Book Cover Reveal for New Novel

Join me for the book cover reveal of my new WWII historical fiction novel, Until We Find Home, and for a little of the “story behind the story.” I can’t wait to share this story with you, and would love to describe the cover and story’s connections to C. S. Lewis’s book, The Problem of Pain, and his WWII radio broadcasts …

Klopfelsingen–Caroling in Oberammergau

In Oberammergau, the Alpine Village in which I set Saving Amelie, the Thursday before Christmas is known as Klopfelsingen–when children and adults go caroling from house to house.  A longstanding Alpine tradition, Klopfelsingen is a pre-Christmas parallel to Sternsingen, or Star singers, in January. The carols sung before Christmas focus on Advent as a time of preparation, and on the importance …

Christmas with the Bonhoeffers

Sabine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s twin sister, remembered their family’s happy Christmas Seasons before her eldest brother was conscripted into WWI in 1916: “ On the Sundays of Advent we all assembled with her (their mother, Paula Bonhoeffer) round the long dinner table to sing Christmas carols; Papa joined us too and read from the fairy tales of Andersen . . . …

Planning for Courage

Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s father, recalled that in May 1933–shortly after Hitler came to power–the Nazi Minister for Cultural Affairs spoke at Berlin University, pressuring the university to dismiss immediately all Jewish doctors.  Even the Dean tried to persuade the faculty to join the Nazi Party.  Dr. Bonhoeffer later regretted that neither he nor his colleagues “had felt sufficient courage …

Behind Saving Amelie

Before I began writing Saving Amelie, I knew that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf detailed his early determination to judge who is worthy and who is “unworthy of life”—from conception to birth to old age to grave.  But, I was surprised to learn that the drive to create a master race did not originate in Nazi Germany. And I was astonished …

Classic Christian Works for a New Generation

My life has been changed through stories—especially the stories of Jesus, and writers who, Divinely inspired, penned on parchment the very breath of God. I never worry that the Bible, essential and timeless, will go out of print or vogue—it’s the bestselling, essential Book of all time. But, I’m concerned that new generations will lose or miss some of the …