A horrific car crash leads Pastor Jake Wilson to becoming the guardian to a nine-year-old girl. And it will eventually lead to much more – love and an attempt to disrupt his ministry.
Wilson is 35, single, and the pastor of a large church in small-town Georgia. When his best friends from college are killed in a car accident, he becomes the guardian for their daughter, Boston. Overnight, he has to begin learning how to be a girl-dad for a child severely traumatized by the accident – she was in the back seat, and she spent hours with her parents’ dead bodies while rescuers reached the car and cut away the mangled frame to reach her.
The child’s life is utterly transformed. So is Jake’s. Jessica Maracle, a Sunday School teacher, reaches out to the little girl, sand she is soon reaching Jake’s heart as well. But she has a past, one she can’t seem to break free from, and she’s determined not get Jake involved in her life.
J. Steven Butler
It’s not like Jake doesn’t have enough problems. A growing one is the wealthiest member of the church, the man who seems to own a good chunk of the time, is used to getting his way, and decides Jake is standing in the way. Dewey Knapp becomes a bottomless pit of increasingly l=malicious actions directed against his pastor.
J. Steven Butler takes these threads and sews them into a compelling story in Taking Boston. It’s an engaging tale, with characters life Jake, Boston, and Jessica drawn true-to-life (even if the awful Dewey Knapp seems almost too villainous).
Butler has previously published four novels in the Sweeper sci fi/fantasy/apocalypse series and is currently writing a sequel to Taking Boston. He lives with his family in Georgia.
Tish (short for Letitia) McComb lives in Michigan. She’s helps her mother move to Florida, and she decides to take a meandering way back through Noble, Alabama. She visited the town once with her father; the McComb family had strong ties there, with ancestors having lived there for a long time after the Civil War.
During her visit, she encounters something unexpected – a rude reception from a few people. But she likes the town and discovers that the old McComb home is for sale. She makes an offer, it’s eventually accepted, and Tish finds herself moving.
What she encounters is hostility from most of the townspeople, and it’s because of her family’s history. The McComb legacy is one of people who came south after the Civil War as carpetbaggers, took advantage of people, and essentially pilfered and stole. Tish has old family letters that suggest a different story, but they don’t outright contradict the town’s memory and feelings. And the hostility is making it difficult for Tish to find a job.
Meg Moseley
So is her decision to offer a temporary home to Mel Hamilton a 20-year-old girl infamous for alleged theft from her own parents, getting in trouble generally, and essentially being homeless whenever she’s in town. A carpetbagger and a thief under the same roof! About the only person who’s friendly is George Zorbas, owner of an antique store, and he knows both the McComb legacy and Mel’s reputation.
Gone South by Meg Moseley is Tish McComb’s story. It’s officially classified as Christian fiction, but the faith-based element is downplayed. That said, it’s a clean story, without profanity or sexual situations. I enjoyed it, but feeling sympathy for the characters was a tough go until about halfway through the book. I also wanted to know more about both the old family letters and the McComb family history.
Moseley has previously published two novels, When Sparrows Fall and A Stillness of Chimes. She’s also contributed to several novella and story collections by different authors. A native Californian, she lives with her family near Atlanta.
Benita Finn is ambitious. She’s climbing the corporate ladder, and she plans every move like a military campaign. She’s all work and all business. Now she has an opportunity to run the company’s office in Spain, but her boss has made it clear she’s competing with a colleague, Robert. And he speaks fluent Spanish.
Adam is mourning the death of his brother, who died some months before. He’s stopped going to church, and he’s handling his grief by drinking himself almost into a stupor nearly every day. His father died in a drowning accident when he was six, and his father’s best friend Dan served as something of a father figure to the two boys growing up. And now Dan is in the hospital, dying from cancer – more reason to number the pain.
Adam first seems Benita at a drugstore and then at a coffee shop. He’s smitten. He cleans himself up, meets Benita, and finds out she needs to learn Spanish. And Adam reads and speaks the language. She hires him to be her tutor, but they both soon find themselves becoming interested in more than Spanish. But neither is willing to let the other know what’s going on.
