Christine Lindsay, welcome! Tell us, what made you decide to become a writer?
Ever since I could hold a pencil I’ve wanted to be a writer, but not until my heart was broken did I have anything to write about. Good writing—even if it’s comic—needs the depths of despair as well as the heights of joy.
Back in 1979 I relinquished my baby girl to adoption because I was unmarried and wanted my child to have a mom and a dad. Twenty years later when my birth-daughter and I were reunited I began to relive the original loss of her as my child. My husband found me crying one day and went out, returning a while later with a brand new pen and journal and said, “Here honey, write it.”
My true-life account about adoption and reunion wasn’t picked up by any publishing houses. But a few years later I felt the Lord urge me to put the emotional and spiritual healing I had received into Christian fiction to encourage others. That was the start of my writing career. However, 16 years later, after the publication of 6 multi-award-winning novels comes the release of my true life story. Finding Sarah—Finding Me: A Birth Mother’s Story releasing August 15, 2016.
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Where does the inspiration for your books come from?
Like most people, my own lineage fascinates me. For Sofi’s Bridge (May 2016), the inspiration for the riveters of bridges in 1913 came from the fact that my paternal great-grandfather and his son Richard (my grandfather) were both riveters on the building of the Titanic. In fact, the Titanic was my grandfather’s very first ship as he began his apprenticeship at 14. However, as a family we accept no responsibility for the sinking of that infamous vessel.
Another family tidbit on my mother’s side is that of my great-great grandfather who died of cholera when he was serving in the British Army in Colonial India, and his wife’s return trip to Ireland where she gave birth to their son on the Island of St. Helena where Napoleon was originally buried. That inspired my multi-award-winning trilogy: Shadowed in Silk, Captured by Moonlight, and Veiled at Midnight.
And continuing my bragging, another great uncle served as an officer in the British Cavalry at the time of Lord Louis Mountbatten (Queen Elizabeth’s cousin and the last Viceroy to British India). We’ve got family photos of my uncle being inspected by King George VI and later again by the Queen Mother. That fluffs up our feathers of family pride, I can tell you, and inspired more of that trilogy set in British Colonial India and my trip there in 2010.
Dipping into my family’s archives has kept the fires of my imagination stoked for years, but I also enjoy the ordinary folks in my lineage, like my great-aunt Maggie and her delightful Irish farm, set on rolling green hills and dotted with sheep and lambs. Ireland really is a magical place. I’ve stood on majestic cliff tops in gales overlooking the North Sea. I’ve walked around medieval walled cities like Londonderry, had tea in thatched cottages, and breathed in a peat fire burning in an Irish fireplace, all so evocative in my contemporary romance Londonderry Dreaming, and the books that I’m currently writing.
This ancestral history combined with the fact that I live just across the border from Washington State’s gorgeous Cascade Mountains, the Lord has provided settings galore for my fictional novels.
Why do you write the genre you do?
I love history, but I also love a contemporary story braided with the past. The past affects our future. More importantly to me, is setting. Books are all about conveying an emotional experience, and escaping for a few hours or days to a different place or era, somewhere exotic, beautiful and exciting, can give my readers that extraordinary experience I want to give them. Because I was born in Great Britain I am more familiar with British history. Keep in mind that Colonial India to the British people is as exciting as the Wild West is to Americans. Talk about romantic swashbuckling cavalry heroes, beautiful Indian women in saris, or British/American woman in flower-laden tropical gardens or vast ochre colored deserts, with danger lurking at every side, and toe-curling romance !!!!
How does your faith and spirituality work in your writing?
If it weren’t for my faith and spiritual life I simply would not be writing. I love books, but it is my prayer that by entertaining readers I can give them an emotional experience that will encourage them and strengthen their faith.
My books, while they may have a great deal of historical detail and romance, they all have strong spiritual takeaways.
For example:
⦁ Shadowed in Silk: God sees and hears you in your emotional pain. You are not invisible to Him.
⦁ Captured by Moonlight: Dying to your own agenda to be obedient to God’s agenda, and being blessed by His choices for you.
⦁ Veiled at Midnight: Teaches that nothing can separate us from the Love of God, absolutely nothing, not even our own sin.
⦁ Londonderry Dreaming: Encourages us to speak the truth in love.
⦁ Sofi’s Bridge (May 2016): Is about not trying to save our loved ones, but leaving them to Christ.
⦁ Finding Sarah—Finding Me: A Birthmother’s Story (August 2016)—is my personal story about finding my own face in the face of Christ while I was searching for my birth daughter.
What do you promise your readers?
As my readers turn the pages I want to fill their mind with fear sliding down their spine like ice, suspense keeping them on a razer edge, toe curling romance, inspiration that gently whispers and doesn’t preach. I want my readers to cry and to laugh, and maybe even learn something fascinating from history.
And I always promise my readers a happy ending, because I believe in the ultimate happy ending people can have by surrendering to Christ.
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What stories are on the horizon for you to write?
Currently I’m starting a brand new series set in Ireland (where I was born) and in parts of the US. I want to write what I call braided stories, one point of view from current day, and another from that of the hero or heroine’s ancestral past. I am weaving those stories together to create novels with an old family mystery to be solved, romance present day and from the past, and how God oversees us from His timeless perspective. In other words, how the past affects the future.
How can readers help you spread the word about your books?
Write a short paragraph review on Amazon about why you liked the book. Amazon reviews are so important to writers. Your review doesn’t have to be professional, and the shorter the better actually. Just a paragraph about why you liked the book, what kind of reader you would recommend it to. That sort of thing, and of course 4 and 5 star ratings. I for one would be eternally grateful.
Where can readers contact you for your upcoming releases?
Subscribe to my quarterly newsletter. Each quarter I send out a newsletter with draws for giveaways of books, etc, and also the news of upcoming releases and speaking engagements.
I also do a fair number of book giveaways on my weekly self-titled (.org) blog where I feature guest authors.
Contact me; I love to hear back from readers.
If want to learn more about Christine Lindsay’s books or purchase them, you can find them below:
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DISCLOSURE: SOME OF THE LINKS IN THE PAGE ABOVE MAY BE “AFFILIATE LINKS.” THIS MEANS IF YOU CLICK ON THE LINK AND PURCHASE THE ITEM, WE WILL RECEIVE AN AFFILIATE COMMISSION. WE ARE DISCLOSING THIS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION’S 16 CFR, PART 255: “GUIDES CONCERNING THE USE OF ENDORSEMENTS AND TESTIMONIALS IN ADVERTISING.”
