The Writer –
Christine Lindsay
Q: What schooling,
travel, training, personal experiences, or other formative parts of your
background led you to write?
Traveling to and living in different countries in the world
is always the best education. Born in Northern Ireland, I immigrated to Canada
with my parents when I was five. I have lived in various places across Canada
since. It has been wonderful to travel back to Ireland on a number of
occasions, and I’ve been to India on a mission trip. My children have been to
various parts of the world on mission trips. This has given me a fairly wide
global view, and this inspires me to write about these awesome places.
My British background has given me an interest in British
history. In my opinion England’s rule over Colonial India, called the British
Raj, is as fascinating an era as the Wild West is to the Americas.
Q: Tell your readers
a little bit of your faith story.
My father, sadly, was an alcoholic all his life, abusive to
my mother, and neglectful of us kids. My mother raised us on her own. My
childhood and my mother’s experiences have been excellent fodder for my novels.
In Shadowed in Silk, the heroine is a
nice woman married to a brute of a drunk. Life is not easy for a lot of people,
and I write novels that I pray will give hope to the hopeless.
When I became a young adult, I got pregnant out of wedlock,
and for the sake of my child, I relinquished my baby to adoption. Giving up my
baby changed me in so many ways. To understand the full picture of my sense of
loss, one needs to read my blog, "Story
Behind the Covers ."
I see myself in my characters. In Shadowed
in Silk, my Muslim character, Tikah, feels my sense of empty-womb I felt
after I gave up my child. In my second book Captured
by Moonlight my character, Laine, feels the loneliness of
going-on-thirty-and-not-married-yet. My character, Eshana, battles with the
same spiritual lessons I am learning — dying to my own ambitions and plans, and
yielding to Christ’s plans for my life.
Q: How is God working
in your life today?
The Lord has swept me off my feet these past few years with
the joy of my writing ministry. This has also developed into a speaking ministry.
Seeing lives touched by my stories (verbal or written) and those lives taking
steps in faith with Christ means far more to me than the number of books I may
sell.
Q: Where can readers
find more about you and your books?
Please drop by my website
www.christinelindsay.com
and my blog www.christinelindsay.orgwhere
I have guest bloggers share on “Monday’s Inspirations,” Wednesday is “Addiction
Recovery Miracles, “and Fridays are “Adoption Stories.” You can find my books
on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and a number of other sites, but for sure
in those places, in both paperback and E-book formats.
The Process
Q: How do you use
imagery in your writing?
I enjoy painting and drawing, and love well-written
description. I want to feel as though I am in the scene when I read. One of my
writing professors once said that I was a very sensual writer, so imagery and
using my five senses is important to my writing.
Q: Do you plot your
story or create an outline before you begin writing?
I do best by working out the kinks in the plot before I
start writing. At the same time, I’m always open to change. Such as when a
character starts blooming before my eyes, and he or she insists on doing
something unexpected. This happened for me when Laine finds the gumption to
slip in, and empty a bag of snakes into a room, so she can
rescue a young girl from the sex trade in India.
Q: Do you ever use
flashbacks? Why or Why not?
Personally, I do not like reading flashbacks, so I try to
use them as little as possible. I prefer to do flashbacks in little
installments of inner dialogue, and not in large chunks of writing. I always
prefer to keep the reader in the present tense.
Q: How do you keep
God involved in your writing process?
If God were not part of the writing process, I would not
even know where to begin. I cannot be part of the process unless I pray and ask
God for His help.
Q: What research did
you do for this book? How much did you do before you began writing? Did
anything come up in the course of writing that sent you back to research some
more?
I grew up on fabulous, big, thick blockbuster novels by M. M.
Kaye. She wrote adventure-romance epics set in exotic Colonial India. I try to
follow in her footsteps but from a Christian point of view. Still, I had to do
an enormous amount of research. After writing my debut novel Shadowed in Silk, I sent it to a lady
PhD in India to check the novel for cultural and historical accuracy. She
expressed amazement I had never been to India (at that time). Just goes to show
what good research, and the good-old library can do.
The Books – Shadowed in Silk; Captured by Moonlight
Q: How many stars
(1-5) would you give your books? Why?
