About the Book

Book: War Songs

Author: Brett Nelson

Genre: Contemporary Christian Fiction/Spiritual Warfare

Release Date: February 6, 2022

Trigger Warning: WAR SONGS is free of profanity and sexual situations (There is some mild slang terminology spoken by fallen angels and certain human characters, ex: c**p, w**re, etc). Also, there is one short scene in the book that depicts violence with very minimal graphic details that could be triggering and/or upsetting for some readers.

There is an invisible realm around us that we can neither discern with our eyes nor hear with our ears. This invisible realm is where the powers of darkness and light reside. They can see and hear us, but we cannot see and hear them.

Jenner Alekson is a leader in his praise and worship band that travels extensively in the tri-state area of Cape Kennington, North Carolina. He makes little money in his chosen profession, yet the rewards he reaps in obedience to his call of ministry are eternal, and that’s enough for him.

Always happy with all aspects of his existence, Jenner is blindsided when his life suddenly catapults into turmoil, and he is thrust into a crossroads where discontentment, anger, and loss of desire to carry the gospel with his song takes root in an otherwise sheltered and stable life.

Unbeknownst to Jenner, his wife Hyacinth, and best friends Camden and Lucas, a spiritual war rages around them. The powers of darkness will try their best to derail Jenner’s spiritual walk, his marriage, his ministry, then ultimately his life.

Meanwhile across the country, rough and gruff long-haul trucker Arnold Collins leads a different kind of life. He’s a recovering drunk who chases women and is unhappy with an unloving, belligerent wife who could out-cuss any man who ever dared to challenge her. Without a warm and inviting place to call home, Arnold prefers the wide-open road before him.

As he rumbles across the terrain of small-town America one lonely night in his eighteen-wheeler, grumbling about his unfulfilling lot in life, he happens upon a radio preacher. Not interested in religion, he flips past the station with mutters of disdain, but for reasons he cannot explain, he is compelled back to it and hears a sermon he doesn’t understand but can’t get out of his mind.

Will the schemes of the powers of darkness pull Jenner away from the faith that means everything to him? And will the same powers prevent Arnold from finding the faith he needs but never wanted?

Heaven and Earth, light and dark, good and evil, are about to collide in ways Jenner and Arnold and those they love could never imagine.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Brett Nelson is an Amazon TOP 5 BEST-SELLING author. “When Raindrops Fall” and “War Songs” hit #4 and #2 respectively in the Christian fiction genre, and “A Christmas to Live For” hit #9 in Christian Fiction. He lives in Arkansas, where he was born and raised. He wrote his first novel in 2012, just to see if he could. His goal is to write stories of fiction that are clean, easy to read, fun, and that injects a layer of his faith into every novel. In short, he desires that his readers would finish every novel having experienced a tapestry of emotions from a good healthy cry, fits of amused laughter, soul-splitting inspiration, and everything in between. He has published five novels to date. Book #2 to “War Songs” will publish in Spring 2024, and he is also currently working on Book #2 for “When Raindrops Fall.”

His novel “A Christmas to Live For” won the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal in Christian Fiction in 2021, and “War Songs” won the Global Book Awards Silver Medal in Christian Fiction in 2022.

Other than writing, reading is one of his favorite things to do on a lazy, rainy day (or a sunny day, or at the beach, or…well, you get the picture).

He enjoys reading the novels of lesser known authors, because you never know when you’ll uncover a new favorite.

More from Brett

“War Songs” was my fourth published novel, and I wrote it because I love books about spiritual warfare. The few that I’ve read, though, lean more on the occultic side than biblically based, which was what I wanted. Spiritual warfare isn’t pictures falling off walls for no reason, or seeing a shadow in the corner, or things that go bump in the night, which is how books that I’ve read tend to depict the subject of spiritual warfare. So, I decided to tackle the subject for myself and write a novel that I would want to read. I’m blessed to have received amazing email feedback about the book from all over the country and even from readers in Pakistan, Germany, the UK, and Canada.

One question that I’m asked a lot is how I came up with the unique angel and demon names (ex: Animi, Mataio, Roga, and Mortol, just to name a few.) In the book, I gave each demon a specific job and/or specialty (discouragement, anger, etc) then I researched the Hebrew/Greek root words for the emotions that the demons represented and created a name based off the root word. It made for some great demon names, even if I do say so myself.

