Many, many years ago, I joined an online group of other Christian writers, many of whom who were far more established than I was (they still are!), and I was amazed to learn in a conversation what kind of books all these amazing Christian novelists were reading.

See, at that point in my life, I was deep into my homeschooling days, and our curriculum required at least an hour of read-aloud time to the kids. I LOVED this time. We read so many wonderful children’s classics together, many Newbery Award winners, lots of historical fiction that brought the time periods we were reading about to life. It was precious, joy-filled time.

It was also a lot of, well, time. Between homeschooling, writing, editing my own books and also every book that WhiteFire put out (one of my jobs at the time) as well as my freelance design work…it didn’t leave a lot of energy on the table. I was lucky, honestly, to read one book a month just for fun. One that I chose for myself.

So when I did? Well, I made a choice I definitely don’t regret. I read other Christian fiction. Historical romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense…those were my go-tos, though other genres certainly made their way into my list as well. 

Those other authors, though? The ones who’d been writing decades longer than me? The ones whose books I’d grown up reading? I was fascinated to learn that while they read plenty of Christian fiction, they also read plenty of mainstream fiction. Classics, sure, but also modern, trending fiction. 

I probably thought something brilliant at the time, like “Why??”

I needn’t even ask, really. Those wonderful writers explained themselves in the very conversation that surprised me. And their explanation has stuck with me all these years later.

There are several pieces to it. First, the Christian market trends tend to follow mainstream market trends but about 2 years behind. So if, say, Regency Romance is topping the charts in the general market now, that means it’s likely to hit its peak in the Christian market in two years. Which means that now is the time to pitch books in that genre to Christian houses, who also keep tabs on general market trends. This is Very Useful Information.

But it’s also far more than that. We have to be honest–generally speaking, general market books sell more than Christian market books. This is NOT a rule without exception, but if one were to take averages, it’s simple truth. There are more readers for that broader market than our niche one. Which means, in large part, that the mainstream market is representative of our country and world as a whole in a way that the smaller faith-based market is not.

Why is that important? Because it means that by reading the books that are selling the best and resonating the most with the world, we can know what the world is looking for.

Here’s the thing, though. Books without faith, without God…they can meet a lot of needs, but we as Christ-followers know they’re missing something, right? Yet we can look at those other books, those compelling, fascinating, well-written books that are selling millions of copies, and we can read them, love them, be disappointed by them, see where God is missing, and then let the Spirit work in our imaginations to say, “The world is looking for this…and if we give it to them with God, they’ll also receive something far greater.”

It’s been a few years, now, since I began venturing into the general market book world for some of my reading. I’ve read Colleen Hoover. I’ve read Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, J. K. Rowling and Rick Riordan, James S. A. Corey and Andy Weir. I realized at the end of 2023, upon seeing a list of “the most borrowed books” from NYC’s biggest library systems, that I’d read about 75% of them, and that was…cool, honestly. To realize that I knew those books that had people buzzing. I knew why they were buzzing about them.

For the most part, I liked them. I honestly tend to like most things I read. It doesn’t mean I like everything within them. That I agree with their every stance. That I enjoy the bad language or spicy scenes. But I have been trained to look for the merits in everything I read, and that’s what I do. I look for why these books are popular.

And then I think, “But how much better would they be with God between the pages?”

Colleen Hoover did an amazing job, honestly, of showing how someone might slide unwittingly into an abusive relationship in It Ends with Us. But I found myself wondering, “What if she’d met a God-honoring man, one who knew how to show her love and respect and not try to get her into bed? What if these characters understood that?”

Rebecca Yarros is crafting an edge-of-your-seat, compelling world of dragon-riders, daredevils, and the fight of good versus evil in the Empyrean series (Fourth Wing, etc) that I absolutely tore through. But I found myself wondering, “What if these characters weren’t just playing lip-service to a god in a pantheon, what if they heard a call in their souls to a Creator who held those battling forces in His hand?”

Emily Henry is FANTASTIC at pulling us deep into a point-of-view and sprinkling amazing, bookish wit into the pages of her stories, and writing about complex, not-just-romance relationships. Yet how much more fulfilling would those relationships be, if the characters were recognizing their identities in Christ as they’re finding their places in the world and with each other?

I could go on and on. I read these books, and I see why they’re applauded, and I thoroughly enjoy them for what they are…and then ask, “What if God were in the midst?”

Why do we authors do this? Because we want to write stories for the aching hearts of our day. We want to pen novels that capture the imagination, that resonate with a generation, and which take those things and point to God.

Literature, movies, shows, music…these are some of the Church’s best indicators of what the world really thinks, believes, and yearns for. They’re windows into the souls of our time. They are billboards shouting, “This is what your neighbors want! What they believe! What they think!”

That’s powerful stuff, friends. Because my goal, the goal of most writers I know, is to find that resonance. To find those things that make people go, “Yes, this is what I wanted, what I needed!” in a way that points them to the Lord. But I can’t do that half so well if I don’t understand the people I’m writing for. If I don’t know what appeals to them.

