Sleigh Bells, anyone?

The tang of fall is still in the air and usually I don't allow the bliss of autumn's offerings to be shadowed by early talk of December, but I will make a happy exception today to chat about my friend Cindy Woodsmall's new book, The Sound of Sleighbells. Cindy and I share the same editor at the same wonderful publishing house, and the same love for a powerful story. On top of that, Cindy's the most genuniely humble person you could ever meet. If you enjoy a Christmas novel to help you set a gentle, relaxed tone for the rush of holiday activity to come, well here you go.

To give you a little backstory, when Cindy was 10 and living in the dairy country of Maryland, she became best friends with Luann, a Plain Mennonite girl. Luann, like all the women and girlsin her family, wore the prayer Kapp and caped dresses. Her family didn't own a television or radio and many other modern conveniences. When Luann would come Cindy’s house to spend the night, her rules came with her and the two were careful to obey them—afraid that if they didn’t, the adults would end their friendship. Cindy remembers that both sets of parents were uncomfortable with the relationship and that a small infraction of any kind would have been enough reason for the parents to end the relationship.

While navigating around the adults’ disapproval and the obstacles in each others' lifestyle, the two girls bonded in true friendship that lasted into their teen years, until Cindy’s family moved away. Many years later, Cindy became friends with an Old Order Amish family opened their home and hearts to her. It's these two friendships that give Cindy's Amish fiction the depth of understanding she has for Amish and Mennonite culture.

The story in a nutshell:
Beth Hertzler works alongside her Aunt Lizzy in their dry goods story, and serving as a contact of sorts between Amish craftsmen and Englischers who want to tell the Plain people's wares. But remorse and loneliness still echo everyday in her heart as she still wears th dark garb of mourning following the death of her fiance. When she discovers a large, intricately carved scene of Amish children playing in the snow, something deep inside Beth's soul responds and she wants to help the unknown artist find homes for his work - including Lizzy's dry goods store. But she doesn't know if her bishop will approve of the gorgeous carving or deem it idolatry.

Lizzy sees the changes in her niece when Beth shows her the woodworking, and after Lizzy hunts down Jonah, the artist, she is all the more determined that Beth meets this man with the hands that create healing art. But it’s not that simple–will Lizzy’s elaborate plan to reintroduce her niece to love work? Will Jonah be able to offer Beth the sleigh ride she’s always dreamed of and a second chance at real love–or just more heartbreak?

The Sound of Sleigh Bells is a heartwarming Christmas novella where lack and abundance inside an Amish community has power for good when it's tucked inside love. Romantic Times gave The Sound of Sleigh Bells 4 1/2 stars saying: "This is a wonderfully written, transformative story of two Amish families at Christmastime. It will being sleigh-riding memories to life as readers vicariously join in this jolly and exciting holiday tradition.

You can read an excerpt of the book right here on Cindy's beautiful website. Check out her blog while you are there.

And by the way, Cindy Woodsmall is a New York Times best-selling author whose connection with the Amish has been featured on ABC Nightline and the front page of the Wall Street Journal. She is the mother of three sons and two daughters-in-law, and she and her husband reside in Georgia.

Experiments with Fiction

In today's San Diego Union Tribune an obituary graced the top of page B4 that drew me in like a magnet to metal: Acclaimed writer known for experimental fiction. It was the headline for the obituary of a local writer and retired professor, Dr. Raymond Federman, who had just passed at the age of 81.

I'd never heard the term "experimental fiction" before, and while I quipped as I folded the page back that I experiment with fiction all the time, deep down I knew this man must have taken fiction for a truly unconventional ride and I had to see where it was he had gone with it.

Turns out Dr. Federman experimented with the conventions of fiction - writing non-linear pieces that defied every boring rule of Story - to make sense of what happened when he was just a boy, not to turn the literary world on its head. Federman, a child of Jewish parents, was living in Paris in 1940. His obituary states that "he was spared from death during the Holocaust when his mother pushed him into a closet to hide when the Gestapo arrived and took the rest of his family. Dr. Federman never saw his parents or two sisters again."

