43 in Review and now 44

For the past quite-a-few years, when my birthday rolls around, I do a “However-Many Things” post—with the number matching the year I’m about to turn.

This year, while I have enough “things” in mind that I could no doubt make that list, I didn’t really want to break them out into individual “things,” given how interconnected many were. So instead, I’m approaching it a bit differently and taking my reflections month-by-month.

Because it has been QUITE a year.

August

I thought, last August, that it was time to regain my health and walk boldly into my future. I signed contracts for an unprecedented SEVEN books to complete in 2026 (maybe eight, if I can squeeze another fantasy in this fall). I was feeling good and ready to prove it. August, my birth month, was full of the usual August things—moving Xoe back into her dorm, wrapping up summer pursuits, and, for the first time in 15 years, NOT starting a homeschool year. That was both weird and rewarding, to realize we were really, truly finished!

September

In September, we spent two weeks in Avon, North Carolina, part of the Outer Banks, which was a lovely beginning to 43. One week was vacation—the second week was a writing retreat. Because I had The Island Bakeshop due, which is set in Avon, so how fun to write it on location!! While there, I got to hang out with an OBX bookstore legend, GeeGee, the owner of Buxton Village Books…who passed away just four months later. I didn’t know her nearly as well as many locals and visitors, but I will always cherish the hour I spent in her shop, signing books and just chatting life with her. I finished my manuscript while there and got it turned in on time. (The Island Bakeshop was the first book I finished in the last year.)

October

Then came October. It was time for me to begin writing Amazed, my third fantasy romance, and I launched into it with outright glee. As in, when I was brainstorming the word and mythology, I literally skipped out to the living room to tell David what I’d come up with, and then danced back to my computer, him laughing at my clear delight. I was so excited for this story. I’d had the broad strokes of it planned for YEARS—it actually predated my Awakened world, but I folded it into it when I realized it would work so well. I’d been working on the characters in my head for a long time too. The hero and heroine from that first idea, but then I realized that Bleu (son of the characters from book 1) had a role to play, and as it unfolded before me, he and his wife, Iraja, took on new life too.

I knew one of them needed a point-of-view. I debated which. And I already knew their story—after thirty-four years of marriage, Iraja (who is not magical and so has no special healing or longevity, unlike the magical people in this world) was dying. I came up with a totally fictional disease called the Desert’s Kiss—a disease of the lungs, caused by a particulate in the desert sands of her native Soltierra. So which POV would be more poignant? I put the question to my P&P ladies, asking “The woman who knows she’s losing her life, or the man who knows he’s losing his wife?” We decided on Iraja. And I got to work. The first six chapters came quickly.

Then one day, David and I drove to pick up a press run of books—Love in the Castle Library by Ann Swindell (fabulous book, by the way—if you haven’t picked up the In the Castle Library series yet, you totally should!!). We enjoyed the drive to the FedEx Freight facility in Pennsylvania, loaded the boxes into the car, drove back to the office, and set about getting all the pre-orders into the mail. That’s what I was doing when my phone rang. The call that changed everything.

The results from a routine brain MRI I’d done the week before were in. I had a tumor in my cerebellum.

You probably know the story by now, if you’re hanging around here. My breast cancer had metastasized to my brain. And for the next two weeks, as we hurried back up to oncology, as they scheduled scans, as we had those scans, as we awaited results…they were the scariest two weeks of my life.

And they were also, in some strange way, the most blessed. Because when you’re staring into eternity, everything looks different. Everything means something different. Everything shifts into better focus. That was also when I realized the next chapter waiting for me in Amazed was Iraja’s first chapter. The dying woman. That was what I was supposed to write next. At first, I wondered if I could do it. And then I realized it was God’s perfect, strange timing. Though my situation and Iraja’s were nothing alike in most ways, I did a lot of processing through her, not just then but throughout the next months. God knew that her part of the story was exactly what I would need.

We soon learned my circumstances weren’t as dire as the doctors had feared…but even so, it was still a return of cancer, and that’s what has dictated the rest of my year. They feared cancer was all through my body, but it wasn’t. Just that one, small spot. There was some argument as to whether to remove it or just hit it with special radiation called Gamma Knife.

November

Well, in November, I had brain surgery. I never thought I’d get to say that! I was supposed to be teaching a class at the ACFW VA online writers conference that weekend, but instead I was in the hospital recovering from neurosurgery—though, go figure, they only kept me one night! That night was also the Christy Awards. I didn’t have a book up for anything, but several friends did, including one of the books we’d published (Protector by Megan Schaulis—which is also an amazing book, and you should RUN to buy her series if you haven’t read it yet!). I really, really wanted to watch the stream and was really, really afraid that I’d forget.

