I live in a rural area. There are towns here and there, but shopping in these towns is hit or miss. We haven’t had a Christian bookstore anywhere in the area for decades. And even regular bookstores are few, far between, and often the size of a postage stamp.

Because of this, I rarely have the chance to go to a bookstore near me. And when I do, they never carry my books, even when requested by locals who want to buy them locally. It’s been disheartening, to say the least.

How strange, then, to introduce myself to the folks in a bookstore on vacation and find something altogether different.

It started many years ago, when I was on vacation one September and musing about a story set in the Outer Banks that I’d written years  before as a contemporary romance. I’d already decided that eventually, I wanted to turn Yesterday’s Tides into a historical. I’d even planted my hero of this story, Remington Culbreth, into my world of Room 40 in the Codebreakers, thinking that eventually, it would be his turn. So every time I was at the beach for nearly twenty years, I’d think about that story again. Wonder how to change it. This particular year, we went to the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum, and I learned about the rich history of the Coast Guard and Live Saving Stations in the area, and the wheels began turning again. Especially when we decided to take the ferry over to Ocracoke.

I knew, the moment we entered the little village, that this was where Yesterday’s Tides was meant to be set, not on the upper islands. And as I learned about the sinking of the Bedfordshire during WW2, I thought, “Man, all the fascinating stuff happened in the Second World War, rather than the First.” So I began to wonder if I could make the story dual-time and have both a WW1 and WW2 line.

We went to the museum on Ocracoke, and that was awesome. I chatted with the ladies in the gift shop for a while, gave them a bookmark (cue them going, “Oh, you’re a REAL author!”) and then headed to one of my prime targets for the visit–the bookshop on the island, called Books To Be Red.

We looked around this magical house-turned-bookstore. We selected a few books we wanted to buy. And as I checked out, I asked the lady behind the counter if I could leave a few bookmarks. She agreed, but with a hesitant look in her eyes. I get that. So I didn’t push, just handed a few over, thanked her for the books, and left the store. My son–not interested in books–was outside on the fun playground equipment she had set up, with my husband, so my daughter and I moseyed over to them, and Xoe started playing too.

A few minutes later, the lady from the shop came running out. She was the owner, Leslie, and had promptly looked up my books from the info on the bookmark. She came over to thank me for coming, saying she didn’t carry a lot of Christian fiction–it doesn’t sell well–but she was happy to meet me. As we got in the car and drove back to the ferry, I pulled out my phone and saw I’d been tagged by her bookstore’s account on social media, thanking me for stopping by.

I’d never been so glad I’d indulged in a few books and dropped off some bookmarks!

A couple years later, I’d sold Yesterday’s Tides to Bethany House and went to Ocracoke again for a week to do in-depth research. I again ended up at Books To Be Red and chatted with Leslie, telling her about the book. This time, her eyes lit up. “That, I’ll be able to sell here!” she said.

And she has. To quote her message, “It’s selling like hotcakes. I can’t keep them in stock.” And when I added The Island Bookshop to my set-at-the-beach list this year, she was quick to stock that too. As did GeeGee, the owner of the bookshop on Hatteras Island, Buxton Village Books–another place we visit every time we’re at the beach.

See, visiting these bookshops is one of my favorite things to do on vacation. Reading at the beach combines two of my favorite things. And since I don’t have a bookstore like this near me at home, I love just wandering among the shelves, breathing in the scent of paper and ink, oohing and ahhing over beautiful editions of classics or new releases I hadn’t realized were out. I love spotting familiar names–because there are always a couple Christian fiction titles amongst the others, beautifully shelved right beside mainstream selections, which I love–or seeing bestsellers I’ve been meaning to pick up but haven’t yet.

We always leave with something. Or in the case of this most recent vacation, a few somethings, LOL.

This year, in addition to visiting the two bookstores at the beach that I know best and love deeply, I was also invited to visit Downtown Books in Manteo and hold a signing during the foot-traffic-rich First Friday event that the town puts on every month. Which means I was in this adorable bookstore for hours (dangerous! My husband left me unattended with all those books! LOL), with ample time to contemplate the magic of it when I wasn’t chatting and laughing with all the people who came in.

