Savings seem to be the order of the day with three chains majoring on the deals they are offering.

Family Christian Stores' email centers on $5-to 50%-off specials running through May 23 on a wide range of children's titles. Included are DVDs like VeggieTales' Josh and the Big Wall and Gigi's Big Break or $5 each and an Adventures in Odyssey DVD Gift Set featuring four discs for $19.98 (regular price, $39.97).

A separate email from the chain offers a pre-buy of VeggieTales' forthcoming Sweetpea Beauty: A Girl After God"s Own Heart for $12.97 instead of $14.99. The ESV New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs is priced at $5.

LifeWay Christian Stores promotes its May 15 Fiction Day, with a coupon for an in-store 25% off any one novel. The "Summer O' Savings" emailing presents savings from $2 to $10 and more, with the complete Word of Promise Audio Bible reduced from $124.99 to $87.49. The offer also includes a free $10 savings card with each $40 purchase, in-store only.

Berean Christian Stores new music promotion offers Tenth Avenue North's new The Light Meets the Dark for $10 until May 18, while MercyMe's The Generous Mr. Lovewell is available for 20% off the $15.99 list price. Chris Tomlin's Arriving, Mandisa's Freedom and Matthew West's Something to Say are among $5 albums also offered.

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's 2010 Christian Book of the Year went to Richard Stearns' The Hole in Our Gospel, announced May 3 at the awards banquet at ECPA's annual Executive Leadership Summit in Nashville.

Along with the top honor of the year, the Thomas Nelson title took the Christian Life category, one of six divisions in the Christian Book Awards, presented annually since 1978 to the best titles in Christian publishing.

Listen to the discussion below.

{mp3}CRklavan{/mp3}

Established mainstream thriller and Hollywood script writer Andrew Klavan is a relative newcomer to the Christian market, but has made an emphatic debut with his young adult "Homelander" series for Thomas Nelson.

The first two titles in the four-part adventure have sold nearly 50,000 copies in hardcover, with the third installment due out in November and "Homelander" just optioned for a film by the makers of The Hurt Locker and the "Twilight" films.

With a Jewish and atheist background, Klavan surprised many people when he embraced Christianity a few years ago--through a question prompted by reading a book by British novelist Patrick O'Brien.

Klavan tells more about his journey to faith and talks about how is has changed his writing in a conversation with Christian Retailing editor Andy Butcher.

Writing about encounters with people whose lives have been touched by his best-selling novel, The Shack, William P. Young tells of a grieving couple's real-life "shack" experience.

Read more at http://windrumors.com/2010/04/day-5-fl-to-oh/#more-353

Riskey: This is a longer story; however, the short answer is that I was "called" while in the Anchor Room Bookshop in Fort Wayne, Ind. My life has never been the same since.

Why did you decide to join the staff of CBA?
I wanted to help more retailers, and I believe that the association provides our industry with the "place" to get together with our different needs to bring compromise and find solutions. I was "called" to CBA to best use the gifts and talents that have been given to me.

As the Christian music industry gears up for its big day of the year—the Dove Awards ceremony, April 21—retailers are majoring on music in their promotions.

LifeWay Christian Stores offers savings on recordings by all the nominees, with Francesca Battistelli's My Paper Heart Deluxe, Jason Crabb's self-titled release and Toby Mac's Tonight among the titles reduced from $13.99 to $11.99 each. Casting Crowns' Until the Whole World Hears is reduced to $9.99, while Ten Avenue North's Over and Underneath is available for $7.99.

Parable Stores are taking 20% off all the nominees, reducing Mary Mary's The Sound to $11.98, Skillet's Awake to $13.58 and Tonight to $9.97.

Family Christian Stores (FCS) presents a $7.97 special running through April 23. Among the titles available are Hello Love (Chris Tomlin), A New Hallelujah (Michael W. Smith), The Altar and the Door (Casting Crpwns) and Beauty Will Rise (Steven Curtis Chapman).

The chain also offers MercyMe's forthcoming The Generous Mr. Lovewell for a pre-buy price of $11.99, down from $15.99, and a free "Lovewell" bracelet, value $1, commemorating a donation from the proceeds to FCS' The James Fund, partnering with the band to support well-drilling projects in the Dominican Republic.

Another FCS pre-buy offers Newsboys' Born Again, out July 13, for $9.97 instead of the regular $13.99.

Mardel Christian & Education's $5 Music Selection includes Chris Tomlin's See the Morning, Matthew West's Something to Say, Mandisa's Freedom and Rush of Fools' Wonder of the World.

LifeWay's email promotion also highlights its April 17, third annual Tax Savings Day, giving 10% off shoppers' entire purchase. FCS's promotion includes a coupon for 25% of any one regularly priced item or 10% off a sale item.

Jonathan Merritt author of Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet (FaithWords, April 21, 2010, $16.99 hardcover), speaks about Christianity and the environment.

How is creation care tied to our love for God?
"One of the ways we show our love for God is through obedience. God has mandated that we care for creation because he has buried the revelation of His attributes within it and because people that God loves depend on it. Another way we show our love for God is by loving what God loves. The Psalmist tells us that 'God is loving toward all that He has made.' If we love God, shouldn't we mirror this? No one perhaps summarizes these ideas better than Francis Schaeffer, who wrote the following in Pollution and the Death of Man: 'If I love the Lover, I love what the Lover has made'."

Do you think Christians have become more aware of creation care in the past few years?
"Definitely. Just take a look at the number of books being published now by Christians on this subject compared with 20 years ago. We now have a robust corpus on which to construct a solid theological and practical foundation for creation care. What a blessing it is to be able to stand on the shoulders of thinkers like John Stott, Alister McGrath, Calvin Dewitt, Matthew and Nancy Sleeth and others. These thought leaders are reawakening Christian communities to the need to live out the Gospel by obeying the Bible's creation  mandates and caring for 'the least of these'."