Laura Domino
The Promotion by Laura Domino tells the story of Benita and Adam. It’s the first in the Fulton Ridge series, all connected to or centered on the First Church of Fulton Ridge. The novel is something of a challenge – neither of the main characters evoke much sympathy at the start of the story. Adam seems like he’s deliberately spiraling downward, and Benita seems so driven that she’s almost cold. Adam pulls himself up first and becomes likable and engaging. It takes longer with Benita, but she does manage to get there as well. And they’re both going to have to navigate some serious curves in their lives outside of their developing relationship.
Domino has written a number of novels in the Christian fiction genre, including a romantic suspense series, children’s books, the non-fiction Anyone Can Be a Superhero series, and several other non-fiction works.
The character of Adam does most of the heaving lifting in The Promotion. Benita remains so focused on her work for a company that promotes internal competition (you’ll find little about a team-based culture here) that it’s almost a surprise when she starts doing things outside the job. (And even then, doing volunteer work seems almost a calculated move to help her situation at work.) It’s an engaging story, with a number of interesting twists and turns.
Logan Ailshie is nine years old. He lives with his mother and stepfather in a condo in New York City. It’s nearing Christmas, and Logan is mostly focused on the gifts he’ll be getting, one of which he wants to open like now, and he’s not above throwing a tantrum to get it.
His stepfather refuses to have anything to do with Christmas, believing it’s a deceptive fairy tale. His mother was once a regular church attender, but she’s followed her husband’s wishes and avoided church. Logan’s stepfather is also always too busy with work to have much to do with Logan.
One night, Logan finds a homeless man in his bedroom closet. He and his mother had seen the man on the street, but Logan has no idea how the man has gotten into his room. The window is open, but the condo is 10 stories above ground. But Robert is no ordinary man. Nor is he homeless. He’s there to take Logan on a journey, back to ancient Judea.
Dennis Bailey
When the boy disappears, FBI agent Marcus Garraway leads the investigation. The disappearance seems impossible; the boy couldn’t have flown out of the window. Garraway is dealing with his own angst about Christmas; it’s the day his wife died when a drunken driver crossed lanes. Inf act, Garraway is close to suicide.
Robert leaves Logan with a group of shepherds, outside the town of Bethlehem. And it’s there that Logan will discover the reality of Christmas and find a kind shepherd who cares for him like a father.
The Boy Who Cried Christmas by Dennis Bailey is the story of Logan, Robert, and Garraway, and how divine intervention saves a boy, saves a suicidal FBI agent, and reverberates across a dying, decaying culture.
Bailey is a retired police detective who is also the author of the novel Army of God, a suspenseful account of the story of Noah. He lives with his family near Charlottesville, Virginia.
Avery Chase has returned home from Colorado. Fifteen years before, her family moved from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Colorado. Avery left behind several good girlfriends in the Bloom family, and one major crush, Hawthorne Bloom, four years older and generally oblivious of his sisters’ young friend. She’s back because she’s been hired to teach chemical engineering at the local university.
Hawthorne is now 33. He works as a handyman helper on his parents’ farm outside Terre Haute. Most of his six sisters live there as well, each managing a specific area of the farm. For years, Hawthorne has avoided taking major responsibility for anything, after the failure of his high-flying startup, dismissing fourteen employees, and having everything sold to pay debts. He’s got a major case of no self-confidence, and he spends his free time with his drinking buddies.
A chance encounter between Avery and Hawthorne at a bar sets in motion a chain of events. Hawthorne finds himself smitten; Avery finds the old attraction revving back up. But can Hawthorne step up to taking on more responsibility? And can Avery get over an old romance in Colorado that went nowhere?
Tara Grace Ericson
Hoping for Hawthorne by Tara Grace Ericson is a novella that introduces the Bloom Sisters series of romance stories (there are five, with likely two more to go). It’s a sweet, intelligent story, with a heroine who doesn’t fit the usual mold of romance novels – she’s a chemical engineer and a professor – and a hero who’s struggling with what may be self-imposed guilt and can’t get past it.
In addition to the Bloom Sisters series, Ericson has published five stories in the Main Street Minden series and several in the Heroes of Freedom Ridge series. An engineer by education and career, she lives with her family in Missouri.
Hoping for Hawthorne is a thoroughly enjoyable story, well-written and well-plotted, with real-life characters that bring the story to life.
