Not Vegetarian Fare

I love books with meat, stories that dare to touch on taboo subjects in the Christian market or deal with those topics from a different angle. These novels aren't safe, feel good stories, but gritty, see-what-God-can-do-with-our-dirt type of story. Give me a book that shows God's redemption in broken, filthy lives, and you'll have me hooked.

The problem is finding those books in today's market, but I have read a few this  year that are worth the mention.

Exposed by Ashley Weis tackles a subject that has become a big problem in today's society: pornography. What would yo do if you discovered your spouse was hooked on pornography? Where is God when that happens? And being a Christian doesn't make someone immune to the lure. And what about the young women on the screen? Aren't they children of God too? Ashley Weis gently and poignantly addresses all aspects of pornography's snare in Exposed. No, it's not an easy read, but it's an important one.

Never Without Hope by Michelle Sutton. Christian fiction is replete with stories about women whose husbands commit adultery. Typically, those stories are one-sided and paint the husband as a no-good, cheating, dead-beat dad and the story is about a woman who rises above her victimhood. But, rarely is adultery shown as an issue caused by both spouses, and rarer yet does the story deal with the adulterous wife. In Never Without Hope, Michelle Sutton breaks all those stereotypes. The story is about a woman who commits adultery, but Sutton's careful to show both the wife's and the husband's side of the issue, and that's what gives this story teeth.

Priceless: A Novel on the Edge of the World by Tom Davis. Human trafficking is one of the most dire problems our society faces in today's world and it's growing rapidly. In Priceless, Tom Davis puts a face on those involved in trafficking: the girls enslaved in it and the warriors who fight to free those caught. It's obviously a difficult read and it's an eye-opener. But, Davis also shows God's glowing power of redemption among all the ugliness.

2010 Christy Award Finalists Announced

Each year, Christy Awards are given to writers whose novel has demonstrated excellence in Christian fiction. I look forward to reading this list every year, hoping to see my favorite books, and wondering which ones I've missed reading.

I'm pleased to see that the nominees include a number of books I reviewed over the past year, several of which are on my all-time favorite reads list. To revisit those reviews, just click on the title: Daisy Chain by Mary DeMuth, The Passion of Mary-Margaret by Lisa Samson, The Familiar Stranger by Christina Berry, Scared by Tom Davis. Two additional finalists, June Bug (a modern day retelling of Les Miserables) by Chris Fabry and Fireflies in December (poignantly portrays the horror of prejudice in the 1930's) by Jennifer Erin Valent are on my all-time favorite reads list. (see my Highly Recommend Reading list in the sidebar)

Of course, there are always a few additional titles I believe are worthy of a Christy: White Picket Fences by Susan Meissner is a story that peeks beyond the pristine fences of a normal family and finds that fences only mask the truth, and The Frontiersman's Daughter by Laura Frantz.

So, if you love to read and are looking for the novel that goes deeper, that's willing to challenge you and provoke thinking, then check out the Christy Awards.

For a complete list of finalists, visit Inkspirational Messages.

Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World

By Tom Davis
Published by David C. Cook (2009)
304 pages

Finding Hope in Suffering

Hoping to salvage a few crumbs from his once award-winning career, photojournalist Stuart Daniels reluctantly takes an assignment in Swaziland, a small African country, to cover the AIDS crisis. What he discovers is suffering that, those of us living comfortably in the United States, can’t imagine.

Interspersed with Stuart’s perspective, is the viewpoint of Adanna, a recently orphaned young girl burdened with the care of her younger siblings, hoping just to survive from day to day. Tomorrow isn’t even a thought.

Adanna can teach all of us so much.

With the current state of the United States economy, we are barraged with negative stories about people losing jobs, overburdened food shelves, and homelessness. All of which are devastating to those affected. Still, in these times, the average American cannot imagine what it would be like to be truly hungry, to live from day to day wondering if you will have food to eat. We search our overfilled closets for the right outfit, while others are fortunate if they have something decent to wear at all.

In this fictional story, author Tom Davis breathes reality into the plight of people who live in places like Swaziland. The reader experiences, along with Adanna, what it feels like not to have eaten for days, to live in fear of man’s brutality. We see through Stuart’s eyes how much we have, and how just a small sacrifice on our part can help.

Like Stuart, we probably have the most to learn.

We also experience hope, and see that God has not forgotten his children. God has presented us with an awesome opportunity to reach out to those who are truly in need.

You can’t read this story and not be affected. This is a rare work of fiction that touches on all our emotions and motivates people into action. It’s a novel I will highly recommend to readers of fiction and non-fiction.