Q&A with Jody Hedlund

On Monday I reviewed Jody Hedlund's beautiful new novel, Newton & Polly: A Novel of Amazing Grace. Today I am happy to share a Q&A with Jody that she has provided that gives a bit of insight into this story.


You’ve written about many other true historical couples. What drew you to write about Newton & Polly?

Like most people, I’m familiar with the song Amazing Grace and knew it was written by John Newton who’d once been an atheist slave trader. I’d even heard a little bit about John Newton’s saving grace moment when he was aboard a ship during a life-threatening storm and cried out to God.

However, I’d never heard anything about the love of his life, Polly Catlett, until I began to dig a little deeper into his life. It didn’t take me long to realize that Newton had a passionate love for her, and his love for her affected just about every decision he made for good and bad. Theirs is a beautiful love story, one that God used in a powerful way. I decided it was a story the world needed to hear.

Polly Catlett is one of those forgotten women of history. Since most people have never heard of her, she can’t be all that important, can she? What role did she really play in Newton’s life?

Newton readily admits in his autobiography that he fell in love with Polly Catlett at first sight. He says this: “At the first sight of this girl, I felt an affection for her that never abated or lost its influence a single moment in my heart.”

He was completely taken with Polly so much so that every time he visited her, he overextended his stay. Such irresponsibility cost him at least two different jobs and in the end was one of the major reasons he was captured and impressed into the king’s navy.

When Newton’s naval ship sailed away from England, he was so depressed that he contemplated suicide. He said: “Nothing I either felt or feared distressed me so much as being thus forcibly torn away from the object of my affections.”

During his time away as he was involved in the slave trade, Newton’s love for Polly never diminished. If not for his passion for her, he probably wouldn’t have boarded the ship that took him away from Africa. He wouldn’t have experienced the life-threatening storm on the way home. And he might not have written Amazing Grace.

So, yes indeed Polly Catlett was incredibly important. If not for her, the world may never have known the most amazing hymn ever written.

Newton was a prodigal son. He was estranged from his family during his rebellious years, but later made peace with his father. What hope does Newton and Polly offer to parents dealing with children who have left the faith?

As a one-time prodigal child now experiencing a rebellious child of my own, I take a great amount of comfort in Newton’s story. First, I revel in the knowledge that God can take our mistakes, turn them around, and use them for His plans and purposes.

Second, I take comfort in Newton’s story because it reminds me that no matter how far our children stray into sin or even atheism like Newton, that they are never too far beyond the reach of God. We as parents need to do our job planting seeds, praying, and encouraging our children in what’s right. But ultimately God is the one who woos and wins our children to Himself.

From a human perspective, Newton looked hopelessly lost, especially as the years began to pass without any sign of change. But we as parents can find solace in knowing that through all of the pain and heartache, God has not abandoned us or our child. He’s there and His plans are at work, even when we can’t see them.


Clearly “grace” is an important theme in Newton & Polly. But what other issues or themes does the book address?

Actually, the book is full of various themes. One major theme has to do with the timeless conflict between Christian and cultural values. In the mid 1700’s smuggling had become so commonplace that people turned a blind eye to it and even condoned it, especially if they wanted to avoid hardships and even persecution. I hope the book challenges readers to evaluate how they might be going along with cultural values instead of living with truth and integrity.

The book also sheds some light on the controversy of the slavery issue at the time, giving insights into those who supported it as well as the growing abolitionist movement (which was still in its infancy during this part of Newton’s life).

Another theme is how to handle singleness. Like Polly, it’s all too tempting for single adults to grow impatient in waiting for the “right” person to come along and to begin to consider compromising values for fear of remaining single.

What do you hope readers walk away with after having read Newton & Polly?

During the very last time I read the book while I was doing my last edit, Newton’s return to God brought me to tears. I hope readers, too, are overwhelmed by the sense of God’s presence and grace in Newton’s life.

More than that, I pray that readers will have a new sense of God’s grace extended toward them, that they’ll realize that no matter what they’ve done or where they’ve been, that God is waiting to draw them into his outstretched arms into his amazing grace.


What’s coming up next in your publication schedule? What can readers look forward to?

In January of 2017, readers can look forward to the 5th and final book in my Beacons of Hope lighthouse series! Be looking for a cover reveal soon!

Then in March of 2017, my third young adult book, For Love and Honor, releases. This book spotlights the third knight in the series, Sir Bennet, and tells how he finds his one true love.

In June of 2017, I’ll be unveiling a brand new series published by Bethany House. More information coming soon!


JODY'S BIO:

Jody Hedlund is a best-selling and award-winning author who loves history and happily-ever-afters. She makes her home in Midland, MI with her husband and five children. When she's not writing another of her page-turning stories, you can usually find her sipping coffee, eating chocolate, and reading.



CONTACT JODY:
I hang out on Facebook here: Author Jody Hedlund
I also love to chat on Twitter: @JodyHedlund
My home base is at my website: jodyhedlund.com
For lots of fun pictures, follow me on Pinterest: pinterest.com/jodyhedlund
I get personal on Instagram: instagram.com/JodyHedlund/

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A Q&A with Jody Hedlund

Hearts Made Whole
Beacons of Hope
Jody Hedlund
(Bethany House)
ISBN: 978-0764212383
June 2015/384 pages/$14.99

Yesterday, I told you about Jody Hedlund's latest release, Hearts Made Whole. Today I'm happy to share with you an Q&A session that Jody provided to give you a peek into the book and her life.


How did you come up with the idea for Hearts Made Whole?

Historical textbooks are full of stories about men like George Washington, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, and so many more. And while such men are truly remarkable, all too often their stories overshadow equally courageous and remarkable women. One of my goals as an author is to help bring forgotten women of the past to life.

In the Beacons of Hope series, I'm focusing on historical women light keepers who have often been kept in the dark by the more prominent stories of their male counterparts.

As I researched for writing a lighthouse series, I came across a fantastic book called, Ladies of the Lights: Michigan Women in the U.S. Lighthouse Service. The book is a tribute to the approximately 50 or so women who served either as primary or assistant keepers in Michigan Lighthouses.

I based the heroine in Hearts Made Whole on one of those women light keepers. It's my hope to bring her and the other women keepers out of the historical shadows and into the spotlight.

What is the story about and who are the main characters?

This story is set at a lighthouse in southern Michigan on Lake St. Clair where the heroine, Caroline Taylor, is the acting light keeper. However, in the time directly following the Civil War, women weren't allowed to be light keepers if a man was available instead. Men were almost always given precedence.

Along comes the wounded war hero, Ryan Chambers, who having a little bit of lighthouse experience is looking for a place where he can be isolated and nurse his physical and emotional wounds.

Of course, when the two meet, they're both competing for the same job. Caroline needs to stay in the position in order to provide for her four younger siblings. And Ryan needs the job so that he can save to repay his war debts.

As is always true for my books, when the hero and heroine meet both danger and romance abound!

Each of your lighthouse books is set at a real lighthouse that once existed in Michigan or still does exist. Tell us a little about the lighthouse in this second book.
In my first lighthouse book (Love Unexpected), the lighthouse was set at Presque Isle which is on Lake Huron on the north eastern side of the state. For the second book, I picked a lighthouse in a completely new location with the intention of giving readers a different flavor of climate, geography, and the population.