Callie Erickson has moved from Ohio to Short Creek, a small town in central Texas. Her great-aunt Dot has moved into a retirement home, and Callie has bought her house and set up a florist/bookstore business. It sounds almost idyllic, except that Callie has brought more than physical baggage with her – the memories of a marriage that was failing, a husband slowly dying from ALS disease, and then his death in an automobile accident. It’s been five years, but Callie is still haunted by what she left behind.
Then she finds a body on the doorstep of her shop, a dead man clutching a box of what looks like relatively worthless bottles, trinkets, and books. The box seems to be addressed to her, with a note inside one of the books bearing a familiar anchor logo with the Latin words for “Make haste slowly.”
Amy Rognlie
More mysteries develop. The minister of a nearby church begins to behave oddly. The sheriff seems to be suspicious of anything Callie says or does. A neighbor’s granddaughter may be caught up in sex trafficking. Callie herself is knocked unconscious inside the church as she arrives to arrange flowers for a wedding. What’s going on in Short Creek?
Make Haste Slowly is the first in the Short Creek Mystery Series by Amy Rognlie (The second is Where There’s a Willand the third is To Err is Human.) The novel is as much about faith as it is a mystery, and, rather refreshingly, the author doesn’t mask the strong Christian beliefs of many of her characters.
In addition to the Short Creek mysteries, Rognlie has also published two novels in the Miss Opal Series and three historical romances. She had published three works in the late 1990s before taking a break from writing to raise her family and earn her teaching credentials. She lives in Texas.
Make Haste Slowly has more coincidences than might be expected, but it’s an engaging story that tackles sex trafficking, old sins, the things our faith asks us to do, including forgiving others and ourselves. And there’s a touch of romance thrown in as well.
t’s not unusual to see a group of authors get together and write a series of related books built around a theme. I’ve seen this particularly in two genres – romance and mystery. In some cases, each of the authors takes a different character and builds a separate but related story.
One example is the Lockets & Lace series, a group of Christian historical romances generally set in the 19th century and featuring a story that involves a locket. The series is currently going strong with 26 entries, each about 200 pages long. Caryl McAdoo has written three of them.
Uniquely Common tells the story of Christina Adams in the early 1850s. She lives with her brother and his two daughters in a New York City brownstone. Big changes are underway for the family – they’re planning to move to the Napa Valley in California to create a vineyard and winery business.
A surprise happens when Christina’s brother Asher brings home a good friend – and his business partner, a man named Ethan Cord. Christina is still reeling from a recent broken engagement, and she slowly realizes that Asher sees Ethan as a potential husband for her. Christina is not interested, thank you very much, but can’t object to the man coming with them as they leave New York.
The group travels by train to New Orleans and then by steamboat to St. Louis and Hannibal. In Hannibal they will purchase their mules, oxen, and “prairie schooners,” and then head to St. Joseph near Kansas City. Ethan and Christina keep finding themselves entangled in different situations. They also start finding themselves becoming romantically involved. It’s a story filled with the history of mid-19th century transportation and especially trains and steamboats. (And yes, there’s a locket involved.)
Silent Harmony is the story of three sisters, Lucy, Servilia, and Melody. It’s 1867, and the three live in the Red River Valley of Texas, trying to keep their cotton farm alive. Their father and Lucy’s husband were both killed in the Civil War, and Lucy has assumed headship of the family. She also has a four-year-old daughter, Harmony, who is both deaf and mute.
A new teacher has arrived in town, a man named Zeke Sheffield. He stutters, and his stuttering often so bad that he has learned sign language. And it’s sign language that he will be teaching, along with other subjects. For Melody, the youngest sister, it’s love at first sight. But It’s Lucy who needs a husband and father for Harmony.
Zeke is complicated. He has visions of things that will happen, and they turn out to be true. He stutters, yes, but not with Melody. And Sevilia is about as mean to her younger sister as she can get away with.
The story is filled with color of post-Civil War Texas and how people have to start making a life for themselves again.
Luke Tanner had grown up with life stacked against him. Raised by a drug-addicted single mom who didn’t know who his father was, Luke passed through a succession of temporary foster homes and managed to stay more in trouble than out of it. Anna Harrison was the daughter of a strict, no-nonsense small-town police chief; when she went to college to study art, she met Luke, fell in love, and became pregnant. Back home in Sweetapple Falls, Oregon, she faced the ire of her father.