So, hilariously, my first conscious thought after waking up from the anesthesia was seriously, “Don’t forget to watch the Christy Awards!” I then proceeded to joke with the nurse in Recovery, whose request for transport for me kept being cancelled in the system because of a glitch, so she called David to assure him I was fine and on my way out—and that I was “an absolute delight”—and then took me to my room herself.

I was able to watch the award stream on my laptop that evening, and guys—though I had no book in the running, I was touched to tears when the contenders all turned on their mics at the start to say hello and I heard someone shout, “We’re praying for you, Roseanna!” I’m assuming that “someone” was Susie Finkbeiner, because when she won her category and came on to give her acceptance speech, she gave me another shout-out that brought tears to my eyes. Susie was one of our early authors at WhiteFire—we published her first two gorgeous contemporary novels, and then she began writing historicals first for Kregel and then for Revell. I count her as a dear friend, and to realize that I was so present in her heart that day was just…beautiful.

Two weeks later, my stitches were out, you could barely see the evidence of the surgery through my hair, and I was on a plane to Colorado Springs, to see the ballet performance of Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor. We paired it with a retreat for my patron group, the Patrons & Peers, and fifteen of us crammed into a beautiful historical house and had a long weekend of fun, fellowship, and joy. We played games, we explored the area, we talked and talked and talked, we ate cookies, we laughed, we braided each other’s hair…and I “vibrated for days,” as David said. I was so keyed up (and my head was still so sore that I couldn’t find a comfortable way to lie down) that I barely slept, but who needed sleep?? Between seeing all my girls and seeing MY STORY ON THE STAGE (!!!!), I was on cloud nine.

Then came Thanksgiving, a visit with Xoe, and the knowledge that my treatment was just getting started. At my sister’s for Thanksgiving, there was quite a crowd. Some years my dad does the “Let’s go around the circle and say what we’re thankful for” tradition, but with so many people, he joked that we’d be there until Christmas if we tried it. So it was strictly volunteer, and he got us started. And got me crying. Because one thing that will always make me tear up is seeing my dad cry, and he was quite teary-eyed as he looked at me and said, “One thing I’m thankful for is my daughter’s rock-solid faith.” He went on to say how much it meant to see that not only was I not faltering with all that was going on, but that I was shining the light of the Lord for others through it.

Gracious, I’m getting teary just thinking about it now. Onward!

December

December actually kicked off with something amazing—I learned that The Collector of Burned Books had been named Christianity Today’s Fiction Book of the Year. There is only ONE category for fiction in their book awards, which means every single novel submitted, across all genres, compete against each other. I knew my publisher had submitted Collector—they’d sent me a note when it was short-listed. But I had zero expectations of winning, so when that email came in, I was floored and delighted and so very grateful. And Tyndale sure knows how to celebrate! They sent me sugar cookies with my book cover and the award “sticker” on them, as well as a gorgeous floral arrangement. More than once I just had to pause and praise God for leading me to Tyndale and putting that story on my heart to begin with. I felt so incredibly blessed, especially given that this came in the midst of all those initial “brain tumor” treatments.

Because just a few days later, I had the Gamma Knife radiation to hit the spot where the tumor had been and hopefully kill any remaining cells. It’s a one-shot treatment, not too scary aside from the lovely frame they attached to my head. So the funny story there, though—it’s basically like an MRI machine, but stillness is even more critical than for a scan, since they’re sending those gamma rays at your head. To help relax you, the nurses pipe in music. They asked me what I wanted, and I said, “instrumental Christmas.” I didn’t want anything with words—I planned to brainstorm a Christmas fantasy novella while in there, so no distractions, thanks. (Yes, that’s me—why not come up with a story idea while having your brain irradiated??)

Well, for the first half of the scan, there was no music. I figured they forgot, and that was fine. I was happily brainstorming Celebrated. Then the music started…and then it started again. But different music. While the first was still playing. They had inadvertently opened two different YouTube Music windows and had them both going, and it was probably fifteen minutes before they realized it and shut one of them off. I found it highly entertaining and made a game of following both of them (when not ignoring them in favor of said story). We had a good laugh with the nurses afterward.