And oh my goodness. The magic is real, y’all. I loved every minute of it. I loved the quiet minutes, when the clerk, Chloe, and I were the only ones in the shop. When I could browse the shelves and talk to her about favorite books and pretty edges, when she gave me a sneak peek of a new Jane Austen set that wouldn’t be on sale until Tuesday, when I could dart like a crazy person toward the books I’d decided I had to have and buy them before the next guests made their way through the door.

I loved the busy moments, when customers were in the store, talking to their spouses about this book or that, musing about what they saw. When they teased each other about too many books and not enough shelves. The many times I heard one say to the other, “If you want it, honey, then get it.” (Best kind of spouses!)

And of course, I loved talking to those people as they browsed, and as they came over to my table to see what I had. I had some great conversations with both locals and visitors. I sold lots of books (apparently a First Friday record for the store, so that felt AMAZING!), and of course I hope those wonderful people enjoy them. But more, I had so much fun just existing in a place where books were the order of business for a few hours, talking with people who love reading too.

I loved watching Chloe dart out from behind the counter every time she had a spare moment to shelve the day’s deliveries after she’d scanned them in. It was fun watching her rearrange the tables and shelves to make everything fit, looking around to see what the best place would be for things. I loved hearing her greet each person to come through the doors in a way that welcomes them into the magic.

It was an exhilarating two and a half hours for me. Not just selling books, but being surrounded by them. Talking about them. Connecting with people over the magic of them, even when we hadn’t read the same books. Several times, people asked me what I liked to read, and I would just answer, “Yes.” Which always earned a laugh. Because I do love to read widely. I love hearing their suggestions for me. I love sharing my own.

There’s magic to books–these words that transport us to different worlds. And there’s magic to bookstores–where all those portals coexist in harmony. There’s magic to a place where everyone who enters knows there’s something in there for them, no matter their race or creed or history or circumstances.

I will admit that I buy most of my books online, since I can’t get most of the ones I want locally. And I’ve been spoiled by lower-than-retail prices. I love a bargain. But as an author, I also recognize that the only way authors really make any money, not to mention publishers and bookstores themselves, is when books are sold for full price. So I’ve made it a point to shake myself out of the “bargain book” mindset as much as possible and support the industry I love so much, as well as the independent shop owners who are big part of what makes it possible. I want to be a part of this magic from both sides–not just adding books into it, but supporting other authors too.

Because part of the magic of these places is that they represent so many viewpoints. So many perspectives. They have books on all different topics, many sides of issues, for all tastes. I love that both I and someone politically and socially opposite me can walk into the same store and recognize that magic. We can smile at each other and talk about how much we love to read (or how we wish we had more time for reading), and know that in that store, we’re on common footing. We’re friends. We’re fellow lovers of those portals-to-other-worlds. Maybe we choose different destinations. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we both recognize the importance of the journey.

Yes, I spent more in the stores I went into on vacation than I would have at Amazon. And left with no regrets at all. Because I left knowing that the magic would keep on going, and that I had a part in it. 

“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

As the world greets us with new violence, new tragedy every day, this is the song that keeps popping into my mind. It sounds trite, doesn’t it? A sweet, simple melody for sweet, simple words.

But those words aren’t simple. They’re profound. Because those words don’t shove the goal—peace, lack of violence, the cessation of hate—onto anyone else. They don’t call for the destruction of enemies or the silencing of opposition. Those words put the burden exactly where they should.

On ME.

What does it mean to pursue peace in this way? What does it mean, when our children are being gunned down in schools, when politicians and activists are assassinated, when hatred is the order of the day? What does it mean when right-wing and left-wing have become so full of animosity toward each other that each side fully believes the other is beyond redemption? What does it mean to ask for peace in a world where people only want to win?

I’ll start with what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean shouting down your opponent. It doesn’t mean blaming the other side for each tragedy. It doesn’t mean condemning their hate speech but promoting your own.