Windmill Point Lighthouse once existed on Lake St. Clair near Detroit, a much more urban and highly trafficked area than the remote wilderness of Presque Isle. Windmill Point Lighthouse was a strategic beacon that helped ships cross from Lake Huron over into Lake Erie as those ships transported raw goods from the Northwest states to eastern cities and seaports.

The lighthouse is named after the old ruins of a windmill where early frontiersmen brought their grain for grinding. Also, legends attribute the area to being an old battle field of a savage encounter between the early French settlers and Indians. As many as 1000 Fox Indians were slaughtered on the banks of Lake St. Clair. Later settlers to the area uncovered bones, arrowheads, tomahawks, and other gruesome mementos of the battle.

Today, all traces of the original windmill, lighthouse, and burial grounds are long gone. If you visit Grosse Pointe in the Detroit area, all that remains is a small conical structure with a white flashing light.

Is there anything about this second lighthouse book that ties it to the first one? Or are they both stand alone novels that can be read in any order?
All of the books in the Beacon of Hope series can stand alone. Readers don't need to read one book to understand the next. However, I do recommend starting with the novella, Out of the Storm (free in ebook format) which lays the foundation for a common theme that stretches through each book in the series.

The hero of Hearts Made Whole, Ryan Chambers, is the brother of the heroine from the first book (Love Unexpected). Readers will enjoy meeting the younger, more carefree Ryan in Love Unexpected. But they'll fall in love with him in Hearts Made Whole even if they haven't yet met him in book 1.

Many of the heroines in your books are inspired by real women. Is that true of the heroine in Hearts Made Whole? If so, what women provided inspiration?
The woman light keeper in Hearts Made Whole is inspired by Caroline Antaya. Caroline lived at the Mamajuda Lighthouse on the Detroit River a short distance away from Windmill Point Lighthouse.

Caroline's husband served with honor in the Union army during the Civil War, losing several fingers on his hand at Gettysburg. Eventually after returning from the war, her husband was named as keeper of the Mamajuda Lighthouse, but he passed away of tuberculosis.

Part of what really impressed me about Caroline Antaya's situation was that she had been doing a fantastic job as a light keeper. But the district lighthouse inspector trumped up charges against her saying that she was in ill-health and incompetent. He took away her position simply because she was a woman and gave it to a man instead. Fortunately, her community rose to her defense and enlisted the help of a Michigan Senator to help her get her position back and she went on to serve as a light keeper for another three years.

In those days, when women were regularly discriminated against because of gender, Caroline's story is inspirational and an encouragement to persevere in the face of injustice. I admired Caroline's will to stand up for herself and to pave the way for women coming after her to use their God-given talents and abilities in roles and jobs that had previously been closed to women.

Which scene in Hearts Made Whole was the most fun to write? Which was the hardest?
My favorite scene to write was the shaving scene, where Ryan is attempting to shave himself one-handed (due to his war injury), and he ends up doing a terrible job! Caroline offers to help him which leads to a very romantic scene of her lathering him up and having to spend plenty of time in close proximity.

The hardest part of the book to write was the scene where Caroline's sister Tessa makes a BIG mistake (I can't mention it otherwise I will spoil the story). But it was a heart-wrenching scene (and difficult to write tastefully and required lots of editing to get it just right).

What do you hope readers take away from Hearts Made Whole?
Readers familiar with my books will know that I'm not afraid to tackle really tough issues. That's especially true in Hearts Made Whole. Since the hero is coming home as a Civil War veteran, he's facing some post-traumatic stress as well as debilitating war wounds that leave him addicted to his pain medicine.

At the same time the heroine is struggling to act as both father and mother to her four siblings while holding down a job as light keeper. She has the overwhelming job of trying to take care of everyone and everything while always remaining strong.

Both characters come to a point where they recognize they can't face all of their overwhelming troubles on their own and cry out to God their desperate need for Him. I hope that readers will take away a desire to turn to God in their most desperate needs too and know that He is there waiting to comfort and help them.

Why lighthouses? What fascinates you about these shining beacons?
I'm fascinated with lighthouses for a number of reasons. First, my state of Michigan is home to the greatest concentration of lights in the United States. In fact, Michigan is noted as the state where the most lighthouses were erected. And now today, more than 120 remain compared to 500 total for the rest of the nation.

Not only are lighthouse beautiful and picturesque, but they bring back a sense of nostalgia, poignancy, and romance that few other historical markers do. They're rich in historical details and stories. They're wrought with danger and death. And they're just plain fun to explore. Climbing the winding staircase, reaching the top, and peering out the tower windows (or in some cases going out onto the gallery) is breathtaking.

What kind of rules and regulations did lighthouses have?
The rules and regulations for keepers were often very strict. Keepers were expected to maintain spotlessly clean homes and towers, had to be ready for surprise inspections at any time, and had to maintain rigorous log books with accurate records that documented everything from ship wrecks to oil usage to weather conditions.

One rule that I found especially funny was that women were prohibited from painting the lighthouse tower. Obviously their skirts put them at a disadvantage over men, especially for painting jobs that required them to sit high above the ground. Nevertheless, it was one more area where women were not allowed the same privileges as men.

How do you manage to balance your life as a full-time author and mom to five busy children?
It’s definitely not easy to manage my busy household of five children and squeeze in time for writing. But fortunately my husband is very helpful and pitches in to help wherever possible. We really work together as a team to support each other in our pursuits and work.

For example, when he's home he often takes over the household responsibilities, runs kids to activities, and pitches in with homeschooling so that I can have concentrated blocks of time to write.
We've also simplified our home life and outside commitments as much as possible. We expect our children to shoulder responsibilities around the home. And last, but certainly not least, I rely upon my mom for lots of help too. She helps homeschool, cook meals, and even runs my kids to activities.

Do you ever get writer's block? How do you work your way past it?
No, fortunately, I rarely get writer’s block. I give myself a daily word count of how much I need to write, and I stick to it as best as I can. Whatever amount I miss one day, I try to make up on another day of that week. Having the daily/weekly goals helps keep me going even when I’m not in the mood. However, if I ever get into a slump, I put in my earbuds and listen to music. The steady rhythm helps me block out distractions, inspires me, and often evokes strong emotions deep inside me.

Do you do a lot of research for your novels? Do you do it before, in the middle, or after you write your novel?
Since I write historicals, research is an integral part of my writing process. I usually spend anywhere between 4-6 weeks on initial research, reading biographies, getting a feel for the time period, and digging into the meat that will comprise the plot of my book.

Once I start writing the first draft, I have to stop from time to time to do a little more research, particularly if I switch settings within the story. But usually, if I don’t know something, I’ll highlight it and then do more research during my editing phase.

How do you name each character?
The process of coming up with names is quite complicated, and I generally take a lot of elements into consideration. I keep a running list of all the heroes and heroines of my books and try not to duplicate anything too closely to a name I've already used.

I also take into consideration names used doing the time period and the ethnicity of my characters. For example, in my first lighthouse book, Love Unexpected, I chose Irish names that were commonly used during the 1800's because both of the main characters had an Irish heritage.