When the baby, a boy Anna names Joshua, was born, her father told Anna that she had to do two things: put the child up for adoption and get rid of the no-good Luke. She sent Luke away, but the baby turned out to have serious medical problems and her father grudgingly allowed her to keep him. Now he’s 12, functioning in a motorized wheelchair, hoping that one day he’ll have a father like his friends do.
Luke has found faith in Christianity and turned his life around. He’s the project manager for a construction ministry in Mexico when he sees a television talent program. And one of the contestants is Joshua, who’s shown with his mother Anna. Three days later, Luke is in Oregon, ringing Anna’s doorbell, desperate to be part of his son’s life and equally desperate to learn if Anna still loves him.
Autumn Macarthur
His Father’s Son by Autumn Macarthur tells the heartwarming and often heart-wrenching story of Luke, Anna, and Joshua. The story turns on the themes of love, forgiveness, and trust. It’s about owning up to past mistakes and past sins, and what happens when a practical, living faith collides head-on with a more legalistic faith.
Macarthur has written numerous books in the Christian inspirational romance genre and inspirational non-fiction. Her novels include The Macleans series, the Together for Christmas, series, the Billionaire Protectors series, the Sweetapple Falls series, the London Loves series, the Come to the Lake series, and the Huckleberry Lake series. She lives in London.
His Father’s Son is a moving novel that probes what faith and love look like and actually mean in the hard realities of day-to-day life.
Isabel has been on the run with her young daughter Gabby for three years. She’s running from her abusive and controlling ex-husband. She lands in the town of Hope Springs and finds out that the apartment she thought she rented doesn’t accept pets, like Gabby’s dog. They spend the night in the car; Isabel is nearly at her wit’s end.
Tyler is raising 10-year-old twin boys on his own; his wife left him (and the boys) for another man when the twins were small. His brother and sister-in-law keep suggesting dates, but Tyler is not interested in dating anyone; the hurt runs too deep.
Valerie Bodden
Tyler first meets Isabel the morning after the sleep-in-the-car “adventure.” It’s not a good experience; he things she might be involved with drugs. That same day, Isabel walks into a job with Tyler’s sister-in-law. Tyler stays suspicious, but soon finds himself in what he thought would ever happen again – an attraction to a woman, and a non-believing woman at that. Trust begins to build, Isabel begins to find faith – and then the ex-husband shows up. Everything begins to unravel when Tyler learns Isabel isn’t who she claimed to be, and her name isn’t even Isabel.
Trust, hope, and forgiveness are the themes of Not Until This Day by Valerie Bodden, one of five novels in Bodden’s “Not Until” series. The others include Not Until Forever, Not Until This Moment, Not Until You, Not Until Us, and the short story Not Until Christmas Morning. Bodden, a pastor’s wife, lives with her family in Wisconsin.
Not Until This Day is an engaging, heartwarming story about two people afraid of second chances and learning how to forgive and trust.
Brooke Ponzio faces a highly problematic future. Her husband Nathan has walked out on her for another woman, but not before he left Brooke pregnant. Her employment as a counselor at a conservative foster home agency may be in jeopardy when her pending divorce becomes final. And she’s trying to get her head around being a single mother, which will really raise hackles at work.
Cole Miller is wealthy, handsome, and the new celebrity on a dating and marriage reality TV show. The show’s publicity guarantees he’s recognized anywhere he goes in public. What’s most important, however, is finding out why he was given up for adoption, and if the left hand and forearm he’s missing might have stemmed from a botched abortion. He’s refusing to get involved in any serious relationship until he finds out why his birth mother abandoned him.
Tamie Dearen
Brooke and Cole meet at a local coffee ship. Actually, they collide, and Brooke is doused with coffee. From that unexpected start, a relationship begins to grow. Cole’s lawyer tells him he can get out of the television contract if he marries before the show starts. He suggests a deal to Brooke – a temporary platonic marriage, which will free him from the television show while he pays her enough money to pay off her debts, finish her licensing degree requirements, and provide for her unborn child.
It’s a practical if questionable deal, but Brooke accepts. And then they both discover, after they’re married, that they may be falling in love – except neither knows what the other is feeling.
