follow her example.

Overall, an easy, interesting, romantic read that highlights the best of Christianity.


Thanks to The B&B Media Group for the review copy of this book.