I remember a couple decades ago hearing a very common complaint about Christian fiction: “It’s unrealistic. It’s all sweetness and happy endings and sermons, and my life looks NOTHING like that.”

Well, Christian fiction has come a long, long way. I am so proud of our industry now, of the work we do, of the amazing books we produce. And friends, it isn’t by living behind blinders. It isn’t by refusing to look into the shadows. It’s by walking boldly in the midst of our culture with a heart to see, with the Light in hand to cast into the shadows. And casting the light doesn’t always look like judgment. It quite often looks like love.

In the early days of the church, those who wanted to become leaders were expected to go to school–and I’m not talking seminary. They went to the Greek and Roman schools of their day, where they learned rhetoric and law and poetry and literature along with their heathen neighbors. Why? Because they needed to be able to speak to those neighbors. They needed to understand the way they thought, the plays they watched, the dialogues they read. They needed to be able to engage with them on that level and then offer more.

So if you get my newsletter and look at the “what I’m reading” section, you’re going to see a lot of general market books in there, along with a lot of Christian ones. I’ll usually say what I liked about them…and then make clear if they have things like language and spice. My theory is that grown-ups can decide for themselves what they want to read, and only YOU know what is best for you. Maybe, like me, you find it infinitely valuable to keep up-to-date with the bestselling books so that you can have conversations with people who are reading them. Maybe, on the other hand, you long ago decided to fill your mind only with God-honoring books. I respect both stances! I will obviously never tell anyone not to read Christian fiction. 😉

But in my quest to Read Dangerously, I’m also trying to read widely. I’m trying to read popularly. I’m trying to learn the general-market side of the genres I love best, so that I can deliver God-honoring fiction that meets those standards…and then surpasses them. I want to write books that are relevant to today’s world–and which always, always point to the World beyond.

What kind of music do you favor?

A couple weeks ago, during one of my Tea Party Book Clubs, one of my lovely reader friends asked if I listen to a contemporary Christian music group, and I admitted that I rarely listen to modern music at all. Oh, I know a lot of the praise and worship songs from various churches and conferences, but when it comes to turning on a radio or buying things, I always go to one of two places:

Classical
Big band

Why? In large part, it’s because I don’t like lyrics when I’m doing anything that requires thought, and often even when driving, I want to use the time for brainstorming. So lyrics distract me. I much prefer instrumental offerings, and the stations that offer such things more than others are inevitably classical stations.

When it’s time for fun, I just love the stylings of the Big Band era. They speak to my soul in a way that a lot of modern compositions don’t, and I love that swing-dance beat to them.

When you catch me singing a song, it’s likely either a hymn, something from a 90s-era Disney movie or a musical, or a song from the 20s-50s. These have been my tastes since high school, and they haven’t changed much over the (mumbling) years since. 😉

At the moment, I’m in the editorial stages of The Spy Keeper of Marseille, and so, music is on my mind. You see, my hero, Marcel Laurent, is a concert pianist. It’s been a while since I’ve written a musical character–I think the last one was Lukas De Wilde in A Song Unheard, who played the violin. And I had such fun with Marcel because, unlike Lukas, I actually play his instrument. I started taking piano lessons when I was seven, continued them until I graduated high school, and have played for fun and/or church services most of the years since. I am by no means a professional or a concert musician. But music is, and has pretty much always been, a big part of my life.

I was in middle school when I switched piano teachers, and my new one, Mrs. Peto, had me play some select pieces for her, which I brought from my, ahem, repertoire. I don’t honestly remember all that I played, but I think it was probably “Fur Elise” and something from Beauty and the Beast, knowing myself at the time, LOL. Mrs. Peto started me on gospel music and learning how to make up my own left hand accompaniment based on a melody line or hymnal, which has served me very well. I also played a lot of rewritten, expanded hymns full of glissandos and trills and huge, sweeping chords I had to stretch my hands every day for a year to be able to reach. (And by “reach,” I mean I could finally reach an octave, maybe an octave-plus-one. Never-ever-ever the octave-plus-three some of those arrangements by Dino called for. Sorry, dude, my hands are just NOT that big!)

It wasn’t until years later that my mom told me that Mrs. Peto had asked her what my musical goals were, saying that if I wanted to go pro, I should find a teacher who focused more on classical. Mom assured her I did not intend to go pro, so this focus was fine.

Which is absolutely, 100% true. I didn’t want to pursue a career in music, and I have found the focus of my musical education to be highly practical and practicable and useful over and over again.

That said…she thought I had a shot of going pro??? I did not know this! LOL And it made my day to hear about it decades after the fact. 😉

In the course of my day-to-day life at this point, music is often honestly not even there. I don’t listen while I’m at home most of the time, and quite often in the car I opt for silence too. And yet, I love music. I love finding the pieces that tell the story I want to hear…or to tell. In writing The Spy Keeper of Marseille, I had SO much fun choosing what songs Marcel would be playing at each point in the story. It meant lots of listening to talented pianists on YouTube–out of my ordinary, but absolutely DELIGHTFUL.