Sometimes I consider symbolism for names. Other times, particularly in my inspired-by stories, I try to pick a name that is similar to the character from history that I'm portraying.

What essential ingredients do you strive for in your novels to ensure an authentic love story emerges?
I always try to incorporate the elements that I like to see in the romances I read. That includes deep emotions that are birthed out of a character's past. I also like to have a relationship that evolves organically throughout the book. I try not to have my characters being antagonistic to one another the whole book and then finally falling in love in the last chapter at the last minute. I want the couple to move from friendship to falling in love gradually and to have a growing attraction (with the sparks flying!) throughout the book.

At the same time, however, I don't like to have the love relationship resolve too early in the book. Readers don't want the "happily-ever-after" moment to come until the end. So while the relationship is developing, it's important to find ways to keep the couple from being fully together until the end.

What Scripture verse has inspired you in your writing?
Among many, here’s one I aspire to live by: Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. (Ecc. 9:10) I believe in working responsibly and hard with the gifts we’ve been given.

What do you do to get away from it all?
READ!! I absolutely love reading! When I find a really good book, I have a hard time tearing myself away from it to get to sleep.

What is your family up to these days?
My husband and I are celebrating 24 years of marriage this summer! Yay! My oldest son is graduating from high school and will be attending a private Christian college in the fall, Cedarville University in Ohio. My twins will be turning 16 during the summer and getting their driver's licenses. Since they are involved in SO many activities, I'm looking forward to them driving themselves places! My youngest two children have completed 4th and 6th grade and are in an Adventures In Odyssey phase. I think they've listened to just about every episode that's ever been made!

Jody's Bio:

Jody Hedlund is a best-selling and award-winning author who loves history and happily-ever-afters. She makes her home in Midland, MI with her husband and five children. When she's not writing another of her page-turning stories, you can usually find her sipping coffee, eating chocolate, and reading.

Contact Jody:

I hang out on Facebook here: Author Jody Hedlund
I also love to chat on Twitter: @JodyHedlund
My home base is at my website: jodyhedlund.com
For lots of fun pictures, follow me on Pinterest: pinterest.com/jodyhedlund
I get personal on Instagram: instagram.com/JodyHedlund/
Or you're welcome to email me at: jodyhedlund@jodyhedlund.com

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An Interview with Tamera Alexander

Last week I posted my review of Tamera Alexander's breathtaking new novel, To Win Her Favor, the second in her Belle Meade Plantation series, which releases this coming Tuesday, May 12. Today I am delighted to share an interview with this talented author.

To Win Her Favor
A Belle Meade Plantation Novel
Tamera Alexander
(Zondervan/Harper Collins)
ISBN: 978-0310291077
May 2015/384 pages/$15.99

To Win Her Favor is the second in your Belle Meade Plantation series. Can you tell us where the story picks up in the series? Is it directly connected to the first book?

Each of the Belle Meade Plantation novels are standalone novels, so each tells a complete story. However, you might just catch a glimpse of Ridley and Olivia from To Whisper Her Name in To Win Her Favor (releasing May 12, 2015). But Cullen and Maggie’s story definitely takes center stage in To Win Her Favor, the second of three novels in the Belle Meade Plantation series.

Coming in July is a Belle Meade Plantation novella—To Mend a Dream. To Mend a Dream continues the story of a secondary character we meet in To Win Her Favor, Savannah Darby. Savannah is Maggie’s closest friend and while we learn about Savannah’s struggles in To Win Her Favor, the culmination of her story is told in To Mend a Dream, a novella in a Southern novella collection entitled, Among the Fair Magnolias (written with authors Shelley Shepard Gray, Dorothy Love, and Elizabeth Musser).

You are a resident of Nashville, which is a city rich with culture and history. Is this why you chose to set your series there?

I’ve always had a love of history. Southern history, specifically. Being from Atlanta, I grew up around antebellum homes, so when I was in Nashville on a business trip in 2004 with my daughter, we toured the Belmont Mansion, and I knew then I wanted to someday write about Belmont’s fascinating history (A Lasting Impression and A Beauty So Rare). Likewise, when I learned about Belle Meade’s thoroughbred legacy, the ideas started coming (for To Whisper Her Name and To Win Her Favor). I’m honored to write about these two Nashville estates and their real history. It never gets old for me.

How many times did you visit the actual Belle Meade Plantation while writing this book?

Oh gracious, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been out there (Belle Meade is only 25 minutes from my house). Just two weeks ago, I met a book club of about 30 women at Belle Meade. They were from Alabama, having a girl’s weekend out! After they toured the mansion, we walked down to the old Harding cabin, one of my favorite places at Belle Meade, and where Belle Meade all began. No visit to Belle Meade is complete for me without stopping by that cabin. It has such a presence about it.

I’m grateful to Belle Meade’s director, Alton Kelley (a descendant of the Harding family who owned Belle Meade in the 1800s) and to Jenny Lamb (Belle Meade Educational Director) for opening up the family files, letters, and artifacts to me. I couldn’t write these books with such historical detail about the house, the family members, and the servants without Belle Meade’s assistance.

How much of the novel is based on actual events and how much is from your imagination?

The backdrop of the novel—Nashville’s history, the Belle Meade mansion, outbuildings of the estate, the family members, and most of the servants at Belle Meade—are from history. I often take documented historical events—such as parties, horse races, or catastrophic occurrences—and weave them into the fabric of my stories. Then I intertwine a fictional story that follows the journey of a male and female protagonist within that story world. In To Win Her Favor, that’s Cullen McGrath and Maggie Linden.

The basis for Cullen’s character is founded in the history of Irishmen who came to Nashville in the 1850-70s, and who faced very real prejudice from Nashville residents. Likewise, Maggie’s character was inspired by accounts of women who were formerly landed gentry (from wealthy families who were major land owners) but who lost everything following the war and the changes that conflict brought. The rest of the details are filled in by asking myself the question writers constantly ask themselves, "What if…"

How was this book different from other projects you have worked on?

To Win Her Favor is definitely one of the more passionate stories I’ve written, and I don’t mean that solely in a romantic sense. From the start, this story was simply more evocative because it delves into the intimacies of a marriage of convenience, and also explores prejudice within a marriage—in addition to examining the prejudices between former slave owners and former slaves. Passions run high between the characters in To Win Her Favor. Everyone was learning how to be with each other in that time period, learning where the new boundaries were, where everyone fit.

As I read and researched for To Win Her Favor, I often found my own emotions stirred by real events that occurred in Nashville during Reconstruction. At times, the accounts were repugnant and heartbreaking. Yet at others, they were remarkably soul stirring with fresh whispers of hope.


View vignettes filmed on location at Belle Meade Plantation, the setting of To Whisper Her Name and To Win Her Favor, on the Belle Meade Plantation novels page on Tamera’s website.


Website: www.TameraAlexander.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tameraalexander

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tameraalexander

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/TameraAuthor

Blog: www.TameraAlexander.blogspot.com



Many thanks to Tamera Alexander and Zondervan for providing this interview.

