"Secrets She Kept" by Cathy Gohlke...and a GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate the release of Cathy's latest book, she has agreed to give away a hard copy of the book to one lucky person (US only). To enter, see the Rafflecopter box at the bottom of this post. (Contest ends October 31, 2015). If you are the randomly chosen winner, I'll contact you and and pass your information along. Good luck!

A Word from Cathy...

Secrets She Kept was conceived while researching WWII and touring Germany, and especially while touring Berlin and Ravensbruk Concentration Camp.  As I spoke with survivors of the war, both those who’d fought in the Wehrmacht and Jewish Holocaust victims, I learned that the war bred many deep secrets in families—secrets of good deeds unrewarded and secrets of evil deeds never discovered. 

But I wondered, how did Holocaust survivors reclaim their lives and live beyond the tragedies of the war when anti-Semitism still existed? How did perpetrators and their families live with the horrors they’d inflicted?  Were they sorry for what they’d done?  Did they attempt to hide their wartime activities?  Did they confess or try in any way to redeem the wrongs they’d committed?  Is there atonement?  How do Germans today reconcile what they or their nation did during WWII?

Those questions made me ask, too, how do we confront the far-reaching consequences of our actions or those of our family members?

Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian, who, with her sister, father, and many family members, helped Jews escape Nazi persecution during the war, inspired the answer in her book, The Hiding Place.

Little did I know, while writing Secrets She Kept, that no sooner would I complete editorial work on the book than I’d receive a diagnosis for breast cancer.  In what seemed a whirlwind, my team of doctors outlined surgery, months of chemotherapy and radiation, and a five-year plan for hormone therapy.

Cancer treatments derailed my writing plans, including a newly contracted book I longed to write.  “Chemo brain” (brain fog, weakness, forgetfulness, and muddled-headedness) is real.   So often through treatments I’ve wondered if I’ll ever be able to think clearly, to capture a plot and hold onto it, to write another novel. 

At one of the lowest points in my chemotherapy treatments—while weak and bedridden from a dangerously low white blood count—I read an account of John Sherrill’s two-time battle with cancer. 

Sherrill and his wife, Elizabeth, were writers for Guideposts magazine at the time.  According to the story I read, although John believed in God and regularly wrote stories of people whose faith helped them overcome great obstacles, he’d not yet accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  He’d not made a personal, internal commitment. On his way to a second surgery, with a prognosis of only three months to live, John surrendered his life to Christ.  When the doctors went in to cut out the mass of suspected cancer, it had shrunk to the size of a “raisin” and was not cancerous.  John considered his healing miraculous. 

But there was another miracle for me.  I hadn’t known the Sherrills as writers for Guideposts.  I knew them as the “as told to” co-writers of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.

I realized that if John had given up, if he’d allowed cancer to overwhelm him and steal his life—which is very tempting as one battles cancer—if he’d never surrendered his life to Christ and been healed to go from strength to strength, he and Elizabeth would not have gone on to write The Hiding Place, the book that has brought hope to and strengthened the faith of millions.  He would not have written the book that so convicted me as a young woman or that inspired Billy Graham to produce the movie by the same name—or that provided the answer to Hannah’s desperate need to forgive in Secrets She Kept.  I checked Sherrill’s website.  He is now in his 90s and still writing.

Reading the story of Sherrill’s surrender to the Lord, and of overcoming fear and cancer at the low time I did, gave me great hope that if I wait upon the Lord He will again use me to write stories of hope and faith and conviction, too—stories that glorify Him and portray His love for us all.

This unique connection to Corrie ten Boom and the characters of Secrets She Kept washed over me as a love gift, a reminder that all my days and all my abilities and opportunities are in God’s hands and that He is not limited by diagnoses.  That morning I claimed a well-loved Scripture as my inspiration: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

Cancer is a precious and enlightening part of my journey, but it does not define me.  It’s neither the climax nor the end of my life’s story. And by God’s grace, there will be many more stories to write.  Those are the secrets I keep, warm and alive in my heart. 

You can find my review on the RT Bookreviews website at the following link:

http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/secrets-she-kept

(I rated it 4.5- TOP PICK/4.5 stars)

Q & A with Cathy...

      Q:    How did the idea for this story come to be?

A:    Secrets She Kept was conceived while researching WWII and touring Germany.  I learned that the war bred many deep secrets in families—secrets of good deeds unrewarded and secrets of evil deeds never discovered. 

        But I wondered, how did Holocaust survivors reclaim their lives and live beyond the tragedies of the war when anti-Semitism still existed? How did perpetrators and their families live with the horrors they’d inflicted?  Were they sorry for what they’d done?  Did they attempt to hide their wartime activities?  Did they confess or try in any way to redeem the wrongs they’d committed?  Is there atonement?  How do Germans today reconcile what they or their nation did during WWII?
        Other questions may be asked, too. How do we confront the far-reaching consequences of our actions or those of our family members?
        Corie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian, who, with her sister, father, and many family members, helped Jews escape Nazi persecution during the war, inspired the answer in her book, The Hiding Place.

      

      Q:  What sparked your interest in the World War II era?