I would give my two books 5 stars because that is what other
readers are giving them. I am not confident enough to give that kind of rating
to my work, unless others feel my books deserve it. Plus, I write for a
traditional royalty-paying publisher that I highly respect. Roseanna White is
not only my publisher but also a writer with a quickly growing readership. If
she says this is a fantastic book, then I take her word for it. However, it
still boils down to what readers say.
SHADOWED IN SILK, WhiteFire Publishing, Gold winner of the 2009 ACFW Genesis for Historical, Winner of the 2011 Grace Award, finalist in the Readers Favorite 2012 and Book One of the series, Twilight of the British Raj.
SHADOWED IN SILK, WhiteFire Publishing, Gold winner of the 2009 ACFW Genesis for Historical, Winner of the 2011 Grace Award, finalist in the Readers Favorite 2012 and Book One of the series, Twilight of the British Raj.
Q: Which part of the
book was your favorite to write?
I love the romance scenes in both Shadowed in Silk and Captured
by Moonlight. In Shadowed in Silk,
there is a scene I call "the kiss that never happened." When Geoff is
teaching Abby how to shoot a rifle, everything in Abby’s point of view is the
desire for Geoff’s kiss, but it cannot take place. I love the yearning in that.
I also enjoyed writing the passionate-kissing scene on the beach in Captured by Moonlight. However, I also
love writing death scenes. The dying of Miriam in Shadowed in Silk still makes me cry. I also love animals, and there
is always a significant animal pulling on my emotions in my novels.
Q: What did these
books teach you?
One day during my devotions, I was praying. Suddenly I
remembered what my fictional character, Eshana, learned in Captured by
Moonlight. God reminded me I must die to myself, let Him live His life through
me and, the Lord's plan will be far more wonderful than anything I could
devise.
Q: What can you tell
us about your next writing project?
Book 3 of my series the Twilight
of the British Raj will be Veiled at
Midnight. This last book in the series will follow up with the characters
from the first two books. The main character in Veiled at Midnight will be the grown Cam Fraser who was only a
child in Book 1. The female lead will be Dassah, the child born in Book 1. The
Partition of India was a terrible and turbulent time for India. Veiled at Midnight is set during this
time when India is split into two countries, India and newly created Pakistan. Not
only will India be partitioned, but Cam and Dassah will be split, too. Veiled at Midnight will feature Cam’s
grown sister Miri, who was a baby in Book 2. Miri will also find adventure and
an unexpected love.
Veiled at Midnight
will be released by WhiteFire Publishing in February 2014.
Q: Where can readers
find more about you and your books?
Please drop by my website www.christinelindsay.com
and my blog www.christinelindsay.org where
I have guest bloggers share on “Monday’s Inspirations,” Wednesday is “Addiction
Recovery Miracles,” and Fridays are “Adoption Stories.” One can find my books
on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and a number of other sites, but for sure
in those places, in both paper and digital format. (See below for links.)
Christine would love it if you dropped by her Facebook Author page.
Be sure to “Like” it while you are there.
FEATURED BOOK---Captured by Moonlight
(Back of the Book)
Prisoners to their own
broken dreams…
After a daring rescue goes awry, Laine Harkness and her
friend Eshana flee to the tropical south of India … and headlong into their
respective pasts.
Laine takes a nursing position at a plantation in the
jungle, only to discover her former fiancé is the owner … but fun-loving Laine
refuses to let Adam crush her heart again.
Eshana, captured by her traditional uncle and forced once
more into the harsh Hindu customs of mourning, doubts freedom will ever be hers
again, much less the forbidden love for Dr. Jai Kaur that had begun to flower.
Amid cyclones, epidemics, and clashing faiths, will the love
of the True Master give hope to these searching hearts?
About Christine
Lindsay
Irish-born Christine Lindsay writes award-winning historical
novels. In both Shadowed in Silk and Captured by Moonlight, Christine
delights in weaving the endless theme of the Heavenly Father’s redemptive love
through stories of danger, suspense, adventure, and romance. The Pacific coast
of Canada, about 200 miles north of Seattle, is Christine’s home.
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