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Esther: Royal Beauty

Esther: Royal Beauty
A Dangerous Beauty Novel, #1
Angela Hunt
(Bethany House)
ISBN: 978-0764216954
December 2014/352 pages/$14.99
When an ambitious tyrant threatens genocide against the Jews, an inexperienced young queen must take a stand for her people.

When Xerxes, king of Persia, issues a call for beautiful young women, Hadassah, a Jewish orphan living in Susa, is forcibly taken to the palace of the pagan ruler. After months of preparation, the girl known to the Persians as Esther wins the king's heart and a queen's crown. But because her situation is uncertain, she keeps her ethnic identity a secret until she learns that an evil and ambitious man has won the king's permission to exterminate all Jews--young and old, powerful and helpless. Purposely violating an ancient Persian law, she risks her life in order to save her people...and bind her husband's heart.


Read an excerpt.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With nearly five million copies of her books sold worldwide, Angela Hunt is the New York Times bestselling author of The Tale of Three Trees, The Note, and The Nativity Story. Angela's novels have won or been nominated for several prestigious industry awards, including the RITA Award, the Christy Award, the ECPA Christian Book Award, and the HOLT Medallion Award. Romantic Times Book Club presented Angela with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. In 2008, she completed her doctorate in Biblical Studies and is currently completing her Th.D. Angela and her husband live in Florida, along with their mastiffs. She can be found online at www.angelahuntbooks.com.



MY THOUGHTS

Angela Hunt is one of my top five must-read authors, so I was thrilled to receive a copy of Esther for Christmas from my family. As a personal preference, I rarely read Biblical fiction as I don't like embellishing that which is in the Bible. However, knowing that Angela Hunt has a doctorate in Biblical studies and that she does a tremendous amount of research (including a lengthy bibliography in the back of the novel), I knew it would be a fascinating and credible--albeit fiction--account. Hunt paints an intriguing picture of this well-known Bible story and provides much insight into the era and culture. Her portrayal of life outside and inside palace walls captivated me as I followed Esther from her loving home with Mordecai and his wife to the palace and the lengthy preparatory process for that all-important audition with the king, continuing with her day-to-day life once she became queen. Hunt ably marries facts and feelings in her creation of multi-faceted characters and a powerful story. I gained a fresh perspective of one of my favorite Biblical characters and continued to ponder her life long after I closed the book. Add this to your must-read list. I'm already looking forward to her next book, about Bathsheba!

INTERVIEW EXCERPT

When I interviewed Angela Hunt at ICRS last summer, we talked a bit about this book and series, and Angie shared some things she learned during her research. While I posted most of our chat in July, I saved this excerpt to include here.

Tell me what's next for you. Esther is coming out next?

Yes, Esther is done and comes out in January. I'm working on the first draft of Bathsheba. I'm doing the three "Bible Babes." I was researching beauty and the word tob in Hebrew means a certain kind of beauty that is sexual and draws men to you. Those three are tob women. Their beauty got all of them into precarious situations.

That's interesting, because I don't put Esther in the same category as Delilah and Bathsheba. I've always thought of her as a purer beauty. I didn't think she did the same treatments as the other women.

She did the same treatments; I don't think she had a choice. The difference with Esther was, the night she got dressed she let Hegai dress her. She let him choose whatever he thought she should wear. But she went through all the same ointments and rubbing and treatments the other girls did.

I learned some things that I'd always wondered about such as, why did Mordecai not want her to say she was Jewish? I could never find a reason for that, but I found it [researching this novel]. If you study Nehemiah, there was a king, Xerxes, who stopped the assistance. The Jews had already returned, under Cyrus, to start rebuilding what became Zerubbabel's temple before Xerxes became king. But Mordecai's family did not go back. They could have gone back to Israel but they chose not to. They were still in Persia and Mordecai had a good position working in the king's gate but he still told Esther not to divulge her identity. I think it's because he knew Xerxes had been influenced by the Samaritans. They had sent him letters saying the Jews coming back were troublemakers so he had stopped sending supplies and money and had them stop the building. So just that tiny bit of anti-Semitic action, I think, put Mordecai on his guard, so he told Esther not to say who she was. I think I had her not eat shellfish and keep Kosher but not make a big deal about it.

No protagonist is perfect, no matter what we think of these women in the Bible. They're still human. I saw her as similar to an American Christian girl who is in love with the culture; I painted her as someone who loved Persia. She loved this cute Persian boy. One day she saw the Queen go by with her entourage in the marketplace and she was enamored. She's all caught up in that adulation, and it's not until her crisis moment that she even realizes what being Jewish is all about. There's no recorded time that she prays or says "God" up to that point. She's just like a lot of American girls who are so in love with culture that they have to get knocked down before they realize what faith is all about.


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You can find out more about this book in a Q&A with Angela Hunt which her publisher has provided here.

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Interview with Hannah Alexander and a Giveaway!

Update Monday, 9/1/14 WINNER!

Random Integer Generator
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2
Timestamp: 2014-09-01 19:38:38 UTC
Congrats to Beth! Email me your address, Beth, and I'll send the book your way!
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I'm happy today to introduce you to Hannah Alexander. I was thrilled to meet her in Atlanta at ICRS back in June, as I have enjoyed her books for years, long before I ever heard of blogging or dreamed I'd ever get to review books! Hannah Alexander is actually a pen name of a husband and wife team, as you will learn in the interview below. Their most recent release is Hallowed Halls, which I reviewed here. I have an autographed copy of this book to give away at the end of the interview!


I'm so excited to meet you. I discovered your books in the library and read them long before I started blogging and reviewing books. I enjoyed the Girls Write Out blog when you blogged with Colleen Coble, Diann Hunt, Denise Hunter, and Kristen Billerbeck, but y'all aren't doing that anymore..

No but I'm blogging at Christians Read. I blog every other Tuesday there. Vicki Hinze started that, and it's really growing. There are 16,000 people on it now.

Wow! How have I not known about that? I'll definitely check that out. Hannah Alexander is your pen name and you do all your writing and correspondence as that, correct?

Yes. We even have a mailing address, a post office box, that is in another town because people have come to my front door and knocked on the door!

I've noticed that recently you've been more upfront about saying "Hannah Alexander is the pen name of Cheryl and Mel Hodde."

We did and now I'm not doing it as much, but everyone knows anyway so why even bother? I tried it with this book that just came out, Hallowed Halls, and just said "husband and wife writing team." But part of what people like about us is that we tell our love story. Our pastor introduced us. I'd been through a horrible time. My husband divorced me for another woman – the whole bit. I'm very open about that. Then our pastor introduced us. The first time we met, we started talking on this arranged date, and I asked him how to paralyze somebody! He looked rather shocked and stammered a bit and I said, "Oh, just temporarily." I finally realized I had scared the guy to death, that he didn't know I'm a novelist. Once I explained that and that I wanted to do it just temporarily in a book, we started talking and he got really involved in it. That's when we started collaborating. He gives me all the medical information. He doesn't do the writing. He can't even figure out what I'm doing until I'm done. Then he reads it and helps me with the medical scenes, which I'm not doing as much now because I can't keep up with him and he's working too hard.

