If through a broken heart,
God can bring His purposes to pass in the world,
God can bring His purposes to pass in the world,
then thank Him for breaking your heart.
Oswald Chambers
Haunted by a past of espionage, love for an enemy soldier, and accusations of treason, Annalee Gilbert risks her life to begin a relationship with the granddaughter who never knew her. Condemned by her memories, Annalee fears hell and longs for oblivion – for herself, but not for the man she loved.
Will Annalee thank God for her broken heart? Or will the traitor from Annalee’s past exact his vengeance before she accepts God’s forgiving love?
Behind the Story
From the first time I heard that German prisoner-of-war camps were located in the United States, and only a couple of hours from my Florida home, I wanted to write a novel about a woman who helped an escaping prisoner. But what kind of woman would do such a thing?
Several years later, while planning my 2008 NaNoWriMo project, I kept thinking about a deceased aunt who was rumored to have given up her young daughter for adoption while telling her relatives that the child had died. Why would she do such a thing?
After writing the required 50,000 words to “win” NaNoWriMo, I revised the opening pages and scrapped the messy remainder. I took the revised opening, tentatively titled Twirl, to the 2009 Florida Christian Writers Conference.
To my surprise and delight, I received the Best Novel and the Writer of the Year awards at the conference.
On a whim, I sent the first two pages of the manuscript to an editor with a major publishing company. He asked for a synopsis and additional chapters. I submitted the proposal and he requested the completed manuscript.
In the writing/revising process, my protagonist became the woman who helped a captured German soldier escape from a Florida POW camp. She didn’t abandon her daughter, the friends she trusted to care for the child took her and disappeared.
I submitted the completed novel at the end of September 2009. The publisher said it was well-written, but not excellent. He encouraged me to continue working on my craft.
Of course, I was disappointed, but the publisher's gracious note lessened the blow.
So I wrote a new beginning, changed the novel’s title to When Sparrow Falls, and submitted this different proposal at the 2010 Florida Christian Writers Conference. Again, I received the Best Novel award. Three publishers and an agent expressed interest in the story.
After the conference, I wrote a brief letter to the publisher who had earlier rejected the manuscript. I told him about the changes I'd made to the novel and about winning the FCWC award. He has asked to see the finished manuscript again.
Revisions continue!
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