How long have you been writing?

I’ve been serious about it for the last five or six years, I suppose, but I think I was bitten by the bug way back in second grade. I placed and won a medal in a state-level contest for my deep, heart-level, inspiring essay about John Stamos. I guess that should have been my first clue that pop culture would always play a pretty big role in my writing…

How does your book relate to your spiritual practice or other life path?

I, like Sarah Hollenbeck, previously wrote some novels which don’t fit into the Christian market. Unlike Sarah, mine were not graphic in nature, by any means. Also unlike Sarah, hardly anyone has ever read mine! But when I began to believe that the Lord was calling me to write Christian romance, I worried about that. I worried about whether or not I would be accepted into the Christian market. On a much, much smaller scale, I could relate.

Are there under-represented groups or ideas featured in your book?

I felt very strongly from the moment the book began bouncing around in my head and heart that I needed to write a story which presented some middle ground for Christian readers. Certainly not always, but often, Christian fiction can tend to present the Christian walk as a neat and tidy thing. Those stories can be fantastic, of course, but sometimes they can be a little bit difficult to relate to. But a lot of what is presented in the general market is just as extreme, on the other end of the morality spectrum. I wanted to write a story in which we see our heroine go from adult non-believer to adult Christ-follower, and I wanted us to journey with her as she struggled to adapt to her new life, through the lens of her new faith. I wanted Sarah Hollenbeck to struggle with temptation in ways she never had before because she was tackling life with a brand new moral compass. And it was important to me that Sarah faced as much resistance from Christians as she did from those outside the faith. Salvation does not always equal maturity and wisdom.