I've loved that because it drives me nuts when a book has inaccurate information. It's like watching a TV show and there's an IV hanging but it's not connected to the patient or it's not dripping.

That's why Mel can't watch medical shows on TV. He'll say, "you just killed that patient!" You have to have the realism because there are so many medical people that read. I've had so many people tell me, "Your books are really realistic." They're right! That's because my husband's a doctor. He'll make me get it right.

That's why I love your books and Harry Kraus's. He's still on my bucket list to meet in person, although we've connected by email and on FB.

Harry, yes! And now he's writing more about some of his experiences in Africa and I'm loving that. He was my favorite author long before I was ever published, when Mel and I first got married. We were at a marriage retreat and I met this woman and as we talked I mentioned he was my favorite author and she said "He's my cousin!" I told her I loved his writing because I love medicine. This was way back when during his early years of publishing They were third cousins and she went home and told him. Then we met him and his wife through writer's conferences and just loved them.

Your recent release is a new venture with the Jerry Jenkins Select. Is this potentially how you will do your books in the future? What publishing house have you previously worked with?

We were with Bethany House and then we did a couple of books with Barbour. When Steeple Hill Women's Fiction line began, we helped launch that. Our editor came in when we did and she retired last year. We had worked together ten years and I thought, "That's it. I can't work without Joan." So everything has changed. They've discontinued that line, which was long Women's Fiction, so the first book in the new series –I had ten books published in the Hideaway series, and one book was orphaned and just fell through the cracks. I had one book with Summerside, and it fell through the cracks because they lost their marketer and sold to Guideposts. I'm doing a few of the shorter ones, but there are so many restrictions. I have one set in 1855 and I can't use whisky, which was medicinal. The Jerry Jenkins Select was a great opportunity.

So will you do it like this again or go out on your own?

He [Jenkins] has so many different choices that you can make. I think I will probably do my e-books myself. But Jerry Jenkins is only going to be doing fiction once a year. From what I understand, he's doing fiction in the spring and non-fiction in the fall. And these are people who have been published forever, not new authors. I would like to continue, I think. It's been a rough learning experience for everyone and we're working out all the kinks, but I'm thinking it will be a good option and it looks like it's going to continue. I would like to work with him again. I'm already working on the next book in the series with Hallowed Halls. I'm all excited about it and I'm going to put it out as an e-book long before they get any hard copies out.

That was going to be my next question, what you are working on next!

I've had the title that I've wanted to write forever, A Class Act or A Very Class Act or something along those lines because it's a class of medical students.

This is the follow-up to Hallowed Halls.

Yes, and one of the secondary characters becomes the main character. When the book opens, she's in a fugue state and doesn't know why. Throughout the book we find out what horrible things have happened to her. She's a psychiatrist and gets too involved with her patients. Joy – the main character in the first book – is her best friend, so they work through it and find out what happened. I'm really excited about it and about the third book. It's women's fiction with some medical aspects and there will always be some mystery to it, but it won't be a murder mystery.

Do you plot or are you a pantser or both?

I do both. I used to sit down and think about exactly what I wanted, and write a scene out on a Post-it notes. I have a long dining room table, and I would write my scenes and then put them on the table and move them around and write from that. That would be my outline. Now, I just sit down and start writing. I go from character. I have to have my characters first, so I write a character sheet for each person. Then I write their stories and intermingle them. So it's character-driven but their plots are involved and I can weave them together. I usually have three vocal people that we are in their minds, three points of view.

Do you have the voices in your head that authors talk about?

No, but I have seen some of my characters on the street. Went running after one! (Laughs) And Mel went right along behind me. I said, "Mel, that's Lauren!" Lauren McCaffrey, from one of our old medical books. I said, "It's Lauren, it's really her!" Then I said, "Wait a minute! I can't go up and talk to her. She's going to freak out!"

Do you stay in control of your characters or do they sometimes surprise you?

I'm not surprised because I've been making up stories since before I could write. The creativity is just a part of me, and I just follow it along wherever it goes. Then I come back and I can edit because both sides of my brain work. My biggest problem is not to edit while I'm writing. I let my characters just lead me along. I have cried with them. And I found myself praying for one of them.

Oh, yes, I've read books where I think, "This is ridiculous. These people aren't even real and I feel like I need to pray for them!"

I know. It's really creepy when you think about it!

What do you like to do when you aren't writing?

Read! But I used to hike all the time. Then I developed fibromyalgia and my mother got sick, and I started taking care of her. She passed away and I kept getting sicker because of the emotional impact. I'm an only child and I have no children of my own, so the realization that I'm the only one left was hard. It's been a very difficult couple of years. I used to hike every week, and now I hike maybe twice a year. When Mel gets home from work we're both so tired from trying to get his new clinic started and so many things we're working on, we just sit down and watch television, shows like NCIS that will make me think about something I want to write. I'm just tired right now.

I've been wondering about your pen name. I read something that said you combined your names, and I can't figure out how you get Hannah Alexander from Cheryl and Mel!

We chose our names, and I chose the first name since I'm the one who does the writing. I chose Hannah because six months after we got married, I went through early menopause at 40. We wanted to have children. He was the man who would have been a wonderful father. So I identified with Hannah in the Bible before Samuel was born. Her hope was in the Lord, so I used Hannah because I identified so strongly with her. Then Mel liked Alexander because it means servant of mankind, and he feels that, as a doctor, he serves mankind. A plus is that it puts us up with Randy Alcorn on the A shelves in the bookstore and people can see us easily.

Thanks for sharing that. That makes your name so special. And thank you for taking the time to talk to me. It's been wonderful to get to know you!

Learn more about Hannah Alexander and her books at her website www.hannahalexander.com and connect with her on Facebook.


GIVEAWAY!

I have an autographed copy of Hallowed Halls to give to one of you! To enter, leave a comment on this post by 11:59 pm Sunday (8/31/14) and I will draw a winner. Continental US residents only, please. You must include an email address. Void where prohibited. Winner will have 48 hours to respond when notified or another winner will be chosen.

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Interview with Cynthia Ruchti

I always enjoy the opportunity to catch up with author Cynthia Ruchti. She is on the short list of a few women I know who just radiate God's grace whenever I am around her. I smile just thinking of our time chatting at ICRS. She is such a delight that it can be hard to stay on topic and officially interview her. Her books exude the same grace and hope that she does in person, and she shares a bit about her recent and upcoming offerings below. Grab a cup of your favorite brew and enjoy learning more about this lovely lady!

I always love visiting with you. And wow! You are having such a great year! When the Morning Glory Blooms and Ragged Hope are winning all sorts of awards. When the Morning Glory Blooms just won the 2014 Christian Retailing's BEST Award and also the 2014 Selah Award, and

Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People's Choices was honored with the 2014 Christian Retailing's BEST Award, AWSA Golden Scrolls Book of the Year Second Place, and a 2014 Selah Award. Both of those books are so good and so impactful. Your books really minister to people.

Thank you! I want them to be great stories. I want them to have a base of a story that's going to be interesting to people, but to have you say that is really a blessing.

Your tagline is so appropriate.

