Who doesn't love a good Christmas story? And who doesn't love celebrating someone's first novel? In this episode of Book Talk with Cara, we get to do both. Ann Swindell is my guest and we're talking about her brand-new novel Christmas in the Castle Library. This novel allowed Ann to explore novel writing after years of study and working with non-fiction including a devotional and spiritual memoir. As a student of writing, Ann considered what her favorite elements were and incorporated them into the novel: a historical mystery set inside a contemporary novel with royals in a created country. She wanted the story to be real enough to be believable yet whimsical enough to be fun. The result is this novel.

Ann doesn't know when she wasn't a writer because she always had journals as a child. Writing for her is an opportunity to commune with God and feel alive in the gifts she's been given. It's hard work, but she loves the editorial and collaborative process. I know you're going to enjoy this novel that welcomes you into Christmas.

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It's almost Christmas, and that means it's time to read Christmas books. Today I've got three delightful authors on Book Talk to talk about their novella collection A Louisiana Christmas to Remember. In these three, interconnected Christmas novellas, you experience three wonderful stories of love and hope. In A Louisiana Snow by Morgan Tarpley Smith, meet Mattie: A passionate visionary who learns to forgive and finds love in unexpected places… In Restoring Christmas by Betsy St. Amant, meet Jolene: An artist and prodigal daughter who discovers love exists in the very place she once called home… In A Christmas Reunion by Lenora Worth, meet Adale: A beautiful widow who finally dares to love again…

What I love about this Book Talk is we have three authors at different stages of their careers. Lenora Worth has written over 100 novels, Betsy St. Amant has written over 25, and this is Morgan Tarpley Smith's debut. They are at such different places but all love writing and story. Each of them showed signs of being a storyteller at a young age and fell in love with words as children. And that love of words and story carries them forward in writing today. They all have great advice for writers today as well. I really think you'll love meeting these three and learning more about A Louisiana Christmas to Remember.

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Today it is such a pleasure introducing you to my friend and author Tessa Afshar. She is the author of 12 award-winning, best-selling novels, but it has been a journey for her to get here. She first started writing in her twenties, but after two rejections stopped. Then years later felt called to finish one of her novels after years of starting many, but not getting past the first 20 or 30 pages. That first book that she finished was on Rahab, because Tessa found it fascinating that Rahab was a woman who literally lived in a wall. She found that God made the calling in the shape of her — she'd been prepared all along to write what she never thought she would — Biblical fiction.

In The Queen's Cook, Tessa has taken a twist on the story of Queen Esther, placing her as the mentor character. This series focuses on three women, each of whom has contact with Queen Esther and becomes friends with her in different ways. The book and series are embedded in the Persian Empire and the courts but without the focus being solely on the Queen.

You're going to enjoy this interview and learning more about Tessa and how she writes and researches her novels. There's so much that goes into them.

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