As an author, I rarely use the names of people I personally know in my books. I like to use unique character names that no one in my life has, hence the names of my main characters in “War Songs,” Jenner and Hyacinth. To help find character names, I often go to baby name websites and search until just the right unique name comes along, and the minute I see it, I just know that will be the character’s name. That said, I have given a few special people in my life a shoutout in the books by using their name for a smaller secondary character then giving the character an outlandish personality that is nothing like the person whose name I used.

Author Interview

Hi, Charmy. Thank you so much for inviting me to your blog.

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

As authors, especially lesser-known authors, one of the most amazing things is opening the email and seeing a kind note from a reader. It’s so heartwarming to know that not only did someone give my book a shot, but they also took the time out of their day to contact me. For readers who read this, never underestimate the power of your emails. They truly do make an authors’ day.

I’ve been blessed to receive many emails from readers over the years. The two books I receive the most emails about are: A Christmas to Live For and War Songs.

On War Songs, I wanted to write a novel that depicted spiritual warfare in our lives, but in a way that wasn’t occultic/secular in nature. I wanted it based on how I understand it according to scripture. Even though I took certain liberties in the book to propel the story, I was okay with it because it is, after all, Christian FICTION.

I also wanted to delve into the spiritual downfall of a believer, but not through major themes like drugs, alcohol, or promiscuity. After much thought and prayer, I decided to let the character struggle with the more subtle issue of offense. Offense is a subtle sin that can cause anger and bitterness, and those things can poison a person’s life in horrible ways.

I received an email a few months ago from a woman in the Middle East who read War Songs and she wanted to tell me how much the book touched her heart and blessed her. In her country Christianity is highly frowned upon, and she told me that though Allah is the god in their country, she knew in her heart that God was the true God, not Allah. She loved the imagery of angels and fallen angels in War Songs interacting in the spiritual realm with humans, who had no idea of what was going on around them. I wasn’t allowed to email her back because she said if her husband knew she had contacted another man in another country about Christianity, it would get her in a lot of trouble.

I also received an email from a satanist who read War Songs. I was surprised that a Satanist would read a Christian Fiction book, but he was truly such a nice fellow. He wanted to let me know that it made him sad that people depict Satan in negative ways because, according to him, “Satan is a loving god who loves you and wants the best for you.” He and I emailed back and forth several times, and I was blessed to be able to present the Gospel to him. He also tried to convince me that his god was the true God and that mine was the false one.

It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t nervous about speaking to a Satanist, but interestingly, he was very respectful and willing to listen, and in return I was willing to listen to him. Honestly, he was way more respectful and open minded to hearing my Christian beliefs than some believers with different doctrinal beliefs are here in the U.S.

We both are strong in our belief systems, so neither of us were swayed in the opposite direction, BUT the interaction reminded me that nothing we do is ever in vain. I never dreamed that my book would make it to a woman in the Middle East or to a Satanist. Even though War Songs won’t be for everyone, because no book ever is, I believe God will continue to put it into the hands of people who not only want an entertaining read but also into the hands of people who need to know the Gospel truth. The seed of God’s truth will always remain in a person’s mind, even if they don’t want it to.

How do you overcome writer’s block? Do you have any advice for others in finding their process to overcome it?

This is a great question. If you write long enough, writer’s block is an unfortunate inevitability. Some writers don’t recover from writer’s block and their books remain unwritten forever, which is a shame. Thankfully, over the years, I’ve learned a couple of methods for combatting it.

I think one of the first ways to conquer writer’s block is to stop it before it happens. I’m not as rigorous of a plotter as some writers, but New York Times Best-Selling inspirational author Katherine Spencer gave me a little friendly advice once when I asked her this same question, and I’ve always kept her answer in mind. She said something like this: “If you find yourself constantly getting stuck in your plot and don’t know where to take it, then you’re not plotting your book well enough BEFORE you start writing.” I’ve learned that it’s among the best advice a writer can receive.

There are two types of authors: Plotters and Pantsers. Plotters plot every aspect of their book before they start writing. As they write they don’t have to stop and think for long periods of time about what’s coming next because they’ve taken the time to plot properly.

Pantsers, on the other hand, “fly by the seat of their pants.” They don’t plot and make up their story as they go.

