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 As an avid reader, I’m always
looking for the next book that will capture my interest. My TBR pile
towers. Yes, that really is a three-layered to-be-read pile. And I
really do intend to read all of those books. The challenge is finding
the time.
I’ve learned to be creative. I
read while running on the treadmill. While blow-drying my hair. While
cooking.
You’ll find our table surrounded
with readers at lunchtime. Just today my thirteen-year-old,
ten-year-old, and I read as we lingered over grilled cheese and soup.
When reading is in your blood,
holding a book and meeting new characters is practically as important
as breathing. If I go a day without entering a fictional world, part of
me begins to twitch. This week I’m reading Vannetta Chapman’s Murder
Simply Brewed, Kathleen Y’Barbo’s Sophie’s Secret,
and John Grisham’s Sycamore Row. Each takes me into
a different world filled with challenges—some like mine and some
different.
I love when a story sweeps me
into real events. With Murder Simply Brewed I get
to witness what happens when Plain and English worlds collide. In Sophie’s
Secret I get to experience the life of a Pinkerton agent.
And with Grisham’s books, I pretend I am a lawyer working on important
trials.
Maybe that’s why I like writing
historical fiction, the kind rooted in real events. Several years ago I
stumbled upon the Monuments Men, an elite unit of men engaged in saving
Western civilization during WWII. A couple years later a publisher
bought the story, and in January it released. In one of those
serendipitous, God moments, George Clooney’s The Monuments Men
movie released five weeks later. I love that readers are discovering
the exploits of these men, that through story, whether my novel or the
movie, people are experiencing a taste of what men and women lived to
secure the art that we hold so dear.
Isn’t that what fiction, what
story, is all about? Transporting us—whether we’re on a treadmill, in
the living room, or on an airplane—to another world. It might be across
the state, another time, or another country. But through it all we’re
captivated, holding our breath to see what happens next as we pray for
life to slow down long enough to reach the end.
About Shadowed by
Grace:
Rachel Justice is desperate to
save her dying mother. She doesn’t want to leave her, but she accepts
her newspaper’s assignment to travel to Italy to photograph war images.
No one knows her photography is a cover and that Rachel is really
seeking to find the father she never knew, hopeful to get some help
with her failing mother. Dedicated to her mission, Rachel is focused on
completing it. Soon, though, she finds her priorities and plans
changing when she is assigned to Lt. Scott Lindstrom, on mission as one
of the Monuments Men. Their meeting will have far-reaching
consequences. Will this derail her plans? Will she ever find her
father? Is her faith enough to carry her through?
People can read the first
chapter here: http://caraputman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Shadowed-by-Grace-chapter-excerpt.pdf.
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