A Time to Dance: Silverton Lake Romance Book 1

A Time to Dance is a clean Christian contemporary romance about Deni Sparks, a St. Louis schoolteacher who inherits a run-down lake cottage in small-town Illinois, and Joel Anderson, the architect next door who gets the property if she doesn't last three months. Deni hasn't danced since the car crash at sixteen. It left her with a scarred leg and ended the ballet she'd trained for since she was three. Her engagement to Rob didn't survive it either. Teaching elementary school is safe. It's also small. Then Beth Rosen, her late grandmother's best friend, leaves her the cottage at Silverton Lake with two conditions. Move in within the week. Stay three months. Deni loads a chocolate Lab named Hershey, an orange cat named Marmalade and her stained-glass tools into her Jeep and crosses the Mississippi. Joel Anderson has wanted that land since he and his best friend, Chad, were kids dreaming up a lakeside resort on Beth's porch steps. He's next in line if Deni quits, and he tells her so on her first day. That night he shows up with a picnic basket. Joel lives in a house he built out of two old barns. He has spent his whole life trying to earn God's approval one good deed at a time, and he can't seem to stop helping the woman he's supposed to be waiting out. Deni keeps a list, written at sixteen and tucked in a rosewood jewelry box, of what the right man has to be. Faith in Jesus. Likes dogs, cats and children. Supports her art. Romantic. Likes cotton candy. Joel checks more boxes than she'd like. She's also sure no good man stays once he learns what the crash took from her. This book is for you if you love a heroine starting over after loss and a hero who has to weigh the plans he's drawn against the woman standing in the way of them. It's for you if you have ever believed your scars made you too much trouble to love, or if you've spent years trying to earn a grace that was already yours. Expect a clean read with no explicit content, a dog who heads straight for the lake, a stained-glass studio in a garage, a woman finding her way back to the dance floor and a happily ever after. Fans of Denise Hunter and Becky Wade will feel at home at Silverton Lake. A Time to Dance is Book 1 of the Silverton Lake Romance series, set in a lake town across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Each book stands alone. Chad's story continues in A Time to Bake. Deni's best friend Lori gets hers in A Time to Heal, and the prequel, All in Good Time, belongs to Joel's grandmother.