My tagline is Hope that Glows in the Dark. I tell stories of Hope that Glows in the Dark, whether that's writing non-fiction or writing fiction. It's the calling card of everything I do.

That is what I feel when I read your pages and even when I talk to you. You have such a sweet countenance about you and you just radiate that hope and sweet spirit.

Thank you. The Lord had to rub a few rough edges off of me and bring me to a place of really realizing what's important in life and who is important in life. There was a moment in my junior high and senior high years when I had to decide if I was really going to be serious about this Jesus stuff or not, even though I'd known about God forever and as a young child had made a commitment that I was going to follow and obey Jesus with my life. But sometimes in those junior and senior high years you have to this moment of just kind of a recommitment of "do I mean it?" Someone had pointed out to me the verse in Psalm 37:4, if you delight in the Lord, He'll give you the desires of your heart, but they taught it from a whole different angle. Finally, I was beginning to understand it, that it wasn't a card that I could shove into a slot and if I just delight myself in the Lord, then all these desires of my heart were going to come.

He changes the desires!

Right! He changes the desires of our heart but also, what he was saying was, "You focus on delighting in Me; I'll take care of your heart's desires." And when I changed my thinking on that, and I do that with the books, too – "you focus on Me, you focus on ministering, you focus on writing a great story, you focus on reaching people, you focus on listening to them well enough that you can tell their stories in your novels or in your non-fiction, I'll take care of any 'heart's desires' kind of things." So then, when He comes along and blesses in things like having these books be recognized, that is just a fulfillment of that very thing. I had to quit seeking an ambition or even a new book to write and instead focus on just making Him my delight, and then the rest of it is going to follow. And in His way and in His time. So it's been a joy!

I'm thrilled for you! All My Belongings is your most recent release, and it just won the 2014 CAN (Christian Authors Network) Golden Scrolls Fiction Book of the Year. Oh my goodness! I knew it was going to be good because I know your books. But because of the stage of life that I'm in, it so touched my heart! Becca, the main character, is caring for a lady who has dementia so she's dealing with that, and she has some family issues and some things that her father has done and she has tried to get away from that by changing her identity. The way you built that story and the many layers were just incredible. And even though some of it was inferred in the back cover copy, I was so immersed in the story that I didn't see the final situation coming and it was so powerful!

I'm very glad you said that. My prayer was just what you expressed, that readers would be caught up in the story, moving along in the story, and not see that as a possibility at all and when it happens, it's shocking, even if you did read the back cover. Or not even shocking, so much, as a stunning blow. Yet another layer of something that was going to call her to the core of who was she and how was she going to respond, the way she had been cared for in the past or not. That happens so many times. She had such a lack of someone to care for and nurture her in her early days. How did she grow into a woman who was so skilled at caring for and nurturing others, even when it was very difficult no matter what the need was?

The thing that I like about it is that it speaks to what following Christ really means. You know? It's hard! And we want to make Christianity, especially here in the US, all about us, What's in it for us. This whole concept of laying down your life and living with an eternal perspective. . . .And I'm certainly not sitting here saying this like I have it all together and that I willingly do it. But it is definitely something to wrestle with. We never want to do anything that costs us.

How that relates into the book or even my own life, there have been caregiving times with my kids or grandkids with illness that were so hard to get through. Sometimes it can be as a new mom getting up with a newborn and wondering if he will ever sleep through the night! A little bit of reflection when I went through that time in 2012 caring for my husband after an injury when he needed total caregiving. There were days when I behaved myself very well as a caregiver and other days that I did not. In the middle of all that was that call to lay down my life. There's that call! But we are so good at ignoring that call. I love how the friends in All My Belongings lay down their lives for one another, how the men have their core group where they were trying to hold each other accountable and grow. These strong, tough, rugged, funny men were holding each other accountable and when there was a crisis, they were there because they were laying down whatever was on their schedule for what the need was.

So I'm glad you pointed that out because there's a lot of that. Some of it, I didn't even realize until I was done with the book, totally done writing and I traced back and saw that it came up again and again and again.

Sometimes it's not convenient! Most of the time it's not convenient! So I really liked that portrayal that sometimes you do the hard thing because it's the right thing, even when it's not the fun thing or the easy thing or the convenient thing. That really ministered to me and I think it's going to speak to a lot of people.

I pray it will.

What are you doing next?

I have a novel coming out in 2015 called As Waters gone by. It's the story of a woman who is trying to figure out how to sustain their marriage with that much distance between them, and the distance is that he's serving a five-year prison term. Most of the time, when someone heads to prison, that's the end of a marriage of it certainly has a very difficult time sustaining itself without a lot of hard work. But it's not so unlike someone who has a husband serving in Afghanistan. Or someone who has a long-distance trucker for a husband who is gone for long periods of time. How does this work that he's never here but we're still supposed to see each other in this husband/wife role? I'm the one who's making all the decisions but when he comes home he thinks he's supposed to step into a different role? How does that work? Well, it's much more complicated for Emmalyn in As Waters Gone By.

What is he serving time for?

There was an accident and a homeless man was paralyzed. There are some extenuating circumstances that will be revealed in the book and the courts knew Max needed to held culpable for his actions.

So it wasn't a criminal act that he committed.

Right. It was one of those things where any one of us could get caught up in a situation like that. He wasn't an evil man but he still had to pay for what he had done, for his mistake. It wasn't a long prison term but it came at the worst possible time in the life of this couple or for her heart's desires. She's lost the home they had; she had to sell their home because his income was gone. It's almost the end of the five years and he's about to be released and at this point she doesn't even know if he's coming home to her. There has been so much distance that he told her not to write to him and said it was better for her just to get a divorce, but she didn't want to do that. The prison system makes getting a divorce so easy! In some states, you can get a divorce for $1.50 if you are incarcerated. They make it way too easy!

So she runs into such a quirky bunch of people on Madeline Island. They had a hunting cabin that's in really rough shape. She lost their really nice house and now she's living in this hunting cabin that she's trying to fix up into a cottage on Lake Superior. The setting is beautiful. The cottage is just a wreck. As she goes through the process of determining how to live this exiled life and try to create a place where he can land if he chooses to come home when he's released, she encounters some really quirky characters. A couple of Jesus-loving characters and one whose husband is serving in Afghanistan who had re-enlisted for another tour of duty against her wishes, and she's a librarian and massage therapist who is now saddled with his roofing business! So their paths are not unalike. Both of those women have to find out how they are going to survive and how to rebuild a marriage from something like that between you. It is, I believe, a hope-giving story. It's based on some events from people that I dearly care about who are close to me and are going through some of the same things, and they are a living example that a marriage can thrive even when there is prison between you.

And for some people, the imprisonment is a health issue in a marriage. For some, one is a person of strong faith and the other is not, and it seems like there are bars, in some ways, that they just can't cross in order to be able to connect like they would want to on a deep level. So my prayer, my hope is that there will be readers who will see themselves in this even though there will be few, I would pray, who would be in this exact situation, a literal prison.

I can't wait to read it. It sounds incredible. Do you have any non-fiction in the works?