It also involved brushing up on my musical notations and terms, so Marcel could use those lovely Italian phrases to describe the world around him. My editors loved these little touches too. =)

And one of my biggest smiles, as I was reading my editorial notes, was when Kathy said she found herself looking up all the songs I mentioned and listening to them as she read. I love this. I love this SO MUCH.

So while I don’t do this often, this book will come with a playlist. 😉 All classcial, various composers, pieces that describe here and there in the story, and which become a love story themselves.

I don’t know what kind of music you usually favor. But I hope that, next summer when this book releases, you’re in the mood for a muscial story. And if not…then I hope the words provide the soundtrack for you on their own. 😉

This weekend, my family will drive down to one of our favorite places in the world–Avon, North Carolina, part of the Outer Banks. We’ll settle into the oceanfront house we’ve rented. We’ll enjoy long walks on the beach. We’ll eat out a few times. We’ll bask in the sun and play in the sand and those who are allowed to submerge (which doesn’t include me this year, thanks to surgery) will likely swim in the waves while I wade in to cool off.

Vacation.

Our family discovered well over a decade ago that September in the Outer Banks is absolute perfection (barring hurricanes), by our definition. The weather is warm but not sweltering, the water is still warm, the beaches are empty, and the prices are slashed, compared to summer. We can, in fact, get 2 weeks for the price of 1 in June.

So…we did. Which is a first for us.

See, for us, vacation isn’t about going someplace new to do things. We do enjoy those sorts of trips…but they’re usually as exhausting as they are exciting, so they’re not what we consider vacation. For us, vacation is about relaxing. Unwinding. Refilling our creative wells. For us, vacation is about letting the ocean air blow away the year’s frustrations and the sun ignite new dreams.

Vacations are where we dream.

It was on vacation in recent years that we:

• Decided to film my classes
• Decided to add merchandise to my shop and started selecting it
• Brainstormed On Wings of Devotion
• Brainstormed A Noble Scheme
• Brainstormed Awakened

Just a few examples, obviously. But some of those ideas have turned into big parts of my business, and others have turned into books that are among my fan-favorites.

It takes a couple days though, sometimes, for us to get our brains into “dreaming” gear. Some years, we’ve been able to start dreaming on the way down, in the car. Sometimes we at least take time to chat about what we want to dream about while we’re there. Then we need to let the time away, the beauty of the landscape, the familiar pulse of the tides work its magic. Blow away the cobwebs.

Our last vacation was in December, since we couldn’t do summer or fall last year thanks to my treatments. And it was fun but…different. It took me until the last couple days to really get my brain out of that “recovery” mode that usually only lasts a day or two. I did a lot of lounging and reading, but my body and brain were just so tired after everything I’d been through that dreaming barely had any time.

Which was what made me yearn for some more time, this September. More than a week, as a celebration of cancer treatments being truly over and life getting back to some semblance of normal (whatever that is, LOL). So we booked two weeks, for the price of one during either summer in OBX or even December in the Keys. And we let out a long sigh, realizing that this time, we’re not going to have to try to squeeze things in. We’re going to be able to relax and dream and create, even.

See, my goal is to start writing The Island Bakeshop while I’m down there, where the book is set. And I’m excited for that. Usually my goal is to not write on vacation, unless I start something just for fun (like the 9 pages of notes I took on Awakened a couple years ago). I brainstorm, yes, but that’s just a matter of letting the story spin out in the breeze, getting to the know the characters, figuring out their secrets. (The big middle twist in A Noble Scheme? Yeah, I had no idea what that was when I turned in A Beautiful Disguise, no idea what had come between the characters. So we chatted about it on a walk, and I can still see the beach in my mind, the angle of the sun, still feel the wind kissing my face as I realized what had torn Gemma and Graham apart. I believe I said something along the lines of, “Oh…oh. I know what it was.” And then laid it out for David.)

But with two weeks, I know I can relax, refill, and create. That the creation will serve to fill me even more. And I am so, so excited. (And since I’ll be treating half the trip as a writing retreat, I get to write it off on my taxes, LOL. Score!) I’m excited to unwind. I’m excited to go back to a place I love, which I missed last year when cancer got in the way of our usual tradition. I’m excited to visit the bookstores that were my inspiration for The Island Bookshop, to sign their stock, to take some cell-phone videos of their awesome shops. I’m excited to dig my toes into the sand, to walk along the empty dunes, to see the sea turtle nesting sites. I’m excited to plot and plan and play with stories.

This year, vacation will have some doing in there, yes. But it’s the kind of doing that’s part of my being. And just being is what we cherish on our vacations. No expectations, no schedules, no rules. Just doing what we love, basking in the glory of God’s creation, listening for His voice, talking about things that matter, and spinning those dreams.

What sorts of vacations do you prefer? Doing vacations or being vacations? Where is your favorite place to go?