Imagine being twelve and having to emerge from a closet to that kind of desperate situation. No wonder when he was older he experimented with how to tell a story like that one. His "Voice in the Closet" is apparently one, long poetic sentence with no capitalization and no punctuation. His latest work about his life, called "Shhh" is due to be published next year.

"Shhh" is what Federman's mother said to him - the last thing she said to him- as she pushed him into the closet.

I can tell already I must add it to my bucket list of books I simply have to read. And not just to see what experimental fiction look like. . .

I am halfway through Richard Stearns' The Hole in Our Gospel, a book that asks some of the toughest questions imaginable about faith and practice. I don't usually comment on a book that I haven't finished, mainly because most books are meant to be embraced in their entirety - phonebooks and dictionaries excepted.

But this one has me thinking. It's one of those books you need to think and ponder on while you're reading it.

Stearns was the well-paid CEO of Lennox, busy selling pretty dishes when he was asked to be president of World Vision a few years back. As you probably already know, World Vision doesn't sell pretty dishes. They feed, clothe, and care for some of the world's poorest and disadvantaged children. It was what some might call a huge career move, and a tough choice. But Stearns felt the call of God to make it, and has since come to the conclusion - based on his own experience - that Christians believe the gospel but largely fail to live it out, and that American Christians especially have the resources to make an incredible difference in shrinking poverty around the world.

His treatment of his subject matter is nothing short of blunt: If you are a follower of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you will love the poor like he did, and you will care for them like he did. I totally get that.

But I am eager to see how Stearns helps us understand how much do we give? Do we give it all away except for what we need to meet our own basic needs? What are my basic needs? Must the Christian buy a used sedan if he or she has the money to buy a new Lexus? Does the prosperous Christian have no option but to give all his wealth away? Is what we do with our material possessions always more important than what we say with our mouths?

A reviewer on Amazon said this book is nicely paired with Randy Alcorn's The Treasure Principle, about which one reader said, "Giving is the only antidote to materialism." I don't fully understand the scope of alleviating the plight of the world's poor, but I do understand the snarky pull of materialism. That, I understand.

More when I finish. . .

She Reads, of course!

Proverbs 31 Ministries, a fabulous organization, has a new book club called She Reads, which launched in September with three new featured books, one of which is The Shape of Mercy.

I wrote a devotional for the main Proverbs 31 site that you can read right here. My publisher is giving away ten copies and one grand winner will receive a beautiful leather bound journal and fountain pen, ala Mercy's diary. You can enter the drawing on the Proverbs 31 site today - the link takes you right to the She Reads blog.

Want to know more about She Reads? Sure you do! My good friend Marybeth Whalen is one of the key organizers of She Reads and she wrote a great blog post about it last week, which I have excerpted here:

So how does She Reads work?
Marybeth: Our goal for She Reads is for it to function in two ways: 1) as a place an individual can go get recommendations for great books to read and to connect with the authors who wrote them and other readers who enjoyed them and 2) as a place where book clubs that are already out there can get connected with an umbrella organization that provides suggestions for books, activities they can do, discussion questions, and a point of contact with the author. We are working towards accomplishing these goals and are learning and tweaking as we go.

That sounds great, so how can I get connected?
Marybeth: Right now, the best way to get connected is to sign up for our seasonal newsletter and to subscribe to our blog, which is updated several times a week. You can also become a fan on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter. That way, as we make changes and create new facets to She Reads, you will know about it. To visit our site and learn more, go to www.shereads.org. There is a navigation bar at the top which will take you to different parts of the site.

