I’ll never forget the day I received the missionary box sent from my home church. Our Sunday school class had sent it clear over the Pacific to where we served in Siberia, Russia, just in time for the frigid season of January. I opened the box and on top lay Francine River’s Mark of the Lion series.
I met Hadassah that day. A Jewess taken prisoner and turned into a slave, a woman who met Jesus and became a Christian. A woman so sold out for her faith that she changed lives on the page—and off. My life.
As I served the Lord as a missionary, Hadassah showed me how.
This is the power of a great story.
As I’ve written stories (more than forty of them now), I remember the power of Hadassah. More than anything, I want to touch lives and cause people to discover a God who loves them. Every book I write I bathe in prayer, I dig into the word, and I craft every sentence with this goal of asking a big question about life and faith.
Some of the questions of my books over the past couple years:
Does God love us even the midst of our sin? (You Don’t Know Me)
Is our painful past worth remembering? (The Shadow of your Smile)
Can God truly heal us from our fears? (My Foolish Heart)
When everything has been stripped from us, can we still have hope? (Baby, it’s Cold Outside)
Can God redeem our mistakes? And can we escape God’s love? (Heiress, Baroness)
I hope I’ve created books that not only nudge people into the arms of the Lord, but also give you, my reader friends, opportunities to share your faith with the ones you love. However, sometimes instead of talking about our faith, it’s easier to give someone a song, a people . . . a book.
Would you be willing to partner with me to nudge lives?
I’m putting together a special team of trained readers called Susie’s Kickoff Team, with the job to get the ball rolling as a book releases. Armed with blog posts, reviews, discussion questions, social media promotions, and other insider news, this team would partner with me to get the word out, pray for the book, and share it with friends.
We’re going to have fun, too!
This group will:
* Be invited to the Susie May Kickoff Team private Facebook group.
* Be invited to a private chat with Susie before the book launches.
* Be given regular prayer updates and news.
* Be given a free copy to review on sites, such as Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, CBD.
* Be given sample blog posts, discussion questions, and social media promotions to post on their own outlets and blogs.
So what do you think? Would you be willing to join Susie’s Kickoff Team? Take a Chance on Me releases April 1. You’d have exclusive access to the book before it hits the mass market.
If you’re interested in joining with me, please
fill out this survey by Friday at midnight . I can only take 75 members, so please sign up prayerfully and realize that this will take some time to commit to—but nothing unreasonable. It’ll be a ton of fun, and I look forward to meeting you all!
There is nothing better than diving into a story like this one, surrounding yourself with research and ideas, the culmination of a storyline you’ve been working on for two years. I loved penning this novel because I knew that after the hard beginning of Heiress, with so much pain and so many mistakes made by Jinx, and the bittersweet middle story, Baroness, where Rosie walks so far away from her inheritance, Rosie’s redemption would be rich and profound. I loved watching her discover that she didn’t need the world’s applause she longed for—that she had it all inside, with the love of God. If you’ve read all three books, perhaps you noticed the themes . . .
