Get Serious! Spring Fever Teaser #2

On Tuesday I posted a fun, kissey teaser from my new book The Truth About Letting Go. (If you missed it, here's the link.)

It was a toss-up between that one and a more serious teaser, showing the debate keeping our H&h apart.

Since some of you wanted that one, too (funnies!), and since I'm a softie, here's a BONUS Spring Fever Teaser! Enjoy~

On Amazon

Jordan pulls a blade of grass and is quiet for a moment. Then he speaks slowly, as if picking out the words. “I don’t think of it as giving up my life. I think life is more than keeping rules versus doing whatever you want. I think it’s about leaving things better than how you found them.”

“So volunteer. Work at a shelter on the weekends. You can still do good without giving up everything.”

“Everything? Ashley, there’s so much more going on in the world than sex.”

“Not when you kiss me.” 

He looks down, and I notice his ears turn slightly pink. I can’t believe I just said that out loud. 

“I mean, well, that’s how it feels.”

He simply nods, and I know he feels it, too.

“All this church stuff is just a way of controlling us, Jordan. Not only that, it’s a way of controlling us from ancient times when everything was different.”

“Things weren’t so different.”

“Walking on water, healing sick people, bringing people back from the dead. None of that happens—if it ever did. How can you believe any of it?”

“I don’t know. But I do. And I want to find out how things like that make sense today.”

“And what if you find out they don’t? Or just… what if you don’t like what you find out?”

He exhales and watches the memo pad blowing in the breeze. “I’m not looking for a particular answer. Or to control what I find.”

I pull my knees into my chest and hug them. “Jordan. Why?”

His blue eyes flick to mine. “Okay. Remember how Dr. Andrews said you can’t keep God in a box and then pull him out when you need him to fix a problem and then stick him back in so he doesn’t mess with your life? I think it’s like that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think God is dynamic and unpredictable. Good stuff happens, but so does bad stuff. And it all happens to challenge us. To make us grow and change.”

“Things like my dad dying?”

Jordan rubs his forehead. “I don’t know. But, well… he’s not suffering now. He’s in a better place, right?”

Anger tightens my stomach. “How about he never got sick to start with?”

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Have a great weekend, reader- and writer-friends~ <3

The Truth About... Writing Faith

Merry Christmas, reader- and writer-friends!

I hope you're all getting into the spirit. I'm in the writing cave typing like the wind to finish The Truth About Letting Go, a new book that's a companion to The Truth About Faking (link).

TTALG is different from TTAF in that it's not a romantic comedy. It's a romantic drama. But it's still a coming of age story set in Shadow Creek (the ritzy neighborhood next to Shadow Falls).

The main character is Ashley Lockett, who you briefly meet in the last bathroom scene in TTAF. And like TTAF, one of the main characters is a person of faith, which causes a unique set of "problems" for Ashley.

Back when I started TTALG in 2010, Laurel Garver and I exchanged first chapters, and we were struck by the similar themes in our books. Fast forward almost three years, and I did a post on her blog about religion in romantic comedies (link).

Laurel is here today to discuss how she tackled issues of faith in her new book Never Gone (link). So without further ado, I turn the spot over to Laurel~

Getting Real About Faith... and Doubt
by Laurel Garver (link)

In my novel Never Gone (link), fifteen-year-old Dani believes her dead father has come back as a ghost, in part because the strain of trying to live without him is unbearable for her.

Garver

From the outset, it’s clear that her dad gave her a lot of emotional support and encouraged her artistic talent. But he also shaped her values by raising her in the Anglican church, just like he had been.

The way Dani identifies her dad and her faith so closely makes grief especially complicated. Her devout dad is happily in heaven now, everyone tells her, so she’s really not supposed to be upset. But the very real pain and anger she feels can’t be easily argued away or healed with nice-sounding platitudes. The secure faith of her childhood begins to waver.

In places of great pain, any belief system will take a beating—even if it’s a secular belief in the power of friendship or family love. I think that aspect makes my novel a relatable story no matter where you are on the faith/doubt/indifference spectrum.

Still, it’s hard to ignore how deeply polarizing religion can be. When I initially sat down to write this post for Leigh, we were in the midst of one of the ugliest presidential races I’ve ever witnessed. And I have to admit that during that time, when faced with the task of discussing how I use religious themes in my work, I emotionally imploded.

Christians on both ends of the political spectrum were behaving badly, and any attempt to have a civil discussion was looking pretty fruitless. I don’t know if it was wise or simply cowardly to hold off writing this post; all I could see was how Christianity had become the Tar Baby. So I’ve waited to let the rancor subside and to gather my thoughts a little longer.

Writing religion is risky. Beliefs and values are so core to our identities, our vision of the good life, and these beliefs often come into conflict. And yet teens need to see themselves in fiction. In this Huffington Post interview, “Religion lifts YA books from ‘darkness’,” YA author Rae Carson expresses well the idea that pushing religion out of books marginalizes groups and their real experiences.

Spiritual questions about the nature of life and of a higher power naturally come up when a person is grieving. To remove religious thinking on the topic seems to me inauthentic.

My approach was simply to write a character for whom faith is a natural part of life. It’s Dani’s framework for understanding the world, just like her artistic ability is. The imagery and stories of her faith weave through her thought world as much as the language of painting and drawing. Like any teen raised in a Christian home, she goes through a coming-of-age process in which she has to decide if she truly believes for herself, rather than believing in her parent’s belief.

Most centrally, Never Gone is a dramatic story, not a handbook or a “how to grieve well” manual. Readers walk with Dani through sadness, longing, first love, turmoil, broken relationships, confusion and doubt. The adults in her world sometimes help, sometimes fail her badly. She has to come to grips with what is really real, with who God is, and with how she must grow and change in order to become her best self.

I don’t think you have to be a Christian to read a story like mine and get something positive out of it. I’m not Jewish, but I really love Chaim Potok’s stories, which give me a glimpse into Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish communities. One of the most lovely things about literature is how it opens a window into other worlds, gives us a chance to understand other perspectives by living inside them for just a little while.

====

Laurel Garver is the author of Never Gone, a novel about grief, faith and finding love when all seems lost. A word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter. 

Trailer for Never Gone



Add it on Goodreads. Read a sample chapter.

It is available as an ebook and a paperback at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, CreateSpace.

Gotta Have Faith

I'm not here!

I'm over at the lovely and talented Laurel Garver's blog (link) today talking about why I kept a touch of religion (spirituality?) in my debut YA rom-com The Truth About Faking (link).

It was perhaps a risky move, having a preacher-dad in a rom-com, but I think it works. Drop over and see what you think! (link)

Laurel will be here in the near future doing the same, talking about her new book Never Gone (link).

And Come back Friday! I'm breaking my schedule yet again, but I promise it'll be something really, rilly exciting!

Can't wait to see you then! In the meantime, my friends on the East Coast, be safe! Hunker down, as we used to say along the Gulf. You're in my thoughts and prayers. ((hugs))

More soon, reader- and writer-friends~ <3