What books have you selected so far?
Marybeth: We select 3 books a season. Our fall selections are Daisy Chain by Mary DeMuth, The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner, and eye of the god by Ariel Allison. These three different books all meet the criteria we created at the outset. Because this club is not set up by any one publisher we have the freedom to go to any Christian publisher to find our selections... and we do. We are reading, reading, reading right now to find our spring and summer selections. We have already chosen our winter ones but I can't tell you what those are yet! We will be making our announcement towards the beginning of December but I can promise you you are in for a treat with these books!

Do check the devo out!

A Slow Burn

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Mary DeMuth to the Edge to chat about her new book A Slow Burn, a richly told story of regrets and redemption. Mary has a wonderful book trailer for this book, which you can find right here. A Slow Burn takes us back to Defiance, Texas - the setting of the first book in this series, Daisy Chain. Here, we enter into the shadowed, hollow world of Daisy's mother, Emory Chance - a woman who wishes for all the world she could have what her name suggests - another chance.

Mary, Where did you get the idea for the book?
I wrote the series of stories based on hearing friends of mine talk about their Christian homes that appeared great on the outside, only to hide abuse on the inside. This really bothered me. Daisy became the inciting incident to explore three people’s stories relating to authenticity and hiding. In book one, Daisy Chain, I explore a teenage boy’s perspective to a family in crisis. In book two, A Slow Burn, I examine what would it be like to have deep, deep mommy regrets enough to want to be free from them. In book three, Life in Defiance, I tell the conclusion of the story through a battered wife’s perspective.I am not a teenage boy. Nor am I a neglectful mother. And I’m not a battered wife. But I’ve interacted with folks who are. It’s for them that I wrote these stories.

What’s the significance to you personally of the town’s name, Defiance?
Several characters in different ways embody the act of defiance. Hap, certainly. But even Emory has her own form of defiance convention. Muriel, who is battling cancer in the book, certainly defies it, defies untruth. Hixon is the gentlest form of defiance I can think of, more of a Martin Luther King Junior defiant than an in-your-face Hap defiance.

What are the major themes of the book?
You’re never too far from God’s grace and love and forgiveness. That God is a pursuing, redemptive, relentless God. He loves His children, even when they run far, far away. That Jesus comes to us in surprising packages, and sometimes we’re so bothered by appearances that we miss Him.

What kind of research did you have to do for A Slow Burn?
I had to figure out how a drug addict acted and thought. I had to research what drugs do to a person, particularly the lure and the trips they take folks on. I had to get into the mind of a drug addict, which wasn’t easy for me, someone who is terrified of drugs. I created Defiance from my head and my two-year stint in East Texas.

In your first book in this series, Daisy Chain, we spend a lot of time in the point of view of young Jed Pepper. In A Slow Burn, Daisy’s mother is continuing the story. Did you find Jed wanting to “talk” to you during the writing of A Slow Burn?
No, weirdly. He didn’t say much, probably because I was so entrenched in Emory’s head. I tend to absorb myself in my point of view characters. But I did miss Jed. Great kid!

Did you ever see yourself as a child in your portrayals of Daisy? What did you draw from to form her character? In some ways, yes. Daisy was much more of a free spirit, less afraid than I was as a child. Perhaps she’s how I wish I would’ve been. She faced her own world head on, not too concerned about her problems. And she found a really good friend who made everything so much better. I could relate to Daisy’s home life situation, the neglect, the drugs. So that part came more naturally to me.

Where does your inspiration for writing southern drama spring from? From my own southern drama! Just kidding. Not a native, I’m fascinated by the south—its sometimes-darkness. Its secrets. It feels like the perfect place to set the types of novels I write.

With which character do you, personally, identify most and why?
That’s really hard. I see myself in all of them. When I feel guilty about my parenting, I relate to Emory. When I feel like an outcast, trying to do the right thing, I understand Hixon and Muriel better.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
That God is bigger than our sin, our regret, our hopelessness. He takes delight in intersecting the darkest of circumstances. He is there, available.

You can find Mary at home on the web right here. And you can find A Slow Burn right here.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.