Into the Fire

Promoting my own novels (Part 1)

Shall we begin with a little backstory? Let’s do that. I really have written narratives since I was a little girl. Friends and I would sit in the homemade blanket tents in our back yards and read novels and write stories in the summertime. It’s something that came naturally to me, and I loved creating with words.

Skip ahead to college where my writing skills were not appreciated by the one creative writing class teacher when I used a story I’d written in my senior year of high school for which I received an A with lots of “exceptional” comments. The college teacher actually didn’t discourage me because I innately knew she didn’t like the subject matter in the story nor my style of writing. Besides, I got an A in my Playwriting class which was a thrill.

Skip ahead to after my one and only year in college to the two years before I found my “home” in the work force. During that time, I wrote notebooks full of free verse/poetry. Lots and lots of it.

And then, I went to the racetrack. Thoroughbred horse racing was my “home” for over 30 years. And writing took a back seat to 7 days a week caring for the amazing horses and only surfaced at highly emotional points in time.

After several years, a marriage, child (first son), divorce, and remarriage, Jesus rescued me from myself. Two years later he saved my husband. Many years after that, I heard the Lord say to me, “I want you to write a Christian novel about horse racing.” Clearly spoken. In my living room. So. Eight and a half years later, I finished my first novel Hope of Glory between 7 days a week at the track, homeschooling our son (my second) for some of those years, lay ministry at our church.

Hope of Glory is 744 pages including a Glossary of Terms. A saga, and a comprehensive look at horse racing at a middle echelon racetrack, fashioned after the now defunct Longacres Racetrack, and taking place in the ’80s. It’s amateurish in its layout, would be severely edited now, and it’s a bit preachy in places. Strangely, nobody said much about that – and, believe me, not everyone who read it was a Christian.

Concluding Part 1 with this: I write Christian Fiction, mostly love stories heavy on the romance. They’re not for everyone – and who is able to write for everyone? I’ve written one mystery which we’ll get to later. My goal is to write REAL, portraying the world as it is in the characters (without profanity and literary porn) and organically making the contrast to those that either are Christians or find Jesus within the pages. They are my trademark: RAW ROMANTIC REDEMPTIVE.

Side note: The horse on the cover is one we trained, and the rider is Gary Baze (now retired).

Closing scripture in the novel:

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27 (NIV)