I had another appointment in Morgantown the next day, so we stayed in a hotel up there that night—which was good. I had a killer headache from the frame, but it went away after a nap and some Excedrin. That evening, my P&P ladies were doing our annual Christmas ornament exchange via Zoom—I’d brought mine with me. My “secret elf” had gifted me a gorgeous Swarovski crystal snowflake ornament, which was just GAH. I had a tiny little one my aunt had given me many years ago, which I had long claimed as my favorite ornament. This year’s was a bit bigger and a different design (each year they make a unique snowflake), and having a second made me decide that this is a fabulous thing to collect, LOL. And before the party started, I started writing that novella I’d been brainstorming.

I finished it that weekend. So it’s safe to say a few gamma rays didn’t hinder my creativity any. 😉 (Celebrated was the second book I finished in the last twelve months, quickly followed by Something Old, Someone Knew, one of my Guideposts mysteries. That brings my count up to three.)

We had a wonderful Christmas. On the way back from picking up Xoe, we met two of my P&P girls for lunch, which was a great kick-off to the season. I got lots of books. =D And my husband gave me an Ember Wave, which is a personal air conditioner/heater you wear on your wrist. This to help me with the hot flashes I’ve been having courtesy of chemo-induced menopause. It’s so cool!

Over Christmas, I decided to write something just-for-fun and randomly wrote a short novel, Consecrated. Which gives us the back story of Bleu and Iraja, as well as a fun look at my desert kingdom, Soltierra, and the Calm Water mer I’d developed in Celebrated. (So that’s book number four in the last year. And brought my 2025 word count up to 773,400ish words. Um…yeah, that’s pretty cool!)

Another fun make-the-best-of-it from December—so I had trouble getting my wedding rings off for the Gamma Knife procedure. So we decided to get new rings for our 25th anniversary year. I got them from Sateur; they’re lab-created gems, so a fraction of the price, and I absolutely love them. But I didn’t want to spend much, because I intend to get back into my originals. (I have deliberately put on weight in advance of my next reconstruction surgery, which is why they stopped fitting.)

January

Said ring arrived in January, the same day that I had my first chemo infusion. Originally we’d planned to start them in December, but new studies said there should be at least three weeks between radiation and this Enhertu treatment, so we began on January 7. I did not at all mind not starting before Christmas! But phew—that first treatment was rough. I was sick for a solid two weeks afterward.

At the end of January, Xoe took the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery); she wants to join the Army after she graduates from college and do officer training. She scored a 95! We are SO PROUD!!

In January, I also wrote The Christmas Courier, which will be out this October. It was such a fun novella, inspired by a true story of two French Resistance workers. I can’t wait for everyone to read it! (Book number five!)

In January, I also had my first (and, let’s be honest here, probably ONLY) viral Facebook post. It ate up a whole week of my life, and though the comment section got away from me, it was also beautiful proof that we CAN still have conversations—even on Facebook—when we don’t see eye to eye.

February

February started with something not so pleasant—my reconstruction failed on my right side, and when I reached out to my surgeon’s team with a “Hey, is this normal?” I was met with, “You need to report immediately to the hospital for emergency surgery.” Um…yay? Definitely not how I planned to begin the month, but it wasn’t really that bad. Though this was the first time I had to stay in the hospital more than one night, and I found it hilarious that it required more of a stay than brain surgery. For my second night, the long-term wing “stole” me and took me up to a beautiful, enormous room with a window, which was lovely. It was also humbling, when my usual joking around with the staff led to one of them saying how refreshing it was to have a patient capable of laughing with them, because most of the patients up there were in too much pain for that. Insert all the prayers for those people!

Also in February, my baby turned 18! How is it that I’m now the mom of two adult children?? It seems like just yesterday I was “homeschooling [my] two small children” (excerpt from my old bio, LOL), and now here we are. Man, time flies.

My infusions continued to be pretty horrible, with me feeling sick 2/3 of the time. The PA I see at each appointment was awesome though, trying new medications and dosages, working closely with the pharmacist to try to make things better for me. And the hair thinning…not fun. Every time I touched my head, I came away with three or four strands of hair. I won’t lie—it took an emotional toll.

Inspired by that viral Facebook post, we also reached out to our pastor about hosting conversations in person on hard topics—you know, the topics people usually avoid in mixed company, if they don’t want an argument. We wanted to encourage questions, concerns, and civil discourse. Our pastor loved the idea and wanted to do it for Lent, so we very quickly put it all together and started Friday night dinners and chats.

