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About Us

Bantz Books, the marketing division of Bantz Art & Publishing, is an editorial, art, formatting and design service offered by Elisabeth Bantz for writers of Christ-centered inspirational books who wish to self-publish.

A graphic artist with years of print shop experience in proofreading, editing, writing, and all mediums of art, Mrs. Bantz has studied at Aurora University, the Washington School of Art, ACFW work-shops, and the Writer's Digest School of Writing.

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"If there's one thing I'd like my writing to convey, it Is this, that no matter how devas-tating the circumstances may be, God can and will make something good out of them if we give them into His care."

Betty Anne Bantz

Member: ACFW

American Christian

Fiction Writers

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The story behind Secrets of the Heart

Did you ever wish adult novels were less . . . uh . . . graphic, and more fit to be gracing your coffee table? I know I did. But what could I do about it?

The idea of writing anything, much less a better kind of adult novel, never entered my head until 1976, the nation's 200th birthday, the year my youngest son would start kindergarten. That summer my thirteen-year-old daughter brought home a bag of questionable romance novels that a relative had given her.

While I understood her passion for reading---I have that same kind of zeal---I wasn't sure she should be filling her mind with the world's point of view about love. I wished there were wholesome Christian romances on the market, books more suitable for precocious readers like my daughter. (That didn't happen until years later.) But since there weren't, I weeded out the most offensive, and allowed her to read the rest, never feeling quite right about the decision. It weighed heavily on my mind all summer.

When the time came for me to register my son for kindergarten, we whisked our way through the process, no problem. Fifth time's a breeze. And then . . . as we started to leave the building . . . a strange thing happened. Another scene superim-posed itself over the real one, and I saw a whole new set of characters. Instead of the short, jolly principal coming out of his office as we walked by, I saw another principal---tall, athletic, with unruly blondish hair. And instead of my son and me walking out the door, it was a fair-haired little boy with his mother---gorgeous, petite, with long dark hair. The woman didn't notice the principal, but he noticed her and the boy and it definitely made him angry. What he didn't know (but I somehow knew) was that he was seeing his son for the first time.

How could a man not know he has a son? I asked myself. And for the following days and weeks, the story unfolded and the plot grew until the characters took on lives of their own, and I didn't know what to do with them. So, on my knees, I asked God what to do with these people I'd come to know so well. His answer was simple: "Write a Christian romance."

The Secret Cove took shape slowly, first on scraps of lined paper, then on an old typewriter. After years of writing and rewriting, it was seen by a few publishers, but it wasn't ready yet for the market, so I laid it aside and started working on a sequel, Sins of the Fathers. When the editors' consensus seemed to be that these two stories were part of a bigger picture, I rounded out the series with a prequel--Family Secrets, and a final sequel--Snatched.

And as I wrote, I dreamed that someday a harried housewife looking to escape from the demands of motherhood for just a few hours might pick up one of my books and find hope to go on. Or perhaps a precocious teen looking for exciting adult fiction might be surprised by goodness within its pages. Or a grandmother who thinks her life's work on earth is coming to end might see just how valuable she still is to her family and the rest of the world, and realize how much there is yet for her to do.

So . . . I was astonished to find out how many MEN have read these stories and been blessed. Thank you all for letting me know how much they meant to you!

~Betty Anne Bantz