The Billionaire’s Temporary Marriage by Tamie Dearen is Brooke and Cole’s story. What begins as a marriage of convenience and mutual benefit slowly transforms itself into something else entirely, but it may never really get off the ground because of the baggage both of them are carrying.
Dearen is the author of more than 20 books in the Christian romance, romance, and young adult categories.
The Billionaire’s Temporary Marriage is a story that veers close to stretching credibility at times, but it ultimately comes down to broken people finding internal courage to mend themselves and each other.
It begins in a bar in Edmonton, Alberta. Rancher Mark Andrews is looking for a young woman named Sheryl Kyle. He’s doing a favor for her stepfather, trying to find her before her stepfather dies. She’d prefer not to be found, especially by her stepfather. She left him, her stepbrother, their narrow-minded religion, and her life in British Columbia seven years ago, and she doesn’t want to go back. She left with her boyfriend Jason, the one they said was no good. They were right: he wasn’t. But he’s dead now, killed in a car accident. And Sheryl had few if any regrets. Sheryl has walled off her heart from feeling.
Mark convinces Sheryl to return to see her stepfather. Slowly, Mark and Sheryl let their guards down and open their hearts. Sheryl has never seen a faith like Mark has, and Mark discovers that the bar waitress from Edmonton also happens to know horses and ranching.
Homecoming by Carolyne Aarsen is the story of Sheryl and Mark. It’s the first in the multi-volume “Sweet Hearts of Sweet Creek” series. It’s a fast, engaging read, full of twists and turns, centered on two people who have found each other but aren’t sure whether they’re willing to believe it.
Aarsen is the author of numerous Christian romance novels. Her series include The Family Ties, Sweet Hearts of Sweet Creek, and Holmes Crossing. She lives in Northern Alberta.
Will Sheryl return to Edmonton, or will she risk it all for this cowboy with the long hair? Will Mark listen to what his heart is telling him (not to mention his family), and pursue the woman he’s falling in love with? Homecoming has the answers.
Brafford Odell Reid carries a considerable amount of personal baggage. His marriage turned into something of a disaster before it turned tragic. His wife, with some serious mental health issues, killed herself and their son by drowning in the ocean. Their bodies were never found. She arranged their deaths to look like murder by Reid, and he was suspended from the Raleigh Police Department and investigated. He was cleared only through the efforts of his mother-in-law, who was able to describe her daughter’s serious mental problems.
He’s been holed up for a year in the basement of his best friend’s house, mourning his son and what he’s lost. He gets by on unemployment, but that will eventually end. His friends keep trying to get him to date, but he’s not interested. When he does go out, he’s quiet and withdrawn. That’s how his first date with Emily goes, until there’s a second date. He’s shocked to learn she’s interested in him; shocked that she’s 10 years younger than he is; and shocked that he’s strongly attracted to her.
L.N. Cronk
Their marry, and for a short time, things are almost idyllic. And then Emily begins to act and react much like Reid’s first wife. And he has to answer a question – does Emily need to be under a doctor’s care, or perhaps even institutionalized?
The One I Trustby L.N. Cronk tells the story of Reid and Emily. It’s a story about romance, about love, and about trust – and then it turns into a story of suspense. Not all is at it seems in Reid’s world, and never was. She lives in the mountains of western North Carolina.
Cronk, a middle-school teacher, is the author of the eight-book Chop, Chop fiction series, standalone novels, and a historical novel, The Pirate’s Revenge, co-authored with Heather Frey Blanton.
The One I Trust is envisioned to be the first book in a new series. It’s a gripping story, surprising in that a romance turns so quickly into rather nail-biting suspense.
Grace Chadwick has inherited a house and a flower shop from her beloved aunt. The shop had been closed because of the aunt’s illness, and Grace isn’t sure if she’ll reopen it or not. She’s not even sure she’ll be staying in the town where her aunt lived.
Her next-door neighbor of Elliott Wallac, a home builder and a deacon at the Baptist church her aunt attended. He goes out of his way, repeatedly, to help Grace with her house. And he repeatedly invites her to church, which she steadfastly wants nothing to do with. After a bad experience with a former boyfriend who said he was a Christian, Grace wants nothing to do with church. But Elliott persists.
