The Perfect Stranger
Availble November 27th!
It is the spring in New York City, 1912, and Lily Whitaker, a wealthy young socialite, is in love. While serving at a ministry to the poor in her church, she meets a handsome young businessman. Charles Bennington moved to New York from San Francisco 10 years ago with just the clothes on his back. But he’s worked hard, taken every advantage the good Lord’s provided and now owns a thriving business. He can hardly believe it when he caught Lily’s attention and, later, receives permission from her father to court her. Two months after that, he agrees to let Charles marry Lily, who’s overjoyed at the news. Charles secures first-class tickets for their honeymoon on the return voyage back to England on the RMS Titanic. Like the ill-fated ship, something happens that threatens to sink their plans and turn both their lives upside down. Is the wedding now off? Will Charles lose everything and be forced to take a train back to San Francisco?
This can’t be how the story ends.
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“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.
