Shadows: Visible & Invisible is a collection of short stories by seven authors and is centered around the All Hallowtide Triduum of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. These fictional stories are meant to help teens learn more about the history of these important days on the Church calendar through engaging tales.
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There are a handful of words most people will never misspell. They are the words they once misspelled when they got knocked out of a spelling bee. Mine are lunule, hexafoos, and hagiography. The last one is pertinent here:
Hagiography: (1) biography of saints or venerated persons. (2) idealizing or idolizing biography
Hagiography sounds like an arcane word, obscure and maybe old and stodgy. Maybe that has to do with “hag.” Unfortunately, that’s sometimes how the lives of the saints come across. Through misperception or stale storytelling, the lives of the saints may seem boring or irrelevant. They are quite the opposite!
Holiness is relevant in every time and place throughout human history, and achieving that holiness is the result of inherent struggles, often heroic ones. Sometimes the tension between good and evil is played out in dramatic fashion as in the lives of martyrs. Sometimes it is an internal struggle hidden behind a cloister wall. In both cases, there is tension ripe for a good story.
If you’re looking for lives of the saints (and blessed) stories that will highlight that struggle in ways that are relevant and relatable, told in compelling novels, I have five recommendations to get you started. Find these books and more saint novels at CatholicTeenBooks.com/saint-stories.
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New Orleans, 1795. In the wake of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, Alix de Morainville Carpentier—a former lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, now married to her gardener—seeks peace and security in the Spanish colony of Louisiana. But her journey into the man-eating swamp called Attakapas reopens the wounds of her old life in France. Alix is forced to reckon with the choices that saved her life at the cost of her honor—and perhaps her soul.
In revolutionary France, the Old World is dying; the quest for liberty, equality, and fraternity has become a nightmare where the price of dissent is blood. In the wilderness of Spanish Louisiana, a new civilization is beginning to emerge—but in this budding New World, the slave trade perpetuates the systems of oppression that sparked the revolution. Caught between old and new, scarred by trauma and grief, will Alix ever find a home where she can truly be free?
To Crown with Liberty is a historical novel based on riveting legends from George Washington Cable’s Strange True Stories of Louisiana (1888).
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I didn’t hit my Goodreads reading goal for 2023, despite finishing strong. I may have to downgrade my goal for 2024, but these are the books that ended our year in reading.
I’ll read Christmassy books well into January. Sticking with the liturgical season and all. 😉 Like a Winter Snow by Lindsay Harrel is a sweet romance Christmas novella with a heroine who is so invested in helping to care for her mother that she’s assumed way more responsibility for her welfare than is reasonable. A Christmas getaway to England for her friend’s wedding gives her (eventually) the perspective she needs when she meets a handsome Englishman.
Continue readingYour debut novel, The Father’s Son, is what I might call apologetic fiction. Do you think there is a difference in how readers are receptive to apologetics, or a defense of the faith, in fiction as opposed to traditional nonfiction?
The writing of and reception to The Father’s Son have certainly been a gift from the Holy Spirit, and, at one level, the story does weave in a case for the faith Christ left us as essential to living life as fully as God intends. At its heart, The Father’s Son is a very human journey for the main character, David Kelly, confronting the effects of his childhood trauma. From the world’s standpoint, David has everything, but the emotion-filled journey he has been avoiding begins with an unexpected friendship and unlocking the mystery and truth of his past. Beyond apologetics, the core of this is a story is of friendship, redemption, forgiveness, love, faith, and many twists and turns.
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I shared a list of five of my favorite contemporary Catholic romances over at Shepherd.com. See why I love each of these books.
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! STAY A WHILE AND LOOK AROUND. LEAVE A COMMENT. SHARE WITH A FRIEND. IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON NEW RELEASES, EXTRAS, AND HOT DEALS!
Catholic Teen Books is sponsoring two HUGE giveaways for Catholic school libraries. Schools may enter to win either a Junior High or High School bundle of books – or, if a K-12 school, BOTH.
Then faculty, staff, families, and students can vote for their school, earning more chances to win!
Find all the details at Catholic Teen Books.
Contest is for brick-and-mortar Catholic schools in the continental United States only. Contest ends September, 30, 2023.
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! STAY A WHILE AND LOOK AROUND. LEAVE A COMMENT. SHARE WITH A FRIEND. IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON NEW RELEASES, EXTRAS, AND HOT DEALS!
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. EDT, I’ll be facilitating a Catholics Read book club meeting. We’ll be chatting about Rhonda Ortiz’s debut novel, first in the Molly Chase series, In Pieces (Chrism Press).
This historical novel set in colonial Boston, while a romance, has wide appeal. There are rogues, spies, gossipy hens, and crusty sailors. More than that, there’s a lot to contemplate on duty, marriage, family, faith, dignity, conscience, and the pursuit of truth. Those are the kinds of things I hope we’ll talk about. And whatever YOU want to discuss!
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