Interview with Katie who poses as Annie on my book cover...

Katie was born in Longview, Washington, and raised in a small town in Montana called Roundup. She was named after her Grandma, who is also the person that she got her red hair from. For fun she liked to eat good food, read a good book and go for drives. The funnest thing that she did was anything with her husband, which usually involved food of some kind.

As far as work goes, Katie is a barista, which means that she makes coffee. She feels like she works at a coffee shop with the best coffee in town because it has a small town coffee shop feel to it. That's why she likes working there so much. It reminds her of how she grew up. It is also a part of her ministry. She knows about 60% of the customers by name, and has had some great conversations with a lot of them.

Right now she and her husband are in the middle of trying to find out what the Lord has in store for them. They have started a Bible study on Sundays called Coffee T.A.L.C. (Taking A Look at Christ). It's a place where they encourage non-Christians to come and ask the tough questions. They refuse to settle for pat Christian answers to their questions. They stay in the gospels and let the conversations take off from where the Word points them. Along with that ministry, they run some Friday college nights with music and good conversation.

She doesn't believe she has any weird or amazing talents. Her husband tells her that she has the ability to make people feel comfortable enough in a matter of minutes to tell her their life story. So you could say that's a talent...to make people open up and think about their life and the Lord.

A funny moment she had was at age 12. For a Christmas play she sang a song about Martha Stewart being her hero while wearing a sweater with a picture of a huge Christmas tree and real bells.

When she was 6 she went to Disneyland for her Aunt's Birthday. They had donuts in the motel room in the morning. She decided to try the strawberry filling out of one of the donuts. There was no one in the room, except that video camera recording her.

On an ending note, it took her the first nineteen years of her life to figure out that Jesus was real, and that He really will take you as you are. She turned her life over to Christ one word and one minute at a time over the course of three years.

It started with her own curiosity and then slowly Christ changed the way she felt about being a typical teenager or college student of the world. He changed her. She never asked to be changed. That was six years ago and now she can say that for the last three years she has been striving to follow scripture by first loving the Lord with all of her heart, mind, and strength. In these past three years there has not been a day of regret over doing that with her life.

Spotlight on Devan, posing as Tony Lane.

Welcome to my spotlight on Devan, who posed as bad boy Tony Lane. He is pictured below with his real-life wife Katie, who posed as Annie Meyers.



Devan works as the sales rep for the family HVAC business, Design Air, Inc. and Mighty Ducts. They specialize in residential heating and air conditioning systems with our main focus on improving energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

Devan and Katie were married in December 2007. They are planning to head to Kenya this summer to spend two months participating in Intervarsity's Global Project mission. Devan and Katie are currently fund raising for that trip.

Devan and Katie are also starting to plan out a ministry program together. In the past they have run a few events out of the Bear's Brew. Because it is so close to UM's campus it draws a lot of the college crowd. Many people request to play music there, so they do their best to utilize on Friday nights. They generally have been able to keep the Brew (as they call it) open late on Friday nights to give people an alternative option to partying. With all the events and requirements for college students it's amazing to see how many people welcome the opportunity to just hang out and do nothing. Throw in some free food and some live acoustic guitar and people will come running!

They are planning to start up "Coffee Talk", which is a completely informal and generally unstructured bible study. It's more of a bible discussion. They begin with just a general question and try to let conversation flow as freely as God inspires it to. Attendance ranges any week from 2-20 people. Katie and Devan also each participate in weekly bible studies separately and are planning to start one together. A staff member from the Navigators has recently been encouraging them to pursue funding through their Navfusion program. At this time everything they do as ministry is an out-of-pocket expense.

If you want to help these young people with their ministry, post a comment with a way for me to reach you and I'll contact you with more information.


More fun facts about Devan...



In high school, Devan tackled a guy off the top of a bridge into the Blackfoot River thirty feet below. He was wearing a ladybug costume made for a little kid. It's on film somewhere...just don't know where that footage ended up.


Devan has a very minor role in a movie that is being released in March (last he heard). The movie is called "A Plumm Summer" and is based on a true story. It stars Henry Winkler ("The Fonz"), Billy Baldwin and Lisa Guerrero. Jeff Daniels is supposed to be narrating it as well. Devan never auditioned for it. When he was cast, he didn't even know it was being filmed.

I'm going to introduce my cover models to you in more depth.

I thought you would enjoy getting to know them. That post will come at a later time, once I get the content I need to post. For now I will tell you that I think it was a God thing that these three young people who happen to be the exact same ages of my characters were introduced to me.

My dear friend Angie Breidenbach (who I roomed with at last year's ACFW conference and met via her hiring me to build her website) has three talented children. Katie, the girl on my cover who is posing as Annie, just married Devan, Angie's son. He is the guy in the leather coat on my cover who is posing as Tony. Angie's son Forrest, who is in the background, is modeling as Dan, the older brother in my story.

These are all wonderful young people who did a great job. This is a picture of what my final cover is going to look like. The cover editor is still tweaking some of the hues in photoshop, but this is the way the cover will look style-wise. I hope you like the format. Even if you don't, I'm sure you will love the story. :)

My video trailer!