I’ve been AWOL for about six weeks now. It’s been an incredibly busy 6 weeks, bookwise, on top of two birthdays and Christmas in the same week. I think I’m almost recovered.
On the 15th I submitted my manuscript for Guideposts’ upcoming series “Ordinary Women of the Bible.” My book is about Jochebed, Moses’s birth mother. It was one of the hardest books I’ve ever written, and having a looming deadline didn’t help! I can’t wait to share more about this book and the whole series!
Sold into Freedom released December 12 and is doing very well! It was the Top New Release on Amazon’s Religious Biblical Fiction and consistently ranks in the top ten on that list, along with Prize of War. Deep Calling Deep and sometimes The Walls of Arad are usually in the top 25.
Sold into Freedom is taken from Acts 16 Paul’s visit to Philippi. The main characters are the slave girl Paul freed from the spirit of prophecy and the jailer. We don’t know what happened to either of them beyond that the jailer was saved and baptized, but Freedom is my version of what could have happened.
Neither of these is named in Scripture. In my book, the young woman is from Britannia, where she’s kidnapped by slave traders and sold to a couple in Philippi who put her to work telling fortunes. I’ve given her the name of Elantia, an attested name from Britannia at the time.
I’ve chosen to make the jailer a retired Roman soldier. This would have been an embarrassment to any proud Roman soldier, especially one from the upper classes, but when Quintus is injured and dismissed, he has no choice.
Of course, you’ll also find Paul, Luke, Silas, Timothy, Lydia, and Epaphroditus here in Philippi.
I’ll be telling you more about Freedom in the weeks to come. In the meantime, have you grabbed your copy? To read the first chapter, click on “preview” below.