Thank you for hosting me today, Mary.
I'd like to tell your followers a little about myself and my new book. My name is Shawna Williams. I'm a rancher's wife, homeschooling mother of three, and a writer of true-to-life Christian fiction of the non-preachy variety. I currently have two inspirational historical novels published by Desert Breeze publishing, and a third due to release next month.
My latest release, In All Things, is the sequel to my debut novel, No Other. Both books were originally inspired by a dream I had over eight years ago. Before that dream I had never intended to be a writer. The dream was a story, though, told in bits and pieces, and I obsessed over it for six months as I tried to fill in all the details until I finally had to write it down. At first it was to satisfy my own curiosity, but over the course of years (yes years) as I pulled it out and put it away, I fell so in love with the characters and their journey that I felt I owed it to them to at least try to get their story published. The two books, No Other and In All Things, have gone through multiple critiques and rewrites, and have changed in many ways from the original, but the core story that originated with that dream remains the same.
In All Things picks up ten years after No Other, in the late 1950s. Jakob and Meri have both thrown themselves into achieving success for different reasons, and they've both succeeded. What they've found, though, is that the dreams they once believed would heal old wounds have fallen short. The strain of disillusion sets in, and when they return to their hometown for the holidays they are forced to reface old issues they both had attempted to bury.
My hope is that readers will take away the message of God's sovereignty in our lives, and that we are never beyond His sight or His Grace. I know that in my own life stories of Grace have had a tremendous impact. Francine Rivers is my favorite author for this reason. I had a hard time connecting with a lot of Christian fiction before I encountered her books. The people were too perfect and the dilemmas too simple -- for me at least. There are readers, like me, who want to read Christian fiction that resembles real life, and to be reminded of God's Grace while reading. I want my books to do that.
If you enjoy No Other and In All Things, I have a Christmas story coming out on Dec 1st with the same publisher, Desert Breeze. It's called Orphaned Hearts, and it's inspired by my grandparents. My grandfather was raised in an orphanage, and my grandmother's father ran the orphanage's dairy. This was how my grandparents met. Their own experiences motivated them to become foster parents, and over the course of many years they touched many lives through their love and their faith.
If you'd like to know a little more about me and my books, you can visit my website, http://shawnakwilliams.com/, or my blog, My Father's Oldsmobile, at http://shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com/. You can follow me on twitter, http://twitter.com/shawnakwilliams, or like my fb fanpage, Shawna K. Williams.
I have free sample pdf files of the first three chapters of No Other, my debut novel, and its sequel, In All Things. If you'd like these contact me at shawnawilliams@allegiance.tv.
1 comment:
Hi Shawna,
Your books sound like just the thing for curling up in front of a cozy fireplace with.
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