I do. I have a book due on August 1 to Abingdon Press. Abingdon has been so incredibly good to me, and they've been a great, great blessing. At these Christian Retailing Awards, they swept the awards. Their Bibles, their children's books, their non-fiction – a lot of categories. My non-fiction is the second book following Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People's Choices and is called Tattered and Mended: The Art of Healing the Soul.

I love your titles!

Thank you! So there's this concept in the middle of that which is, when God does the mending, it's art. When we try to do it, it looks like a kindergartener took a needle and black thread against white. The true concept is that we resist mending. We throw things away. We don't patch much of anything anymore. We toss it.

I was just thinking about that when I recently had a little hole in my sock, remembering how my mother would darn socks when I was a child.

Exactly. That's part of our American culture now. If you have a problem, you get rid of the person. You don't problem-solve or find a way to take something that's shattered or fallen apart and fix it. I worked for a couple of years for one of the world's renowned knitters and her mother, who was the world's renowned knitter. As sometimes happens, there was a hole in a beautiful knit piece. The expert knitter said, "Let me show you how we repair that." She took the same color of wool and she wove in and out in the pattern of what the knitting would have been, and when she was finished, you could not tell there had ever been a hole there. It took careful work. It took skill. She had to learn how to do that and had practiced for a long time. But in the skilled hands of someone who knew what she was doing, she could make it so that you could not tell where the breach had been. The skill of a master.

When we submit to that process, that healing process, sometimes we're submitting to a long process for that healing. But when we get done, it is going to be so artful. We used to think of mending as scullery maid work, and just something to get done. But then there was that other level, the tailor artistry level where it could turn out not just repaired but better than ever, stronger than ever. A good surgeon can do that. When we have a scar, that scar is not a sign of ugliness or a sign of injury so much as it is a protective layer over what's in there – so strong and protective that sometimes, if a surgeon has to go in again, it's tough to get through because it's formed such a protective barrier.

Whether it's marriages or friendships – there are so many friendships that dissolve over something so small. So many family relationships get thrown out of whack by something so small. It could have been mended but they didn't want to mend, they wanted to walk away. That's what's coming in that book, and that will be out in 2015.

So I have a novel and a non-fiction releasing in 2015, another novel in 2016, and one in 2017. Then we'll see what's next. We're talking a little bit about another non-fiction idea that I have. We'll see if that comes in-between there somewhere.

That all sounds wonderful. On a personal level, what have you been up to?

On a personal level, I'm in a really good place of watching my grandkids come into their own and watching their personalities just blossom. Since they only live fifteen or twenty minutes away from me, that's a great joy. Working with ACFW involves a lot of time and work but practically every minute of it is joy, and that keeps me busy. I have to juggle all that just like many people do. They have a day job and their novel writing. My husband is nearing the age where he is going to be retired and home full-time and I'm in that place of figuring out if I'm going to have to write a book on what to you do with a guy who comes home! How are we going to keep him happy? We have two completely different ideas about what a "good day" is! My good day is full of work, and his good day is full of nothing, or his own choices, whether he goes fishing or hunting or whatever he wants to do, or nothing at all. That will be a good, interesting challenge.

Thank you so much for chatting with me. I always love catching up with you!

Thank you!


Click the titles to read my reviews of Cynthia Ruchti's books:

All My Belongings
Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People's Choices
When the Morning Glory Blooms>

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Meet Jocelyn Green - plus a GIVEAWAY!

UPDATE Sunday, 8/10/14 10:00 PM CDT

WINNER!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:
19
Timestamp: 2014-08-11 03:06:09 UTC
Congrats to Allison! Email me your address by Saturday 8/16/14 at 11:59 pm CDT, Allison, and I'll send the book your way!

* * * * *
I am thrilled beyond belief to welcome Jocelyn Green to the website today. I met Jocelyn two years ago at ICRS when she was promoting her first novel, Wedded to War, and we immediately became friends. I am a huge fan of her novels and she is a delight--so genuine and kind, and lots of fun as well. We roomed together this year at ICRS and had a wonderful time connecting at the end of each of our crazily busy days. Our room rang with laughter as we shared stories. We never did manage to have an official interview (not that Jocelyn would EVER not show up if one was scheduled! Grin!), so we made do via email. All this did was make me want to go back and do it all over again! Grab your favorite iced drink and enjoy getting to know a phenomenal author and my friend, Jocelyn Green. And be sure to enter the giveaway for an autographed copy of her latest novel, Yankee in Atlanta at the end of the interview!


I am so glad to connect with you again! I loved your first two novels, Wedded to War and Widow of Gettysburg. And of course, Wedded to War was a 2013 Christy finalist in two categories! I must say, though, that Yankee in Atlanta exceeds even those. It is phenomenal! What sparked your love for this era and led you write this Heroines behind the Lines series?

Thank you Linda! My love for this era is really fueled by my love for these women I represent in the novels. The Civil War is interesting and tragic on so many levels, but when I read the diaries of unsung heroines a few years ago, in a basement archives in Gettysburg, I really felt like these women were speaking to me. I could almost hear their voices, and they were blowing me away with their stories of faith and courage. I was stunned by their strength and by the fact that I’d never been taught much about women’s contributions during the Civil War. I was researching for a nonfiction book (Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front) but at that point I imagined the possibility of a historical novel series. Thankfully, my publisher agreed that these are stories that should be told.

Since it came out a couple of years ago, it had obviously been a little while since I read Wedded to War. As I continued my way through Yankee in Atlanta, I realized that several of these characters appeared in that first book. Did you plan this when you wrote Wedded to War?

Not at all! But after Wedded to War came out, so many readers asked what happened to Ruby O’Flannery, I wanted to give them a satisfying conclusion to her story. So I connected a bunch of dots in Yankee in Atlanta, and I think it worked well.

While Caitlin McKae is the main focus of this book, Ruby is a strong secondary character who touched my heart. I ached for what she went through! Without giving any spoilers, can you share a bit about her and what we can learn from her?

She’s a very interesting character, isn’t she? We first meet Ruby in Wedded to War. She’s an Irish immigrant whose first husband, Matthew, goes off to fight with the 69th New York regiment. His pay doesn’t come for months, and her needlework simply does not provide her with enough money for rent and food, so she makes some desperate choices in order to survive. By the end of Wedded, she has a baby and turns her back on a seedy lifestyle, choosing to become a new creation in Christ instead.

In Yankee in Atlanta, she’s a domestic, and her son is two years old. She’s doing weekly Bible studies, and life is better than it has ever been. But her past creeps up behind her and tries to drag her back into a world of vice and pain. She fights tooth and nail for the sake of her son.

Perhaps my favorite passage in this book is one I marked in chapter seven, when Caitlin is remembering the last conversation she had with her father, when things were so desperate during the Panic of 1957. She refused to attend a prayer meeting with him, saying it wouldn't feed their family. He responded, "'Prayer may not always change our circumstances. But it always changes us.' He smiled. 'That's why I go. My faith is not a talisman. 'Tis the anchor in the storm.'" Do you think some today who profess to be Christians, especially here in the USA, see their faith more as a talisman than an anchor? What is the danger in that and how can that be avoided?