Clare Revell
Despite her refusals to attend church, Grace finds herself attracted to Elliott. Elliott is attracted to Grace as well, as his twin brother Joel keeps reminding him. But Elliott carries his own baggage from the past, and it’s doubtful the past can be overcome to develop a relationship with Grace.
Carnations in Januaryis the first book in the Flowers Can Be Fatal series by British author Clare Revell (and, yes, there are 12 in the series, one for each month). Revell is a prolific author, having published numerous books in the romance, crime fiction, and children’s genres. She lives with her family in a small town in England, and most of her books are set in the U.K.
Carnations in January is a story about brokenness, and how two people with significant personal heartbreak can overcome what’s in their past and find a future together.
Adam Blumer is the author of three Christian suspense novels: Fatal Illusions (Meaningful Suspense Press); its sequel, The Tenth Plague (Kirkdale Press); and Kill Order (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas). A print journalism major in college, he works full-time from home as a book editor after serving in editorial roles for more than 20 years (Adam was the editor for my first two novels, Dancing Priest and A Light Shining). He lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his wife, Kim, and his daughters, Laura and Julia.
And he has a new book – Kill Order. Here’s the summary:
“When he sleeps, the forgotten terrors of the past come alive.
“Grammy-winning pianist Landon Jeffers’s brain cancer has given him only a few years to live. But when he sleeps, the forgotten terrors of his past torment him. When he wakes, shameful memories come rushing back. Desperate for answers, Jeffers discovers that a brain implant intended to treat his cancer is really a device to control him, forcing him to commit terrible crimes. Now he’s being manipulated by an evil crime syndicate and a crooked cop.
“What if free will isn’t? What if your every move is predestined? If you kill, are you guilty of murder?”
Here’s what Adam has to say about his writing journey, writing fiction, his faith, and Kill Order.
Tell me about your writing journey. How did you get started?
I’ve loved to write stories since I was a kid and studied novel writing in college. I completed five unpublished novels, mostly for youth, before I began Fatal Illusions, my first published novel, in the spring of 2002 in conjunction with a Writer's Digest correspondence course on novel writing. In January 2006, literary agent Steve Laube, a well-known and respected voice in Christian fiction, responded enthusiastically to my book proposal and asked to see the entire manuscript. Of course, I was on cloud nine. Though he ultimately declined to represent me, he kindly gave me eight suggestions on how to make the novel publishable.
My first novel is Fatal Illusions (Meaningful Suspense Press). The sequel is The Tenth Plague (Kirkdale Press). Both are available as paperbacks and e-books.
What inspired you to write Kill Order?
My dad, Larry, passed away from brain cancer in 2011, and several aspects of his cancer journey kicked off the initial story idea. One key detail involved a medical procedure. The doctors agreed to remove as much of my dad’s brain tumor as possible and replace it with medicinal wafers intended to fight the existing cancer. My mind began playing the what-if game. What if the doctor implanted something else, something that could monitor or even control my dad’s life? The story’s premise grew from there.
When did you realize your calling to create words on paper to share with the world?
Adam Blumer
When I was a child, I began writing wildly imaginative pirate and fantasy stories. My first handwritten story was a fantastical tale about Captain Kidd’s spyglass. In high school, I also wrote and finished an unpublished novel called Down with the Ship. It’s such an Agatha Christie copycat that I laugh whenever I peruse it, but emulation is how a lot of authors get to be where they are today. Those were the early projects that inspired me to take novel writing seriously. When I won a high school award for creative writing, I wondered if God wanted to do more with my love for fiction. In college I won more writing awards, and though I studied journalism, I took as many creative writing courses as possible. God opened doors from there, and I’ve never lost my love for fiction writing.
Do you have a favorite Bible verse?
Isaiah 41:10 says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (ESV). I’ve always loved this verse, and my wife and I included it in our wedding ceremony.
If you could, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Writing the story is only half of the project. The other half is finding out what readers like to read, crafting the story for them by following publishing standards, and writing the story to the best of your ability. Then remember that publishers can take a very long to decide whether they want your work. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep going and waiting.
What is the hardest part of the creative process of writing?
