One of the great things about being an author is meeting people you might not have otherwise. Christine Lindsay is a fellow member of CAN (Christian Authors Network) who had an ebook release a couple of months ago and will soon to be available in paperback. I think you’ll find her story fascinting.
Welcome, Christine! Tell my readers a bit about your writing journey. How long have you been writing, and what’s been the biggest surprise?
My writing apprenticeship started about 13 years ago, just after my birth-daughter, Sarah, and I were reunited. Sarah is the child I relinquished to adoption when she was 3 days old. During the years that she was growing up as someone else’s child, I continued to pray that God would reunite our hearts one day in a unique birth-mom and birth-daughter relationship.
When we were at long last reunited, Sarah was 20, and seeing this totally grown up girl, who felt like my daughter, and yet who was not my daughter, broke my heart all over again.
I began to relive my original loss of her as my child, even though I was happily married to a wonderful man, and we had three great kids of our own.
One day I was crying on our living room couch, and my husband went out shopping, only to return a short while later. He placed into my hands a brand new pen and journal, and said, “Here, write it.”
My journaling was cathartic at first, but soon the Lord brought the emotional and spiritual healing that I needed. A few years after that, I felt His whisper, to put what I had learned into fictional stories to help others.
My biggest writing surprise happened in 2011 when my first book Shadowed in Silk was about to be released. WhiteFire Publishing was looking for the model for the front cover, and sent me photos of various young women. As I looked at these photos, I thought, “My, how they look like Sarah.” So, on a whim, I suggested my birth-daughter as the model, and WhiteFire thought she was beautiful.
Arranging the costumes and photo-shoot out here on the west coast was a lot of fun for me, and WhiteFire did the rest of the designing on the east coast.
But a few months after my debut novel Shadowed in Silk was released, Sarah and her husband Mark came to visit. They told us they felt called into fulltime missionary work with Global Aid Network, and one of the organizations within their spheres of interest was the Ramabai Mukti Mission in India.
Sarah knew Shadowed in Silk was about India, but I had never told her that the inspiration behind my Indian Christian character was the true-life Ramabai who started her mission to help cast-off orphans and widows in the previous century.This wonderful Indian character is one of the focuses of Captured by Moonlight.
When Sarah told me this, I nearly fell of my chair. Only a tender-hearted heavenly Father could have arranged for our two hearts and callings to be so entwined. He truly had answered my prayers for a unique birth-mom and birth-daughter relationship.
When it came time to look for the model for Captured by Moonlight, there was only one choice for me—my daughter Lana. So on both of my books, I had my beautiful daughters.
How did you come up with the idea for your series and for Captured by Moonlight? Is there a part of the story that comes from your personal experience?
I wanted the title for Book 2 of the Twilight of the British Raj series to have the same ring as Book 1. And Shadowed in Silk was highly metaphorical as the main character Abby Fraser felt invisible to the people who should have loved her. Also, Abby had to dress in a silk sari to hide her identity during a dangerous time in India.
So the title for Book 2 had to be equally metaphoric and to give that feeling of my two main female characters being captured. Eshana the young former Hindu widow is literally captured by moonlight and imprisoned, while the emotions of Laine Harkness are captured by her memories of the man she used to love and his proposal to her in the moonlight years ago.
The spiritual themes in Captured by Moonlight are my own experience. As Christians we must get to the point in our spiritual life where we are willing to die to ourselves, and allow Christ to live His life through us. In other words, we must go through a sort of funeral for our hopes, dreams and ambitions, such as when Eshana must wear the funeral garb of a Hindu widow once more.
But no need to worry, we serve a God who is an expert at bring the dead back to life.
Gives us a short synopsis of the book Captured by Moonlight
Prisoners to their own broken dreams…
After a daring rescue goes awry, the parched north of India grows too hot for nurse Laine Harkness and her friend Eshana. The women flee to the tropical south…and run headlong into their respective pasts.
Laine takes a new nursing position at a plantation in the jungle, only to discover that her former fiancé is the owner…and that Adam has no more to say to her now than he did when he crushed her years ago. Why, then, is she still drawn to him, and to the tiger cub he is raising?
Eshana, captured by her traditional uncle and forced once more into the harsh Hindu customs of mourning, doubts whether freedom will ever again be in her future, much less the forbidden love that had begun to whisper to her. Is faith enough to live on? Or is her Savior calling her home?
Amid cyclones and epidemics, clashing faiths and consequences of the war, will the love of the True Master give hope to these searching hearts?
What take away do you hope readers get from reading Captured by Moonlight?
I want readers to be encouraged to trust God when they take that step of obedience. Like Eshana, don’t be afraid to die to yourself. Trust that God’s will is best all around. And in the end, will make you far happier. I’ve found this to be true in my life.
I’m on a fruit and veggie smoothie kick and long-time coffee addict. How about you? Coffee? Tea? Sparkling mineral water? Or . . .
Oh, being Irish, it’s good old black tea all the way. An addict for sure.
Thanks, Christine! I hope readers have found this as fascinating as I have. Blessings on your writing journey!
Links for Christine:
Captured by Moonlight Book Trailer.
Website: www.christinelindsay.com
ChristineLindsayAuthor Facebook page
ChristineLindsayAuthor Twitter page.
Amazon.com Captured by Moonlight
WhiteFire Publishing Captured by Moonlight