Yes, I do. The danger in thinking of our faith or our salvation as simply a good luck charm is that it ignores the main point, which is our relationship with Jesus Christ. God never, ever tells us that as His children life will be without pain and trials. In fact, He tells us the opposite. What He does say is that He’ll never leave us nor forsake us. Through everything that happens, our relationship with Christ should deepen.

One good way to avoid that talisman mentality is to focus not on our circumstances, but upon the character of God. When it feels like He doesn’t love us, take that thought captive to the Scriptures. What does the Bible say about it? He says He loves us, over and over. I’m a big proponent of pinning down those niggling doubts with the Truth of God’s Word.

Life isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to bring glory to God.

I have long been a fan of Civil War era fiction. Your novels are unique in that they are historically accurate and portray the setting so well without providing so many details that parts become dry and monotonous, causing me to begin skimming paragraphs or even pages, as I have done with other books in this genre. I know you do a tremendous amount of research. How do you find such a great balance in knowing what to include and what is just information that helps you write the story better?

Thank you! I do love research, but battle details, for example, can get tedious. I only put as much in as my character would experience, which means I don’t have to explain the generals’ strategies, and exactly how many troops were where, etc. I figure there are plenty of other books which do that. I strive to boil the Civil War down to the personal experiences of my characters. What did they feel, see, hear, smell, taste? If it’s personal to them, and only if it helps move the plot forward, it will probably be interesting. And if it isn’t, I chop it out. I have pages and pages of “chopped copy” that just didn’t make the cut.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Or a little bit of both? Do your characters ever surprise you or are you always in complete control?

Generally, I’m a plotter. But looking at my outline for Spy of Richmond and then at my finished manuscript, you’d think otherwise. I make a lot of changes along the way. But I need an outline to help me get going or I’m overwhelmed with too many possibilities.

Sometimes the characters do surprise me. They won’t let me continue writing if I’m headed down the wrong path. It’s a weird, fierce form of writer’s block, like Balaam’s donkey. :-)

What was the most difficult aspect of this book to write and why? What part, if any, flowed the smoothest?

Battle scenes are always hard. Especially after writing the Gettysburg book, it was a challenge for me to describe similar things (shooting, being wounded, artillery, etc.) in a different way. I want the scenes to be vivid, but not graphic. That can be difficult. But the scenes that made me cry or feel sick to my stomach were the one in which Ruby’s son is in danger, and one in which a group of deserters were executed.

The part that flowed the smoothest for me: does the “About the Author” section count? Ha ha! Seriously, for some reason, I felt like I had to fight for every chapter, almost every scene of this book. I’m not sure what it was, but my process felt extremely constipated. I was fact checking up to four sources for a single scene to make sure I got the details right, and keeping up the two story arcs (in New York City and in Atlanta) stretched me. I can’t think of anything I wrote that came easily.

What message do you want readers to take away from Yankee in Atlanta?

Yankee in Atlanta is about divided families, conflicted loyalties, and hearts refined by fire. But even through all of that, for all of the characters, these verses from 2 Corinthians 4 seem to resound: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” In the end, there is hope. There is rebirth. It was true for the characters in Yankee in Atlanta, and it can be true for every single reader, by God’s grace.

You just finished writing the fourth (and final) book, A Spy in Richmond. Can you give us a sneak peek into it? Does it have any connections with any of the previous three books?

Yes I did! Yahoo! Here’s the book blurb:

Trust none. Risk all.

Richmond, Virginia, 1863. Compelled to atone for the sins of her slaveholding father, Union loyalist Sophie Kent risks everything to help end the war from within the Confederate capital and abolish slavery forever. But she can’t do it alone.

Former slave Bella Jamison sacrifices her freedom to come to Richmond, where her Union soldier husband is imprisoned, and her twin sister still lives in bondage in Sophie’s home. Though it may cost them their lives, they work with Sophie to betray Rebel authorities. Harrison Caldwell, a Northern journalist who escorts Bella to Richmond, infiltrates the War Department as a clerk–but is conscripted to defend the city’s fortifications.

As Sophie’s spy network grows, she walks a tightrope of deception, using her father’s position as newspaper editor and a suitor’s position in the ordnance bureau for the advantage of the Union. One misstep could land her in prison, or worse. Suspicion hounds her until she barely even trusts herself. When her espionage endangers the people she loves, she makes a life-and-death gamble.

Will she follow her convictions even though it costs her everything–and everyone–she holds dear?

So we actually do have several ties to previous books here, which really surprised me, but it works. Harrison Caldwell, Bella and Abraham Jamison are all main characters, and they are from Widow of Gettysburg. We also see Dr. Caleb Lansing from Wedded to War, and Susan Kent, the villain from Yankee in Atlanta, is Sophie Kent’s half-sister who comes back to town after the siege of Atlanta. Spy of Richmond can be read as a stand-alone, but it will be more fun if a reader has read the series in order.

If you had lived during the Civil War, which of your four heroines would you have been most likely to be and why? Or would you have been one of the secondary characters?

Oh, what a good question. I share a few qualities with each of the different heroines, but I probably relate most to Sophie Kent for a couple of reasons. First, she’s a writer. Second, she has an overdeveloped sense of guilt, and so do I. (I don’t recommend it.) And third, she feels compelled to do something, rather than just be an observer.

What's next on your horizon after this series is completed? Do you foresee writing more fiction? Do you want to continue in the Civil War era or move onto something else? Is more of your non-fiction for military wives and families ahead?

Honestly, Linda, I don’t know what’s next on the horizon. I am open to more fiction, including but not limited to the Civil War, but I miss writing nonfiction, too. I have a germ of an idea for a nonfiction for moms (not necessarily military moms) but it’s very embryonic at this point. I have lots of ideas for both fiction and nonfiction, but I’m praying God makes it clear which direction I should take, since writing is an investment that requires sacrifice for the entire family.

I know you are a busy wife and mom. When you aren't juggling writing and family duties, what do you enjoy doing in your free time, say if you had a whole day to yourself?

If I had a day to myself, I would read something for fun, eat pie, go for a walk by the river, and watch Les Miserables while eating Tostitos and salsa con queso. Or a documentary on The Plague. One of those. Ha ha ha  Or maybe I’d go antiquing with my mom and daughter… If I get up really early I bet I can do it all!

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

You’ve done a great job with your questions!

Thank you so much for chatting with me!

It’s absolutely my pleasure.


Click the links to read my reviews of Jocelyn's novels:

Wedded to War (includes my 2012 interview with Jocelyn)
Widow of Gettysburg
Yankee in Atlanta

Readers, you can learn more about Jocelyn at her website www.jocelyngreen.com and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. You can also visit her Heroines Behind the Lines website to learn more about her Civil War books, characters, and settings, as well as Faith Deployed, her website for military wives.

GIVEAWAY!

Today is my birthday, but YOU get the gift! I have an autographed copy of Yankee in Atlanta provided by Jocelyn and Moody/River North Fiction to give to one of my readers! Just leave a comment on this post by 8:00 pm CDT Sunday (8/10/14) and I will randomly choose a winner. Continental US residents only, please. You must include an email address to be entered. Earn up to two additional entries by sharing about this post on FB or Twitter and leaving additional comment(s) with those links. One entry per comment. Limit three entries per person. Void where prohibited.

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