For me, I land somewhere between plotting and pantsing. I’m not as vigorous with plotting as some but before I start a new novel, I like to know how the story starts, how it will end, and all the major plot points I want to hit throughout the story. I also want to know all subplots and how they will eventually weave into the main story.

It takes a lot of time to plot before you start writing, but it really does speed up the writing process and reduces the risk of a major writer’s block down the road. It’s my goal to become a better plotter.

Second, I’m one of those types of writers who always has several novels sitting around at various levels completion. Right now, there are eight novels that I’ve started: one that I’m doing final the edits to send to the professional editor in January for a Spring 2024 release, and one that, if nothing changes, will be my next release after that (wishful thinking in Fall/Winter of 2024, but likely Spring of 2025.)

Sometimes, despite best laid plans, it happens that I “get stuck” in a book and can’t figure out what I want to do next. At that point, I’ll take a few days to step away from the book and work on another one. Always, without fail, when I go back to the original book, I pick up where I left off and the creativity flows again.

Authors immerse themselves in a book for months, even years at a time (and believe me, we eat thinking about the book, go to bed and wake up thinking about it, and watch movies thinking about it. In short, we never stop thinking about it.). Sometimes, I think it’s good to step away for a few days and give ourselves a sort of mental cleansing.

By stepping out of that world and into another for a few days, it gives authors the chance to think about something different, which I’ve found is very helpful in combatting a block. Every author has methods that work for them, but these work especially well for me and that’s advice that I would give to newer authors.

How did you come up with the title for your book?

When it comes to titling my novels, it usually works one of two ways: I either know the title very early in the writing process or I agonize over it until the bloody end.

In my first novel “A Christmas to Live For,” the title was originally something dumb like, “Christmas with the Girl Down the Hall.” Toward the end of the book, the male lead says to the female lead something like, “Lately I haven’t cared if I lived or died, but you’ve given me a Christmas to live for.” The minute I wrote the words I knew it would become the title.
In my novel “Lost Song,” I knew before I even started that’s what the title would be. I built the entire story around that title.
In “When Raindrops Fall,” a character quoted a fictional quote while he was in a rainstorm with his girlfriend. He said something to her like, “When raindrops fall on love’s first kiss, there’s no greater love than this.” As soon as I wrote it, I knew that would be the title.
In “War Songs,” I sweated it until nearly the very end. I was well into the initial editing phases before I settled on the title. In early editing, I ran across a chapter with an angel in the spiritual realm encouraging the human who was in the midst of a difficult trial, and the angel said to the singer character something like, “Use your war songs” (his worship through singing) to defeat his negative thoughts and feelings. The phrase war songs never entered my mind as a possible title when I wrote it, but it banged my spirit during the editing phase. I like to think it was the Holy Spirit leading me in the right direction. At first, I was nervous about using the word “war” in the title because I was afraid people wouldn’t want to read it because they might think it was a novel about physical war, not spiritual “war.”
For my novel “Unprotected,” I knew that title pretty much from the very beginning.
In my upcoming Spring 2024 release (which is book two in the War Songs series), I didn’t know the title of the book until I had written it, edited it, and was in the final stages of the beta reader process. I have five wonderful and talented beta readers who read my books and help to clean them up as much as possible before it goes to the editor for final professional editing. This was the first time to not know the title during the beta reader phase, and I was in panic mode. The original working title was “Seasons of Change” then I changed it to “Seasons of the Past,” but I still wasn’t happy with it. I put in a call to two of my invaluable team members (Melanie Dyer and Melissa Brown, you rock!!) and was like, “The manuscript has been through four of the five beta readers, and I still don’t have a title that I like. What am I going to do?” It took two or three more weeks of near panic before the word “redemption” hit me out of the blue (Holy Spirit again? I like to think so). Redemption is a major theme of the book and finally the title hit me, “A Time for Redemption.” For the first time, I felt a certain peace and knew that would become the official title. Incidentally, this blog is the first time that I’ve publicly disclosed the official title of “War Songs Two,” so you and your readers get the inside scoop first.

In short, titles to my novels tend to come from a statement from somewhere within the book but sometimes it takes blood, sweat, and tears to come up with it. It’s unnerving at times but it’s part of the excitement of the writing journey for an author.

Do you participate in writing challenges on social media? Why or why not?

I’m not into social media writing challenges. NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) is also a popular way that people use to incentivize themselves to sit down and complete the novel they’ve always dreamed of writing, or to finish their WIP (writing in progress). I don’t participate in that one either.