Peace—true peace—means seeing both sides of every tragedy. True peace means grieving not just when the person on YOUR side is hurt, but when the person on THEIR side is too. And here’s the real kicker—true peace means crying out not just for the victims but for those who have been so hurt that they feel the need to respond in the way that will do the most harm in return.

The pursuit of true peace means asking not “What’s wrong with people?” and instead “What’s wrong with me?”

Many years ago, after a tragic school shooting, we were at Bible study and talking about the events of the day, and I remember my own first thought. It was something selfish and distressed, along the lines of, “I’m so glad I homeschool, so we don’t have to fear this.” But then Gary, a retired UMC pastor, shook my world. He sat down, pure sorrow lining his face, and looked like he was about to cry. “I just keep asking myself,” he said, “what I could have done and didn’t. I’ve just been on my knees asking God all day, ‘When did You ask me to pray, and I didn’t listen?’ What could I have done for this poor soul that thought this was the answer to his pain?”

This, my friends. This is the response of a true Christian heart. Our first and best and most peace-seeking response should be about where WE have failed. Where WE have sought our own selfish things instead of selfless sacrifice. Our lament should not be about what has been done to us, but about what we have failed to do for our neighbors, that they have decided calling themselves our enemies is preferable to being our friends.

Because the Church was not formed to be a seat of power. Jesus took over neither the temple nor the throne. He spoke harsh words not to sinners but to the people who should have been loving them and were failing in that. To the poor, the downtrodden, the depressed, the outcast, the adulterer, the thief, the tax collector…to them, He said, “Today I eat at your house.” To them, He said, “Where are you accusers? Now go and sin no more.”

First He saved. Then He inspired. And He said, “Take neither sword nor money pouch.” The one exception, when He told His disciples to bring a sword? When they dared to use it to defend Him, He chided them and healed the wound given.

Jesus does not need us to defend Him. Jesus does not need us to lash out at those who hate Him. Jesus will, in fact, offer miraculous healing to those we hurt in His name.

The answer to violence in America, friends, is not to snuff it out with more of the same. It’s not to pick up our sword—it’s to pick up our cross. The answer is not to silence the opposition, the answer is to LOVE THEM. Love them as Christ loved them. And how is that?

Not by shouting how wrong they are. But by showing them how deep is the love of God. Not by threatening to show Jerusalem what true power looks like—but by weeping over it.

Grieve for the Charlie Kirks. Grive for the Melissa Hortmans. Grieve for the students at school and the worshipers at Mass. But we cannot stop there, not if we want to truly be like Him.

We must grieve for the shooters who think there’s no other way. Grieve for the accused drug dealers drowned at sea. Grieve for the vitriol-spewing neighbor you’ll never see eye to eye with.

Peace does not come by tribalism. Peace comes by laying down the need to win and instead baring our hearts before God and man and being willing to cry out like the prophets of old, “Forgive us, Lord! Forgive us for abandoning You! Forgive us for our unfaithfulness!”

Forgive us, Lord. Not THEM, but me. Forgive me for not praying when I should. For not loving when I should. Forgive me for seeking my own vision so much that I forget those who oppose it are your beloved children too. Forgive me for only grieving my own losses, when in Your eyes there is no distinction. For forgetting that when the angel stood before Joshua, he declared a truth we’ve chosen to ignore. That You take no side by Your own.

Forgive us, Lord. And then show us the true Way of peace.

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?

Back in 2016, I began writing A Song Unheard. The entire inspiration for this story was the existence of the Belgian Refugee Orchestra—a group of top-tier musicians who had to flee their native Belgium when Germany seized their small country, and who fled to the UK for safety. They gathered in Wales and, with the patronage of a particular set of wealthy sisters who repeatedly used art to serve the world, formed an orchestra. My hero, Lukas, was the lead violinist in this orchestra.

Now, writing Christian historical romance as I do, I know Lukas’s faith journey was going to be important. He was, at the start of the book, not practicing the faith he’d been raised in and was instead living the life of a famous playboy. But of course, as the story progressed, he was drawn back to God.

