Hey, y’all! My friend and fellow author Christine Lindsay has come by today to share a bit of her story. Christine and I met (if I remember correctly!) in 2009, when both of our unpublished historical novels were Genesis contest finalists–and she took home the prize! Anyway, I’ve loved both of her novels set in British India.
STORY BEHIND THE COVERS—By Christine Lindsay
Some readers may already know that the model on the front cover of Shadowed in Silk is Sarah, the daughter I relinquished to adoption in 1979, and was reunited with when she was twenty in 1999. Relinquishing Sarah was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was the only way at the time I could give her the life she deserved.
God was so good to me in the years following my loss of Sarah. A year after giving up Sarah, the Lord sent me my sweet husband David and gave us our three children.
Skip ahead . . . twenty years later when Sarah, and I were reunited—wonderful and terrifying at the same time. One of my deepest heart desires was that my two daughters, Sarah and Lana, become close. I used to pray they’d become like the bookends they were in my heart.
Adoption reunions are not easy for anyone. To my heartbreak, it didn’t appear that the long desired special relationship would develop. A few months after meeting Sarah, my husband caught me crying and placed a brand new pen and journal into my hands. “Here honey, write it.”
One day as I was journaling, a Bible verse jumped out at me and for the first time I understand the love of the Heavenly Father. Isaiah 49:15, 16.
“Can a woman forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne. Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See…I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”
A few years later I felt the Lord encourage me to put the emotional and spiritual healing that He had given me into fictional stories to help others. In 2011 my debut novel was about to be released, and in a serendipitous way God arranged for Sarah to be the model on the cover of Shadowed in Silk.
A few months after Shadowed in Silk was released, my birthdaughter Sarah and her husband Mark announced they were joining Global Aid Network to work with organizations that help widows and orphans.
One of those missions was the Ramabai Mukti Mission in India. When I heard this I nearly fell off my chair. I had never told Sarah that the true-life Ramabai who started the Mukti mission in India was the inspiration behind Shadowed in Silk and Captured by Moonlight.
Many years ago, I had prayed for the Lord to give Sarah, Lana, and me, a special relationship. It took a while, but He knit our hearts together in the respective work He gave each of us to do.
When it came time to release Captured by Moonlight I asked for my daughter Lana—the daughter God gave me to keep—to be the model on the front cover.
A long time ago, I had prayed that one day I’d see my two daughters together like bookends. Thanks to our Awesome, tender-hearted Heavenly Father, He gave me just that.
Both my beautiful daughters on the books God inspired.
Author Bio: Irish-born Christine Lindsay writes award-winning historical novels. In Shadowed in Silk and Captured by Moonlight, Christine delights in weaving the theme of the Heavenly Father’s redemptive love throughout stories of danger, suspense, adventure, and romance. Christine is currently writing Book 3 of that series to be released August 2014, Veiled at Midnight. The Pacific coast of Canada, about 200 miles north of Seattle, is Christine’s home.
Book Blurb: 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?
The link to read the first 1 Chapter of Shadowed in Silk (Book 1)
The link to read the first 2 Chapters of Captured by Moonlight (Book 2)
Amazon purchase link for Shadowed in Silk
Amazon purchase link for Captured by Moonlight
Barnes & Noble link for Shadowed in Silk
Barnes & Noble link for Captured by Moonlight
Kobo link for Shadowed in Silk
Kobo link for Captured by Moonlight
Christine Lindsay would love to connect with you on her website www.christinelindsay.com
Christine posts inspirational articles 3 times each week on her blog www.christinelindsay.org
Christine would love for you to join her on her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.
This is such a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing it.
isn’t it? A story only God could arrange!
Thank you Melanie, yes it is a wonderful story, so much more to it though, as it is with all our stories. Each person has so much to share. Thank you for your kind remark about mine. Blessings.
Thank you Melanie. Blessing on you. God has been very good to me.
How brave you and your beautiful daughters are to share this personal story with all of us. Thank you!
I just bought Shadowed In Silk and I can’t wait to read it.
Thank you Anne Mateer for introducing me to a new (to me) author.
Hi Amy, thank you for purchasing Shadowed in Silk, I really hope you like it. It’s a really different setting for sure. And the story continues with Book 2, Captured by Moonlight. I’m currently writing the final book, Veiled at Midnight of that series which will take the readers through the brutal time of the Parition of Indian and the creation of Pakistan. But of course there will be human partitions too, and how the Lord brings lovers and families back together again. Blessings
You are welcome, Amy! We readers have to help one another find new books and authors! 🙂
Thank you for sharing your story. These look like great books.
They are so very good, Susan–both the stories and the history of the British in India during WWI and beyond.