I’m not into gimmicky trends, so those types of things don’t appeal to me. Thankfully, I very much enjoy the writing process, so I don’t need gimmicks to incentivize me to sit down and write or to make the process fun. Kudos to all the people who enjoy them, but it’s not for me.

That said, I do have an author friend (Author Lexie Nicholas – What would I do without you??!!) and we’ve teamed up as writing accountability partners. We text or message each other every day and report how many words we wrote that day (in publishing, we focus on word counts, not the number of pages or how many chapters we have).

It’s amazing how having an accountability partner can spur you to hit the keyboard on days when you’re tempted to play hooky … because I don’t like having to send Lexie messages like, “Sigh, I didn’t get any writing done today.”

She and I congratulate each other on daily word counts. We encourage each other when life gets in the way, and we remind each other to extend grace to ourselves when we don’t meet our daily writing goals. We toss around plot ideas and get each other’s opinions on “should I do or say this” or “is there a better way to say this.” We critique each other’s book blurbs and tentative book cover designs and talk about marketing and promotion strategies. We discuss what we’ve learned on our author journeys and what we wish we had learned sooner. Basically, anything novel related, we’re there for each other.

For any authors out there, I highly recommend finding an author accountability partner if you don’t have one already. The only person who can understand everything “authory” is another author.

How did publishing your first book change your writing process?

In Spring of 2024 I will publish my sixth novel, and I have learned so much since I put my first book into the world. I have worked hard to improve my technical writing skills by attending writing workshops and watching famous authors on YouTube giving advice to up-and-coming authors. There is so much rich knowledge that famous authors pass down to us lesser-known writers, but you have to dig around online, find it, then find a way to put it into practice.

I had published three books before I felt like my writing style had greatly improved. In fact, I eventually unpublished, reedited, and republished my first three books so I could bring them up to the current writing standards to which I hold myself today, and I’m still trying to glean new ways to improve.

In the early days I was never completely happy with my writing style, but I never could quite figure out what it was I didn’t like about it. Not even my editors were able to help me pinpoint it. In researching how to write better from the technical standpoint, I learned about reducing that pesky passive voice from my books. That one thing transformed my work, in my opinion. Overusing passive voice in books leaves the narrative amateurish and choppy sounding.

If I could encourage new authors to change three things about their work, it’s to 1) learn to identify passive voice and eliminate it; 2) reduce the number of adverbs; 3) Eliminate unnecessary glue words like: and, but, or, really, just, that, etc.

You’d be surprised how eliminating these three things from your work will polish your pages and make your narrative flow and sound better.

Here is another funny way that I helped to improve my own writing. I know this might sound mean, but it REALLY worked for me. I started reading no-name authors (like myself) through my Kindle Unlimited subscription. I began to recognize a pattern of things that most indy authors do in their books and after a while it grated on my nerves (things like: people constantly rolling their eyes, characters laughing at things that aren’t funny, and overuse of exclamation points, to name a few). It shocked me to realized that I did the same things they did but for some reason it wasn’t as irritating in my own work as it was in theirs—until I knew, then it frustrated me in my own work, too.

So, the moral of the story: Read bad authors’ books, find what annoys you about their work, then make sure you don’t make the same mistakes in your own.

Is your writing space pristine or organized chaos?

My workspace is neither pristine nor organized chaos. I straddle the line of something between the two. 😊

Blog Stops

Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, February 8

Artistic Nobody, February 9 (Author Interview)

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, February 9

Texas Book-aholic, February 10

Fiction Book Lover, February 11 (Author Interview)

Locks, Hooks and Books, February 12

Guild Master, February 13 (Author Interview)

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, February 14

A Reader’s Brain, February 15 (Author Interview)

Through the Fire Blogs, February 16 (Author Interview)

Becca Hope: Book Obsessed, February 16

Lily’s Corner, February 17

Pause for Tales, February 18

Blossoms and Blessings, February 19 (Author Interview)

Splashes of Joy, February 20 (Author Interview)

For the Love of Literature, February 21 (Author Interview)

Giveaway

To celebrate his tour, Brett is giving away the grand prize package of a $100 Amazon Gift Card, an autographed hardback copy of the book, and a bookmark!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

https://promosimple.com/ps/29c51/war-songs-celebration-tour-giveaway