March

In March, I had my 3-month MRI and PET scans, and since they were both clear, my oncologist dialed back the “nasty” part of the chemo cocktail. Yay! But excited as I was, it didn’t make an immediate difference. I was still sick 2/3 of the time…so he dialed it back again, and that did the trick.

Our “Common Ground” meals and talks at church continued through March. We didn’t have a ton of people come, but it was a great group that did, and we had some wonderful conversations. One of the biggest blessings to me personally, though, was getting to know Cathy, the lady who runs the kitchen at church. Every Friday we arrived an hour before anyone else and talked and got to know each other while we heated up soup and bread. What a wonderful time of connection! Cathy and her husband have been members of the parish for 70 years, and I loved hearing her stories.

In March, I wrote Secrets by the Sea, which will kick off a new Guideposts mystery series called Beach Rose Cottage Mysteries. I was so excited to get to be the first author in this series and had a blast setting up our Cape May world. When edits came back on this, my editors called it “nearly perfect” and only had very minor suggestions and tweaks, which made my day! (Secrets by the Sea was my sixth book since last August.)

Also in March I started working in earnest on The Translator’s War…but I soon realized I wasn’t going to make my April 1 deadline. For the first time in my 55 books, I had to ask for an extension, though I was determined to only need an extra week. See, that first week post-infusion just kept knocking me for a loop. If I was already super-engrossed in a story, I could keep working, but if I was trying to get into a story, my brain just kept saying, “Nope, I’m sorry. I’m offline. Please try again later.”

April

But with April and Easter, I did indeed manage to get The Translator’s War finished, and I was only five days late—and since those days fell over the Easter holiday and my editor had taken a few days off surrounding it, I was relieved to see that I hadn’t actually put her behind at all. Phew!

And this story, guys…I love all my books. But there are some that just take hold of me and don’t let me go, and this is one of those. So was Consecrated, and so was Amazed (more on that soon). My characters in this one, the adventures they found…I don’t know. There was just something special about them. Of course, I never know how a book actually is when I finish—I’m too close to it. So I turned it in and hoped for the best, and when I met with my editors at the end of April to discuss it, I was thrilled (and relieved, LOL), when they declared it my best-yet book (“which is a high bar to clear,” they said) and literally had three suggestions, all of which could be handled with a few sentences. (The Translator’s War was my SEVENTH book of the year! Pretty sure that broke my record…)

In health news, in April the hair loss stopped, which I was SO happy to see.

May

In May, my hair began to regrow, that receding hairline filling back in. I have no words to express how happy that made me, LOL. Infusions still left me exhausted for a week and nauseous for 7-10 days, but not as intensely as before.

Xoe came home from college in early May, but this year she only stayed with us for about a week before moving into our other house (which we’d been using as an office for the last twelve years) with her best friend. She and Willow have been enjoying “adulting”—mostly. Less so when they hear strange noises or when snakes get into the house (yeah, that happened in July…). She’s only about ten miles away, so still “home,” but I’m glad she’s had this opportunity to be on her own but with her best friend.

But it’s also a big deal…because given her plans to join the Army after graduation, that means she probably won’t ever live with us again. Oh, she’ll be home—holidays, breaks, and then leave. But it’s a new chapter. A bittersweet one.

Given that she wasn’t going to be in her room this summer…or likely claim it fully again…I decided to actually make myself office space in a way I have never done. There’s still a bed in here for when she’s home, but I bought myself a desk (also a first) and some gorgeous shelves and arranged the room how I wanted. I LOVE the space!

In writing, May saw me turning my attention fully back to Amazed. I’d written a bit more in it in April after turning in The Translator’s War, but I really needed to buckle down and get it finished. But y’all…this book was getting long. I knew what I intended to be my midpoint twist, but I didn’t get there until 90,000 words in. Okay, I thought, so it’s not really the midpoint. Maybe it’s the 75% twist… But, um, no. It ended up 192,000 words. For those of you unfamiliar with word counts, that’s twice as long as my Imposters series books. More than three times as long as my Guideposts mysteries. It is, in fact, the same length as A Stray Drop of Blood. But it’s what it took. So far, all my readers have said that, if anything, it could have been longer and not to cut a thing (I mean, words here and there, sure, but no content. Yay!)

