Has a book ever touched you in a meaningful way?

Melissa here! The first book I ever wrote was rereleased this week, and I’ve been working on the other three books in that series. While I edit and rewrite, I came across a section that struck a memory. In the final book, someone has a miscarriage. I won’t divulge who or the circumstances, but we’ll say it was an intense situation. The mother is distraught, of course, and a nurse comes and talks to her. The nurse tells her, yes, she is a mother—she carried a baby and she loved it. She suggests the mother honor her baby with a name.

I remember when that book was edited the first time around years ago. The editor is one of my favorite editors, though she’s no longer editing (not sure if I’m sad or mad about that!). Anyway, she told me in her comments during her first review that she had had a miscarriage and had thought she was supposed to just forget about her baby. This section of the book helped her see that she did not have to forget her baby, that she was allowed to grieve, that her baby was real and she loved him/her. I still get teary whenever I think about it.

I’ll set aside my rage that our society tells mothers they shouldn’t grieve their babies, that babies in the womb are just a “clump of cells,” which is biologically and scientifically illiterate.

It is amazing to me that my book touched someone that much. My book (through God’s guidance) helped give a mother the freedom to grieve. How amazing is that?

And I remembered that experience when I went through my own miscarriages. My husband and I named them and do other things to remember them. And I will be sure our daughter knows she had a big brother and twin sister, whom she'll meet someday in Heaven. God used that one small section of a book to help both my editor and me.

That makes me wonder if anything else I’ve written has touched someone in some meaningful way. I do believe stories can help people see things more clearly, can even help people heal. I pray every day that God guides me to write what he wants me to and that he will put that story into the hands of anyone who needs to hear it.

How about you? Has any book you’ve read affected you in some deep way? Don’t share the story unless you’re comfortable, but type “yes” in the comments if you’ve had that kind of experience.

Please also include your email address if you want to be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of the first book in the series, Endless As The Rain.

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"And that surely is why our works never mean to others quite what we intended: because we are recombining elements made by Him [God] and already containing His meanings. ... It is impossible we should ever know the whole meaning of our own works, and the meaning we never intended may be the best and truest one."

C.S. Lewis

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Melissa Koslin is a fourth-degree black belt and certified instructor, with a background in multiple disciplines, including Taekwondo and Krav Maga. In her day job as a commercial property manager, she secretly notes personal quirks and funny situations, ready to tweak them into colorful additions for her books. She, her husband, their young daughter, and two feisty cats live in Yulee, Florida, where they do their best not to melt in the sun. Find more information on her books at MelissaKoslin.com.

 

Endless As The Rain available now.

For Adriane Graham, the real question comes down to whether she’s Alec Kaden’s guest or prisoner…

If she’s a guest, then that means Alec freed himself from his family ties to organized crime and that he’s telling the truth when he says he’s protecting Adriane from dangerous men. It means they both can shake off the shackles of haunted pasts and begin anew together.

If she’s his guest, then Adriane Graham is no longer alone. She’s safe. And maybe…just maybe…she can finally find the strength to love.

But…

If Adriane is Alec’s prisoner, that changes everything.

It means his tenderness is simply a ruse to keep her under control; his kindness is just poisoned hypocrisy. It means Alec is a cruel liar, and that somehow, by some desperate way, she’s got to get out of this charming man’s well-guarded house…before it’s too late.

Troubling questions pour like fountains through Adriane’s heart…flowing…

Endless as the Rain.

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