Happy Tuesday, Friends!
Today’s Takeover Tuesday host is Beverly Varnado. She’s stopped by to talk about. Grab a cup of tea (or coffee) and chat with her!
The pandemic hit about the midway point as I was writing my new Christmas novella, A Season for Everything. On the page I keep up with my daily word tally, I wrote in mid-March, “Begin shelter in place. Too distracted to write.” It took me a few weeks to get my brain into a new normal. To make myself useful while my brain was a bit foggy, I set out to make a few masks for a friend who is a healthcare worker.
In the first weeks of the pandemic, not many of us imagined we’d still be in the throes of it in December. We thought we’d stay home a couple of weeks and go back to normal. But it was not to be so. Over the course of the next months, the few masks I made turned into over 400.
And who could have foreseen the other challenges we’ve encountered this year that have contributed to our stress level and weariness?
When my concentration returned, I found it interesting that the developing story was about Catherine, a woman who wondered whether there would be a new season in her life. As the pandemic has worn on, maybe we’ve wondered the same thing.
Often when we find ourselves in a difficult place, the enemy of our souls will whisper that things will never change. If we believe those words, our hearts can sink. But the words in Ecclesiastes 3 deeply resonate, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven . . . “ The hard cold earth gives way to the lovely crocus. Bare limbs sprout tender leaves. And the song of birds returning after a long winter lift us.
Yes, this has been a hard year. But God is still who He says He is, and this season will not last forever.
I hope reading A Season for Everything will be a happy reminder of that truth and that it will bring joy to your heart in these challenging times.
About the Book
Despite the glowing gas lights, festive wreaths, and holiday cheer that covers the town of Worthville, Catherine Todd is far from being in the Christmas spirit. She continues to wrestle with the losses that shattered her heart two years earlier, and while shopping for her kids, her overreaction to a disappointment confirms what she already knows―she’s stuck in her grief.
Children’s book author Collin Donnelly shows up in Worthville for a signing, but when an abrupt first interaction with local resident, Catherine, doesn’t go well, he wonders if he made a mistake coming to this small town. Eager to make amends, he soon learns they share a common interest in birding, and he invites her on an adventure that turns out to be filled with unexpected wonder for both of them.
They soon find themselves working together to save and endangered bird, and the more time they spend together, the more Catherine is drawn to Collin. But there are forces mounting against them having a relationship, including Catherine’s reluctance to embrace the future, a difficult secret in Collin’s past, and an alliance Collin has with his agent, who clearly doesn’t want to remain his former girlfriend.
Can they trust that, through God, there really is a season for everything?
BLOG AND SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
Read her weekly blog One Ringing Bell, peals of words on faith, living, writing, and art at oneringingbell.blogspot.com. Also catch her at http://www.BeverlyVarnado.com.
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About the Author
Award winning Southern writer, Beverly Varnado, is a novelist, screenwriter, and blogger who writes to give readers hope in the redemptive purposes of God.
She has written a nonfiction memoir as well as several novels and screenplays, one of which was a finalist for the prestigious Kairos Prize in Screenwriting. The novella, A Season for Everything, is the third work in a series set in Worthville, Georgia. Previous novels set there are A Key to Everything and A Plan for Everything. Her work is also included in several anthologies and periodicals. As an artist, her work was recently chosen for exhibit at a State University gallery.
She lives in Georgia with her husband, Jerry, and their chocolate Aussiedor who is outnumbered by several cats. Beverly is Mom to three children and Mimi to two grandchildren.
Toni Shiloh 