And I had a choice to make. My first inclination, influenced by the fact that I had been raised Methodist and was at the time part of a Sabbath-keeping Baptist denomination, was to have him find his faith in the protestant tradition of Wales, despite knowing that as a Belgian, he would have been culturally Catholic. And to justify this, I told myself, They probably didn’t even have any other options. But I could well envision readers correcting me on this if I just assumed, so I looked it up, thinking to prove myself right.

Instead, I discovered that there was a single Catholic church in Aberystwyth, Wales, that had been very small, before the Belgians arrived. And which thrived with the sudden influx of hundreds of devout Catholics. I learned that the priest at the time made it his personal mission to minister to these displaced refugees, despite the fact that so many in the UK quickly came to resent them. I discovered that this time left such a legacy in this parish that it’s still remembered today, and that priest is still recognized for his mission-focused heart, which led some of those Belgians to remain even after their country regained its freedom.

I discovered a history that I did not want to short-change or ignore. A history I wanted to honor. Because it didn’t matter what my denomination was at the time—what mattered was that these followers of Christ did the work of Christ and drew people back to Christ in a time of crisis. Lukas remained Catholic. And when the heroine, Willa—who had never been anything—also comes to faith, she aligns herself with him. It’s quiet. It’s never even mentioned in that book. But it comes up in The Number of Love.

See, The Number of Love is about Lukas’s little sister, Margot. Margot has always been very devout, and that certainly didn’t change when she moved to London. And, also (obviously) being Belgian, she too would have been Catholic.

Let me pause for a brief history lesson. When the new country lines were being drawn in this part of Europe, they were drawn not based on language or cultural heritage, but on religious affiliation. Belgium was Catholic. The Netherlands was Protestant. This is what DEFINED each country. There are Dutch-speaking and French-speaking parts of Belgium, but what united them was their Catholicism. You were NOT going to find Catholics in the Netherlands, and you weren’t going to find Protestants in Belgium. Period. Even today, Belgium is 98% Catholic (though largely secular).

So Margot had to be Catholic. Not a choice. And this was when I created for myself a rule—I wasn’t going to deal with intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants in my European-set books. It would just introduce too much complication that would distract from the story. So Catholics got to fall in love with other Catholics, and Protestants with other Protestants, LOL. This is just Roseanna’s Simple Rule of Religious Affiliation. My own little cheat.

This is why Drake Elton, the hero of The Number of Love, and his sister, Margot’s best friend Dot, are half-Spanish. So they had an indisputable reason for having been raised Catholic as well in a country that has a Catholic minority population, but which has historically been persecuted for it.

This was the first book I’d written, however, where Catholicism was going to play a key role. For Lukas, his return to faith was personal and was mostly a matter of meeting with his priest, and that was the only mention made, given the demands of the rest of the story. But for Margot, she’d be living her faith out day in and day out, along with all the habits thereof. As would Dot. As would Drake. And this meant details that Methodist-Baptist me simply didn’t know.

So I reached out to my college friend (and fellow writer) Rhonda Ortiz who became Catholic during college and asked if she’d answer some questions for me and do a beta-read of the manuscript to make sure I got things right.

For the first time, I really looked into what it meant to be Catholic. How it impacted one’s daily life. The prayers they would pray, the traditions they would keep. And while some of it seemed incredibly strange to me, other parts were so…beautiful.

In The Number of Love, there’s a particular scene where Dot, who has social anxiety, is praying the rosary before she walks out the door. The ritual of it is described by her brother as putting on her armor to face the day, arming herself to go slay the dragon of her anxiety one more time. I thought I was just being poetic.

But Rhonda said, “You have proven with that one line that you understand the heart of Catholicism.” So often, she went on to say, Protestants outright decry the rituals and memorized prayers as vanity. But they’re not. This, she said, is the whole purpose of them. This is how we equip ourselves to face each day—by going, time and again, to the Lord with the words He gave us, the words so many others have prayed before.