A:  It has fascinated, even frightened, me that a nation was swept into a passion that led to the persecution of an entire group of human beings.  Why didn’t more Germans analyze their prejudice and stand up to Hitler and his degrading Nuremberg laws?  How did intelligent people step onto such slippery moral slopes, losing their moral and spiritual compass, ultimately losing their ability to stop the monster they’d enabled?  Can such superior racist attitudes be prevented in the future, and what are the warning signs?  Do we see them in our society or in ourselves?  If the answer is yes, what can we, as individuals, do about that?

      Q: How much research was involved?

A:  Writing historical fiction that is faithful to the time period and that does not manipulate history requires extensive and detailed research.  Learning about different cultures, time periods—especially war and its aftermath—is a complex undertaking.  I visited museums in Germany, read primary archival and secondary historical material, watched documentaries, interviewed survivors—all fascinating and rich fodder for a thousand stories.  The treasure hunt was in combing through the past and finding that single thread and those shining gems that helped bring the story to life.  The joy and victory was in penning the one character and purpose-driven story that rose above the others, the one desperate to be told.

Q:  What advice do you have for new authors?
A:   Know your heart in the quality of work you intend to produce. Know your passion and how it relates to the world. Read and experience everything you can on the subject and ask tough questions of yourself — questions you're willing to ask your characters. Then find your story.

Q:  What are your thoughts on current trends in the Christian publishing industry, such as hybrid/indie publishing?
A:   I believe hybrid/indie publishing in the Christian publishing industry is a reflection of the current state of the industry at large. With the online market glutted with less expensive books (for many reason), with so many brick-and-mortar bookstores closing (providing publishing houses with fewer distribution venues), with numerous publishing houses downsizing and/or merging, traditional publishing house money is tight. This results in fewer viable contract offers for authors — longtime or new. Authors need to make a living and hybrid/indie publishing is a way to continue writing and make that happen. But, the industry is in a state of flux. Rapidly changing technology guarantees that more changes and means to navigate those changes will come — for readers, for writers, and for publishing houses.

Q:   Would you ever consider hybrid/indie publishing?
A:   My mother taught me to say, "Never say never." But as long as I'm able to secure sustainable novel contracts, I have no desire to pursue another route. I love working with Tyndale House Publishing. They've caught my vision as a writer, allow me to pen the stories burning in my heart, and provide me with an incredible publishing team to polish my novels and bring them to the world. Could I replicate the excellent editorial work, the unique design, the dedicated marketing, publicity, and distribution they provide? No, I don't believe I could, or could afford to, nor would I want to spend my time doing what others are more gifted to do. Their work allows me to write — to pursue my loving gift.

Q:   If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
A:   I'd spend more time with family and friends and in hands-on mission work. If energy allowed, I'd love to take up clogging and international folk dance with my husband, take classes in international cooking with my daughter or son, and learn more historic crafts to share with my granddaughter. I'd say "Yes" to more of my husband's invitations to attend bluegrass festivals and entice him to travel to more historic sites with me. I'd enjoy organic gardening, canoeing, and sitting around the campfire singing.

Q:  What was your path to publication, and how long did it take for you to get your first book published?
A:   My first publications came to feature a new story submitted to local newspapers, poems submitted for local anthologies, and essays and devotionals for Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul and My Turn to Care. I wrote and directed plays to promote literacy for presentations in schools and libraries, all of which helped me learn rich characterization. My first novel began as part of my lifelong passion and a correspondence course run by the Institute of Children's Literature. Upon completion of the book a few years later, I submitted it to publishers on my own and then through The Writers Edge — a company that connects books by new authors (who make the proposal cut) with traditional Christian publishing houses to a monthly online publication. Three publishers contacted me, wanting to see the manuscript. Moody publishers offered a contract and published my first and second novels, William Henry is a Fine Name and I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires, both of which won Christy Awards. Since then, Tyndale House Publishers has published four more and contracted another.

Q:  What can you tell me about your next project?
A:   In May 2014 I traveled to England's Lake District — for me, the prettiest spot on earth — to research a story set among British and Jewish (from France and Germany) evacuees relocated there during WWII and the locals who took them in.
       As the German army plows its way west, Claire flees France for England with five Jewish children — children meant to be rescued by a Resistance contact who never shows. Desperate to return to France and the man she loves, Claire begs her estranged aunt in England's Lake District to take the children. But the war, her aunt's mysterious past, a disarming but difficult Scot-born American, and the conflicting desires of Claire's own heart change everything. Claire must find a way of escape or face her own demons to forge a new life among the growing number of child evacuees from England's cities, as well as Jewish children from France and Germany's Kindertransport — all children with the needs more like her own than she is willing to admit.

         

About Cathy...

Cathy Gohlke is the two-time Christy Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed novels Saving Amelie, Band of Sisters,  Promise me This (listed by Library Journal as one of the best books of 2012), William Henry is a Fine Name, and I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires (listed by Library Journal as one of the best books of 2008), which also won the American Christian Fiction Writers' Book of the Year Award.

Cathy has worked as a school librarian, drama director, and director of  children's and education ministries. When not traipsing the hills and dales of historic sites, she, her husband, and their dog, Reilly, divide their time between Northern Virginia and their home on the banks of the Laurel Run in Elkton, Maryland. Visit her website at http://authorcathygohlke.com/

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