Shelly Beach's First Novel, Hallie's Heart, Chosen for Prestigious 2008 Christy Award

Hallie's Heart wins the Christy Award in the Lits category.

The winners of the 2008 Christy Awards were announced Saturday evening, July 12, and Kregel author Shelly Beach, author of Hallie's Heart: A Novel, was among the recipients, winning in the Lits category. The ninth annual Christy Awards banquet was held at the Rosen Centre in Orlando, Florida, prior to the opening of the annual International Christian Retail Show. Beach was in attendance to accept her award.

The well-respected Christy Awards—named in honor of Catherine Marshall's novel Christy—have recognized novelists in several genres of Christian fiction since 1999. Previous winners include Jerry Jenkins, Ted Dekker, Beverly Lewis, Karen Hancock, and Kregel's own Debbie Wilson.

The setting of Hallie's Heart is based on a number of local features from the community in which Beach grew up-Muskegon, MI. Beach's main character, Mona VanderMolen, an antique dealer in a small West Michigan town, is trying to keep her business alive. As Mona faces the uncertainties of her own future, Hallie, her fifteen-year-old niece, suddenly arrives on her doorstep. Guilt-ridden over her sister's drowning several years earlier, Hallie has run off to her aunt's cottage. As the two women work through their problems and learn to forgive, an unfortunate accident threatens to tear them apart once again.

Beach hopes Hallie's Heart will help readers better understand "the message that a loving God stands with open arms, ready to forgive us and accept us, wherever we may be-whether we're a fifteen-year-old teenager struggling with guilt or a middle-aged woman struggling with anger toward her father; and the message that we're responsible for taking steps to restore relationships and forgive those who have wounded us."

Shelly Beach is a Christian communicator who speaks at women's conferences, retreats, seminars, and writers' conferences. She is a college instructor and writing consultant in Michigan, and is also the author of Precious Lord, Take My Hand (Discovery House Publishers, 2007), which was a finalist for the 2008 ECPA Christian Book Awards in the Inspirational & Gift category.

Kregel publisher Dennis Hillman, who also attended the banquet in honor of the Kregel nominee, commented, "We applaud Shelly for producing such exceptional and creative fiction. We are elated that Hallie's Heart is being recognized as the superior work of fiction that it is."

For more information about Shelly Beach, visit her website: www.shellybeachonline.com.

The complete list of 2008 Christy Award nominees can be viewed at www.christyawards.com.