What do you think some of the hesitancies have been/are?
"Some people hesitate to embrace our responsibility to steward the earth because environmentalism is perceived as a 'liberal' issue. In Green Like God, I illustrate how we can develop uniquely Christian solutions to our world's problems that look less like Al Gore and more like Jesus Christ."

What trends give you hope for the future?
"I am so encouraged by the innovative and courageous initiatives being undertaken by missionaries, churches, and faith communities around the world. I've been bombarded with stories of Christians who've embraced the love for God and love for people promoted by the Bible and embodied in life of Jesus. I share a few of these in my book. God is on the move, and God's people are on the move."

In They Almost Always Come Home, American Christian Fiction Writers President Cynthia Ruchti draws the reader into a passionate journey of heartbreak and the redemptive power of love.

Although Greg's wilderness trips were not uncommon, his disappearance after a two-week canoe trip through the Canadian wilderness comes as a shock. His marriage was shaky, but his wife, Libby, can't come to terms with what the police think is abandonment after more than 20 years, made worse by the death of their daughter Lacey.

Romantic suspense writer Eason presents Too Close to Home, the first installment in her "Women of Justice" series.

After a body is found in a dumpster behind the Bi-Lo grocery store, homicide detective Connor Wolfe finds himself facing a crime that is not easily solved. The more clues the investigative team uncovers, the further away it seems the answers are, so computer forensics expert Samantha Cash is called in to help solve the case.

Not sure exactly what they are up against, Connor and Samantha find themselves more and more drawn into the case, while trying to balance the personal mysteries and puzzles in their own lives-and they both know that only God has the answers.

Readers who like faced-paced mysteries will enjoy this dynamic and suspenseful novel.
-Heidi L. Ippolito

Too Close to Home
Lynette Eason
Revell (Baker Publishing Group)
softcover, 352 pages, $14.99
978-0-800-73369-8
April

Here Burns My Candle
Liz Curtis Higgs
WaterBrook Press
softcover, 480 pages, $14.99
978-1-400-07001-5
March 16
Higgs returns to Scotland and to historical fiction with Here Burns My Candle, a romantic drama set in the mid-18th century and a retelling of the Old Testament story of Naomi and Ruth.

The Right Call
Kathy Herman
David C. Cook
softcover, 400 pages, $14.99
978-1-434-76784-4
March
The Right Call is the much-anticipated final chapter of the "Sophie Trace Trilogy" by suspense novelist Herman.

Family Christian Stores leads the Easter week specials, with a 50%-off offer on books including Max Lucado's Fearless (available for $12.49), Bruce Wilkinson's You Were Born for This ($11.49) and Jentezen Franklin's Fear Fighters ($10.99).

The discounts are included in an email promotion that also includes a 12 Days of Easter special running March 24-April 4 that prices online music album sales at $5.99. Featured titles include Phillips, Craig & Dean's Fearless, Skillet's Awake, Sara Groves' Fireflies & Songs and Sandi Patti's Hymns of Faith...Songs of Inspiration.

Mardel Christian & Education offers 25% off all books, Bibles and software on April 3. The promotion also spotlights Zondervan study Bibles, with the NIV Life Application Study Bible in chocolate/turquoise duotone reduced from $69.99 to $34.99 and the NIV Study Bible: Updated Edition hardcoivervdown from $39.99 to $19.99.

Mardel also promotes a range of journals for $5 each, children's DVDs such as the "Boz" series for $7.99 each and 50% of kids books and Bibles. New music available March 30 includes the soundtrack to the new movie, Letters to God, for $13.99 and Amy Grant's new Somewhere Down the Road offered for $11.99.

Grant's latest, 12-track release also leads the latest email offer from Parable stores, available for $11.97, with some of her other collections—including The Breakout Years and The Pop Collection—each priced at $13.19. Keeping with a music emphasis, Parable also offers 20% off recordings by the nominees for this year's Dove Awards, to be announced April 25.

The Parable promotion also includes an in-store only special-a free Max Lucado greeting card from DaySpring with the purchase of two others. The offer runs April 1-June 30.

LifeWay Christian Stores also focuses on Amy Grant, offering Somewhere Down the Road for $11.99. The chain's email offer also presents $5 CDs, including Meredith Andrews' The Invitation (down from $11.99) and Big Daddy Weave's What Would Life Be Like (reduced from $13.99).

MercyMe's The Generous Mr. Lovewell, to release May 4, is offered for pre-buy at $9.99, with purchasers also getting an exclusive water bottle and a $5 savings card. The chain also offers the new DVD release, The Blind Side, for $22.99, down from $28.98.

In A Distant Melody, debut novelist Sarah Sundin mixes history, romance and a lesson on waiting on God for His perfect will to be fulfilled.

Sundin brings World War II-era England alive with romance. Allie, who is betrothed to Baxter in an arranged marriage goes off for the week to her college friend's wedding. Meeting a fighter pilot who shows her what love is all about, she begins to forget about her fiancé. Throwing caution to the wind, Allie finds the courage to follow her heart. As Walter honors his commitment to serve his country, Allie strives for love at all costs.

A Distant Melody is the first in the fictional "Wings of Glory" series centering on the three Novak brothers and the U.S. Eighth Air Force stationed in England during World War II. It's a great escape for readers, a romantic story filled with inspiration, love and adventure.
-Andrealynn Boyd

A Distant Melody
Sarah Sundin
Revell (Baker Publishing Group)
softcover, 432 pages, $14.99
978-0-800-73421-3
(March 1)