Debut Author Spotlight ... SHADOWED IN SILK by CHRISTINE LINDSAY

A few months back when the Debut Author page was born, one cover stood out to me among all the other terrific covers: SHADOWED IN SILK by Christine Lindsay. I'm not certain what drew me to this cover, whether it was the color blue, or the silk...I just knew that I loved it.

So, I sent Christine a note telling her how much I loved it and she wrote back with this amazing story.

Warning: have tissues handy.

THE STORY BEHIND THE COVER

(reprinted from InkspirationalMessages.com)

Many would say there are disadvantages to being published by a small press. WhiteFire may be small—and I certainly am—but that means we need to lean on God all the more. From my past, I’ve learned that the Lord doesn’t forget about the small individual, and He’s proven this to me again by how He arranged the front cover of my book, SHADOWED IN SILK.

I have to go back 32 years to when I gave birth to a little girl. Not married at the time, I felt God compel me to relinquish her to a Christian couple unable to have children. I named my baby Sarah in the hope that one day I would see her again.

Twenty years later Sarah and I were reunited. But though our reunion was a good one, I began to relive my original loss of relinquishing her. My husband encouraged me to work out my emotional pain by writing. Later the Lord urged me to write out the emotional healing He had given me in fictional stories to help others.

And now my debut novel about the British Raj in India will be released this May 2011—a story that has nothing to do with adoption (well not much anyway). But the Lord had something special in store for me, more than I had ever dreamt of.

As WhiteFire and I discussed the design of the cover, I suggested the model wear the sari material I had purchased in India on a missions trip. WhiteFire loved the idea but said to hold off on mailing the silk across the country as it was pretty heavy with gems and beading.

It was then I noticed that the model they suggested for my main character, Abby, resembled my birth daughter. On a whim I suggested Sarah for the model and WhiteFire agreed. Sarah was shy at first, but she pitched in on this step of faith with me, even though she had to travel 300 miles to participate in the photo shoot.

I began to panic though. What did I know about arranging a photo shoot for my own novel? But the Holy Spirit who urged me to trust my child into His hands all those years ago, urged me again to trust Him with the labor of my heart.

WhiteFire wanted 2 costumes—a western one for 1919 and the sari that Abby wears in the novel. A friend loaned me a straw boater hat, and I was sure I had a tan linen skirt in my closet. But when I went to look . . . it was gone. I’d forgotten that when we moved last year, I’d given the skirt away to a charity. On another whim I decided to go to the local second hand store to search for something similar.

As I walked across the parking lot I prayed the Lord would help me find the perfect skirt. I was not 5 minutes in the store, when I found my very own skirt which I then purchased back for $9.99.

I could go on and on about the details—there are so many. I’d asked the Lord to put His fingerprints all over the cover, and He did.

It wasn’t until later that I realized—that without my ever planning or imagining it—He had not only inspired me to write through the loss of my first child to adoption, but He then blessed the fruition of that faith with the beauty of the very child I had relinquished to Him.

Only our Heavenly Father could do something so intricately tender.

We serve a God who delights in working with little people and small things—a shepherd boy and a few smooth stones. A child with a lunch of bread and fish for one. A babe in a womb that rocks the world.

If you’d like to read more about my journey as a birth mother, and that of Book One of my series, Twilight of the British Raj, then drop by my website: http://www.christinelindsay.com/

SHADOWED IN SILK

She was invisible to those who should have loved her.

After the Great War, Abby Fraser returns to India with her small son, where her husband is stationed with the British army. She has longed to go home to the land of glittering palaces and veiled women . . . but Nick has become a cruel stranger. It will take more than her American pluck to survive.

Major Geoff Richards, broken over the loss of so many of his men in the trenches of France, returns to his cavalry post in Amritsar. But his faith does little to help him understand the ruthlessness of his British peers toward the India people he loves. Nor does it explain how he is to protect Abby Fraser and her child from the husband who mistreats them.

Amid political unrest, inhospitable deserts, and Russian spies, tensions rise in India as the people cry for the freedom espoused by Gandhi. Caught between their own ideals and duty, Geoff and Abby stumble into sinister secrets . . . secrets that will thrust them out of the shadows and straight into the fire of revolution.

SHADOWED IN SILK will be released in 2 stages: First as an eBook May 1, 2011, and the printed version Sept. 1. This book can be purchased at all locations where eBooks are sold—Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, Kobol, Borders . . .

Christine Lindsay writes historical inspirational novels that have strong love stories, and she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Her debut novel SHADOWED IN SILK is set in India during a turbulent era. Christine’s long-time fascination with the British Raj was seeded from stories of her ancestors who served in the British Cavalry in India. SHADOWED IN SILK won the 2009 ACFW Genesis for Historical under the title Unveiled.