The Homecoming
— 2nd EDITION – Top Pick, RT Book Reviews — Sean Collins is barely home from fighting Nazis in Europe when he’s ordered to serve on a USO bond tour with a bunch of Hollywood stars…a reluctant hero. All Sean wants is to stay home with his son and to grieve his wife’s loss in private. When Sean asks Katherine Townsend–-Patrick’s former social worker–-to be his nanny while Sean’s on the road, he has no idea how this decision will impact his life. Could it be the key to his future happiness and the mending of his heart? Or will the war once again threaten his chances for a new start?
“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”
Kids get asked that question all the time. When my son was five, he knew. “I wanna be a green Batman.” By high school I knew. I wanted to be an author of novels. My composition teacher was the spark that lit this fire. She went out of her way to encourage my feeble offerings. “You could really be a writer if you wanted to,” she said. Secretly, I began to write poems and short stories. Only my teacher and mother could read them (such things clashed badly with the surfer-guy persona I’d worked so hard to fabricate at school).
After becoming a Christian, my attention shifted in a different direction. I met Cindi, my wife-to-be. Then came a call to pastoral ministry. Then fatherhood. I still loved to write, but found little time for it. In the mid-90′s, we decided I needed a relaxing hobby. Cindi suggested I start writing again. I read some great how-to books and found some wonderful friends on a Christian fiction writer’s board on AOL (back when AOL was the Internet). A year later, my first novel was complete.
It was soon picked up by a top literary agent, but she found it difficult to market. Not much interest back then in a faith-based suspense thriller with a military edge. Shortly after that, the idea for The Unfinished Gift came to me…. Read on.