Now, I didn’t even know what the rosary prayers were before writing that scene, and I deliberately chose one that wouldn’t offend my own Protestant ears or those of my readers. (There are specific ones for each day of the week.) I chose ones whose focus are on Jesus (as the majority are) rather than Mary (which a few are).

With Rhonda’s seal of approval, I turned in the manuscript…and wondered if it would fly with Bethany House, which historically has strong ties to the Evangelical worldview. But I was totally delighted when they applauded this aspect of the book.

Then it released. Readers began reading it. And emails began flooding in. Two different kinds.

First, the emails from my Catholic readers, who reached out to ask, “Are you Catholic??? I’m so excited to find a Christian historical book that accurately portrays my faith!”

Then came the others. A long-time reader friend who herself had no issue with the Catholicism in the book, but who had a friend who did. She reached out to ask me about the history of Belgium so she could answer this friend’s objection, and I gave her the statistics.

But of course, that didn’t stop the reviews. The ones that issued “warnings.” “These characters are Catholic. I guess it’s historical, so that’s okay, but they prayed the rosary, so beware.”

And I shook it off with a roll of my eyes. Because, friends, we do not need to warn people that characters are accurate. A book about King David or—even worse—Solomon does not need to say, “Fair warning, guys, they embraced polygamy!” This is history. Trying to impose our own expectations, be they cultural or religious, on them is not only ridiculous, it’s harmful. Not to them, not the characters, not the author…to us.

Because if we can’t see past our own perspective, we never grow. If we can’t accept that people who are different in one way or another can still love the Lord, then we are not truly chasing after the heart of Christ.

It was, in large part, writing The Number of Love that made me start examining the Catholic faith. Which, in turn, many years later, led me to join the Catholic faith. Because while there have been historical failings, that is true of EVERY faith. Every denomination. While there have been moral and instructional failings, that’s also true of every other branch of the church. And more, I discovered that much of what I had been taught about Catholics by Protestants is quite simply false. A lie. Catholics do not believe many of the things I was told they believed. They’re not taught those things. My objections were moot.

But my next several books were about Anglican characters, because that’s what they would have been. British aristocracy? Almost entirely belonged to the Church of England. And I was totally cool with that, because it’s history. My characters in Yesterday’s Tides presented an interesting mash-up though. There were exactly two churches on Ocracoke, both Protestant. So my heroines and their families were Protestant. But I have a character, Grann, from Louisiana who most likely would have been Catholic…so I leaned into that. Made mention of the challenge she faced not only as one of the only Black women on this small Southern island, but the only Catholic. Because that would have shaped her. And the British naval officer who dies in the opening scenes? Real historical figure, and he was really historically Catholic too. The fact that he was given a Protestant burial grieved his family when they learned of it, and eventually a priest came from the mainland to offer the Catholic version. History.

Let’s fast forward. The Collector of Burned Books is set in 1940 France. France at the time, especially Paris, was largely secular…but statistically they were still 98% Catholic. Sure, there were a handful of Protestant churches, most of which were in Paris. But we’re talking 1.5-2% of the population, and most of those were not French. They were English, American, and Scandinavian. So my heroine, Corinne, who was part of the faithful remnant, would have been Catholic.  Which meant that, according to Roseanna’s Simple Rules of Religious Affiliation, my German hero also had to be Catholic.

So I looked up Catholicism in Germany in the years leading up to my story. And do you know what I discovered? That the Catholic pockets of Germany had resisted Hitler longer and more vocally than any other districts. They were so vocally opposed to him that the Catholic churches were all stripped of legal standing, physically stripped of all their goods, including altar pieces and the very chalices and dishes used for Holy Communion, and those physical things were sold off or melted down to support the Nazi war machine—a huge affront to the Church, made very deliberately.

And this fit my hero perfectly. Yet when he’s stationed in Paris, he finds himself at last, after years of persecution, in a place where the Catholic faith is still vibrant, if unpopular among the modern, secular avant garde world. Where he can be himself, get back in touch with his faith. And it was a beautiful thing to explore.

