Lis Wiehl, Best-Selling Author of Waking Hours

Maybe you've seen the analyst Lis Wiehl on FOX News. Did you know she's a best-selling author? Earlier this year my publisher asked me to read Lis's latest novel, Waking Hours, and consider endorsing it. I was happy to do this for a great publishing team and a talented author with a shared fascination for supernatural things.

In just a few short chapters I completely forgot that I was supposed to read as a professional. I forgot I was ever trained as an editor. The writer part of my self read on with admiration, and Erin the reader got lost in a riveting, frightening tale. What a great book! Easiest endorsement I've ever had the pleasure of offering. So I thought you'd enjoy hearing a little bit about Waking Hours in from the source herself:

What inspired you to write Waking Hours?
I’ve so loved the experience of writing fiction—always the kind of stories I like to read, so very true to me! My Triple Threat books have been great fun, and I’m so excited about this new East Salem series. Inspiration for Waking Hours came from wanting to create strong yet fallible characters in Dani and Tommy, who have a romantic side to their serious selves, and to layer that with exploration of the major theme: good vs evil. Set that in a town named East Salem, and there you go.

How does your unique background inform your fiction writing? 
As someone who prosecuted crimes and who now works in the news, I see some heinous things. This new series explores the good and evil behind the surface of what we see. I've been so blessed that I can weave in the reality of crime-solving because of both my prosecutorial and media background. Colleagues and other professionals write to tell me that the stories feel authentic, and that’s a huge compliment. But perhaps the best praise comes from readers who say that my stories helped them understand the interworkings of a newsroom, courtroom, or law enforcement office in ways they’d never considered—entertaining them, but also granting new perspective.

What’s next for East Salem and Dani and Tommy?
Erin, I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Suffice it to say, Dani, Tommy and I are working on the plot and I’m buying the pizza as we develop it. But a little hint: their story is just beginning. Darkness Rising is set to release October 2012.

Be sure to get a copy of Waking Hours. You can learn more about Lis's other books at LisWiehlBooks.com.

Is My Heroine Psychic?

Today a reader wrote to me about my new novel, The Baker's Wife: "I wanted to ask about the 'gift' that Audrey has. I'm having a hard time understanding it, to be honest. Is it a psychic gift or a gift of discernment? I know that God does not give a gift of being psychic so I'm a little surprised this is in a Christian book. In many ways I know she feels she's being led by God to those who need help, but does He really work this way?"

This is such a great question. I'm grateful this reader stopped to ask it. I'm sorry that my answer must include some plot spoilers, but for some, the answer is more important than the suspense.

In all of my stories I use supernatural elements to explore the ways God works in us and through us. I intend for my stories to be read metaphorically rather than literally, though they are not true allegories. I realize not all readers are comfortable approaching a book this way.

Audrey's gift is not psychic. It is, rather, a look at empathy and compassion taken to extremes. We Christians often speak of "sharing one another's burdens," and sometimes we say this glibly without examining what we really mean. This has been true in my own life. We might help another person to the extent that we feel relieved of our Christian duty. It is more rare for us to share another person's pain to the point that we have the capacity to feel it ourselves. Audrey's tangible experience of Julie's pain is merely a metaphor for what real, deep, honest Christian empathy MIGHT look like. I think God sometimes asks us to go farther than we are comfortable going, to share a burden of pain by taking it upon ourselves, the way Christ took up the pain of the cross on our behalf, because he loved us so much, while we were yet sinners.

In the opening of The Baker's Wife, Audrey reaches out to a woman in pain, but then finds herself unable to press through a particular level of discomfort when the woman rejects her kindness. In Audrey's journey, this "mistake" (which is hardly a black-and-white moral mistake, but a spiritual challenge she lacked the courage to see through), puts her entire family at risk. As my editor put it, perhaps some of us ignore empathy for others at our own peril. Julie ultimately rejects Audrey's compassion. Not everyone will accept what we have to offer. But Audrey matures in her own ability to reach out to others, so that in the end she doesn't turn away from Julie's daughter, who needs the love of Christ as much as Julie ever did. I see this as a personal spiritual victory, and an illustration of how listening to the promptings of God, whether visceral or not, can move us to greater work on his behalf.