And I poured myself into this book. Much like The Translator’s War, it completely consumed me when I was working on it, the characters gripping my heart. And given what I already told you about Iraja, it should be no surprise that I found myself working through a lot of my own thoughts and fears and the truths God had shown me through her. Because of this, it felt intensely personal, and I have been way more hung up on this story than usual, all but biting my nails as people read it. Thus far, all my early readers and editors have called it “Amazing!” Phew! (Amazed is the EIGHTH book I’ve written since my last birthday! And while, yes, two of those books were novella/short novel length, I think the ridiculously long length of this one more than makes up for it, LOL.)

June

In June, David and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a trip to Quebec City in Canada. It was a wonderful trip to a gorgeous city, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We talked through his issue with Amazed (that Iraja line hit too close to home for him…and he demanded short stories where we see some of the adventures she and Bleu had in their thirty-four years of marriage, rather than jumping straight from happily-ever-after in Consecrated to “and now she’s dying” in Amazed), brainstormed those short stories, and also brainstormed book 4, Alight.

When we got back, it was time to nose-to-the-grindstone on my NEXT book that was due, A Storm to Still. This biblical fiction for Guideposts is for their Women of the Psalms series, in which we take a psalm and write a story that could have inspired it. Mine is based on 107, which tells the stories of different situations that God delivered people from—from wandering in a desert waste, to illness, to imprisonment, to a storm at sea. I decided that was just a map for a story right there! I pounded it out and turned it in a few days in advance of my July 1 deadline. (Which makes A Storm to Still my NINTH book. NINE. N-I-N-E. Even I think this is insane, LOL. But good!)

July

So Guideposts got me edits back on that bib-fic six days after I turned it in. And we think I’m fast!? I laughed. And was glad to see they didn’t actually want my revisions until August, because I was not ready to look at it again quite yet.

They actually came in the same day as line edits for The Translator’s War…the same day I was in Morgantown for my next round of scans. I had both brain MRI and full-body PET scan, and both were, yet again, CLEAR! Praise God!!

Also on that day (what a day!) I got some other good news—Tyndale was offering me a contract for three more novels plus another Christmas novella, all WWII settings. Given that I’d only pitched them two books and the novella, I was surprised and delighted to see that third “mystery book” on there too. =) I read the email from my agent after my final scan of the day, as I was waiting for David to walk to where they’d let me out, and I greeted him with a ridiculously large grin. And what really made my day was a sentence from my editor, saying Tyndale was hoping for a long-term partnership with me. That did my heart good!

And just two days later, I learned that Awakened had won first place in the Faith, Hope, & Love Readers Choice Award for the Speculative Fiction category!! This is the first year I’ve entered any awards myself in well over a decade, so this was a lovely surprise (and comes with both a physical award and a cash prize, so that’s fun.) Given that Awakened was my first fantasy, it’s also just a bit of confirmation that, though this is outside my norm, this book-of-my-heart that I’d used as “vacation,” the book that helped pull me out of burnout, was good.

August

And so, here we are, back in August. Year 43 has reached its end, and I’m ready to embark on Year 44. And as I look back…it’s crazy. It has been the most insane, horrible, amazing year. One that had the scariest weeks of my life…and the best. Because God showed himself to me in ways I’ve never before known. He held me so close. He poured out his Spirit into my heart and soul and life in ways that still amaze me.

Eight months of this year have been consumed with chemo infusions, ten of them with cancer treatments. I’ve had two surgeries, plus that Gamma Knife radiation. Including brain surgery. A third-to-two-thirds of my time, I’ve been sick and exhausted thanks to chemo.

And yet it’s been the most productive year of my life. NINE BOOKS! And right around 700,000 words. I got to see one of my stories on the stage. I got to visit with my amazing P&P ladies. I had a viral social media post. I’ve won two awards (and have two finalists in the Carol Awards too—that awards ceremony is in two weeks, so we’ll see how The Collector of Burned Books and The Christmas Book Flood do in that one). I’ve got new contracts waiting and so many fun stories on the horizon.

I’ve gotten to watch my kids step into their own futures. I’ve gotten to plumb new depths of love with my husband (that second diagnosis, man—it made us cling to each other in all new ways). We were able to get more involved in our church through those Common Ground meetings, and I was able to carve out some physical space that brings me joy every day.

God has shown me so many things in this last year. He has been so good, so faithful. And as I close it out, I can’t help but think that though I have no idea how many years are ahead of me (we never do), what I do know is that I want to draw closer to Him in each one. I want to walk worthy of His call. I want to work faithfully for Him. I want to spent 44 as I spent 43—safe in the palm of His hand.