In more research I’ve done for the next books, I’ve been reading a lot about the popular artistic culture of the day, and over and again, I came across stories of these artists and writers and actors and musicians who “had a religious experience, as was becoming trendy at the time, and became devout.” And these experiences? Guys, they were very, very Catholic, LOL. As in, they’d go to visit a church to take in the architecture and have a vision. Or pray a Hail Mary in a desperate situation and hear her voice comforting them. This is history. This is the faith of a people.

In Collector, there’s a scene where someone has been shot, and my character prays a Hail Mary. I knew as I was writing it that this could be very unpopular with some of my readers. But I put it in there, because this is the prayer she would have prayed. Why? Because this prayer ends with a plea for the Holy Mother to pray for us “now and at the hour of our death.”

See, in the Catholic faith, there’s a big emphasis on a good death. On the fact that in our final, weakest moments, we are at our most vulnerable, and the devil, who seeks to steal and kill and destroy, is happy to pounce on us in those moments. To make us doubt. To make us curse God for bringing us here. To make us turn away. But that the prayers of the faithful—our own prayers offered throughout life, the prayers of our loved ones, and the prayers of all the saints who have gone before us—can gird us in those moments. We all know prayer is powerful. This particular request is for those prayers to be offered when we need it most.

So I have Corinne thinking through the prayer that could just be rote. She examines every turn of phrase and applies it to her situation. The first part is entirely direct quotes of Scripture, when the angel is speaking to Mary, and then it follows “blessed art thou among women” with the reason that she is so blessed, and which Elizabeth points out in the next story–“and blessed is the fruit of they womb, JESUS.” All caps there, because it’s added in from what we get in the Scripture, yes, but it’s also the pivot around which the entire prayer turns. The middle, the focal point. The rest is a request for Mary, fulfilling the traditional ancient-world role of Queen Mother, to take our petitions for help before Jesus.

Again, I wasn’t sure what my publisher would say. But again, they appreciated the authenticity, not only of that Hail Mary scene, but of the deliberation Corinne gave when she made the sign of the cross over herself. How seriously she took the words, the signs, the traditions that informed her entire worldview and guided her in life. In her very first scene, she contends with a faithless Frenchman that the cross hasn’t failed us just because evil swarms. Its purpose isn’t just to keep us away from danger—it’s to give us the strength to face it.

Not surprisingly, I’ve again had people reaching out both to thank me for the authentic Catholic faith, and also people who feel the need to warn people about it in their reviews.

And I laugh…and shake my head. Because to my mind, what would need a disclaimer would be if she was not Catholic: “Fair warning, guys, this author felt the need to put a character with modern Evangelical American style faith in a setting where nearly every remaining French-born Christian was Catholic. Be forewarned.” I especially shook my head when one person said, “I’m aware the author is Catholic, but I wish she hadn’t put so much of it in here.”

So if we’re talking “apologize” in its classical sense of explain, then I’m happy to do so. I’m happy to explain why I’ve made the choices I have. Why my French and Belgian and Spanish characters are all Catholic, why my English characters are Anglican, why my upcoming Icelandic characters are Lutheran.

Because I write history, friends. And I strive to keep it as true as I can. I strive to make my historical Christians true to their historical faith, and to honor that faith—the very shoulders we today stand on. Were there exceptions? Yes, and those can be compelling stories. But usually those exceptions demand to be the story. I do not want the focus of my book to be why my character isn’t what everyone else is just to appeal to a group of American readers. I want the focus of my book to be how faithful Christians of all Churches have served God wholeheartedly throughout history, and how He has used them to shape the world.

So I will not “apologize” in the sense of saying “I’m sorry.” Because I’m not. I won’t add disclaimers. I won’t warn you, other than this, right now.

Be forewarned—my characters will be true to their time and place and to the faiths that kept people focused on Christ, no matter what the name of their church. I will continue to explore how He has worked through Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and on and on, throughout history. Because we are ALL part of His church. And He called us to unity, not to finger-pointing and tearing down.

Let’s celebrate the stories of faithful Christians throughout history. And how, in the eyes of God, there is only ONE Church.