I rarely have difficulty coming up with story ideas and even an engaging premise, but getting from the beginning to the ending is a circuitous path that can sometimes come to dead ends. The hardest part of novel writing is choosing the right path that comes out at the right ending. There are so many moving pieces and critical decisions along the way that the writer can become paralyzed, overcome by too many choices. If you’re an indecisive person, you’ll never succeed as a novelist.
What do you read for fun?
Authors write what they like to read. When I was a kid, I devoured Hardy Boys books—yes, even my sister’s collection of Nancy Drew. While growing up, I read Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Ray Bradbury, and Madeleine L’Engle. Eventually I gravitated to suspense fiction by authors like Frank Peretti, Terri Blackstock, and Mary Higgins Clark. I grew weary of whodunits and preferred suspense novels. I like novels that grab me around the throat, keep the pages turning, and never let go until the final period. Suspense novels filled with plenty of action and conflict captivate me like no other books I read, though I also have a fondness for good literature, fantasy, history, biography, true crime, and science fiction.
What was the hardest part about writing Kill Order? How long does it typically take you to write your novels?
The ending was tough to write. While I’m typically an organized plotter, I took off the training wheels on this one and let the story glide where it and the characters wanted to go. The journey became fun but scary. I had the premise and some plot developments in place, but how the story concluded took more work than I expected.
I typically take at least a couple of years of evenings and weekends for the actual writing of the book. But that doesn’t count the time needed to shop the novel around through my agent and then wait on a publisher before and after the contract; the publishing wheel turns much more slowly than most readers realize. I wish I could write more quickly than that, but that’s the reality for me, since this isn’t my full-time gig.
Your branding on your website is for “meaningful suspense.” What inspired you to write these kinds of thrillers and suspense novels? Also, what inspired your “clean fiction guarantee”?
I began reading Christian novels in junior high and soon gravitated to suspense. Back in the day, an inspirational thread was a staple in Christian fiction, and I believe a Christian novel can do more than simply entertain. These days many authors are leaning toward writing clean, moral stories but avoiding overt Christian content. I’m a believer that the inspirational content should stay (hence “meaningful suspense”). Books can encourage and even challenge readers’ thinking while taking them on a roller coaster of a ride. The “clean fiction guarantee” came about due to the rise of objectionable content in some Christian fiction. My fans were expressing disappointment to me due to content issues when they tried books by some Christian authors. I felt it was time to declare where I stood, and many readers have appreciated my guarantee.
Where is your favorite place to write?
I’ve been blessed with a wonderful home office. Though I often like to write in other locations, this is by far my favorite place. I can close the door, shut out life’s distractions, pray, and become immersed in my story. Now and then, if I need a break, I can glance out the window and delight in God’s creation.
What are you reading at the moment, and who are a few of your favorite authors?
I’m currently enjoying Mind Games by Nancy Mehl. I especially enjoy a good thriller, whether Christian or secular. Some of my favorite authors are Steven James, Terri Blackstock, Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, and Brandilyn Collins. I like how they weave story threads together and craft their scenes in ways that keeps the plot moving forward. Their books are great examples of what works in suspense writing. I learn so much simply by reading their novels.
What is the best part of your author’s life?
I love hearing from readers who went to work tired because they stayed up too late finishing one of my novels. If I kept them immersed in my story and entertained, that’s a score in my book.
Do you have any new writing projects on the horizon?
I’m almost finished with the first draft of the sequel to Kill Order and hope to have something ready for my agent sometime this fall.
What’s one unusual fact about you?
When I was a kid, for a while I wanted to be a ventriloquist and had a “dummy” named Andy. But then I got braces and could no longer talk through my teeth like I used to. Andy sadly went into storage.
What are your three biggest frustrations about the writing business?
First, the amount of time each book requires from start to finish. Included in this is the long wait time from publishers. Second, the continually changing rules in writing and publishing. Just when you think you know what publishers are looking for, your agent tells you something else. Third, book marketing. One cannot guarantee sales. I wish a book release was like the movie Field of Dreams. “Build it, and they will come.” If only it were that easy. There is almost an equal amount of work in just promoting the book.
What excites you the most about the creative process?
I get most excited about the creative process when a plot development I never saw coming unexpectedly presents itself, taking the story in a new but stronger direction. This epiphany has happened to me several times.
