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| Blue Heart Blessed
Harvest House, 2007 Left standing at the altar, Daisy Murien, a wounded but hopeful romantic, opens a secondhand wedding dress boutique, hoping to soothe her broken heart while giving doomed wedding dresses a second chance at love. Her predictable days take a sharp turn, though, when the retired Episcopal priest who blesses the tiny, blue satin heart she sews into each dress falls ill. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] When the priest’s brooding and recently divorced son arrives with plans to take his ailing father away, a contest of wills begins between two stubborn—and hurting—souls. While fighting to keep Father Laurent close by, Daisy finally begins to understand why she has routinely convinced potential buyers not to buy the one gown that started her business—her own: She doesn’t want to give up on the dream of a fairytale romance. This compelling story is about the magnificence of unconditional love and God’s impeccable timing in bringing it about. |
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| Days & Hours
Harvest House, 2007 When I was a guardian ad litem for the state of Minnesota, I was introduced to the world of the single mother who lives in poverty, dependent on the state, and often woefully unprepared for motherhood. I delved into that world in Days & Hours, my latest release, paying particular attention to the stigma we place on the stuck-on-welfare mom. They are not a one-size fits all demographic. Some cannot find success no matter how hard they try. Some simply don’t try. Most love their children as best they can. |
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| Sticks & Stones
Harvest House, 2007 When I was a guardian ad litem for the state of Minnesota, I was introduced to the world of the single mother who lives in poverty, dependent on the state, and often woefully unprepared for motherhood. I delved into that world in Days & Hours, my latest release, paying particular attention to the stigma we place on the stuck-on-welfare mom. They are not a one-size fits all demographic. Some cannot find success no matter how hard they try. Some simply don’t try. Most love their children as best they can. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] Many know it takes more than love to raise a child, but they have no other resources at their disposal. I don’t pretend to offer answers in Days & Hours, but I do hope to raise awareness. This book is the third in the Rachel Flynn Mystery series and it hit Amazon's cyber shelves this month. Even though this is number three in the series, each story stands alone so you can enjoy it even if you haven't read the first two. The other titles in this series are Widows & Orphans (2006), which I am thrilled to say just took second place in the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year contest in the suspense category, and Sticks & Stones (2007). The basic premise of the story is this: A newborn is found alive in a trash bin and a young, single mother insists her baby was abducted. While St. Paul police are skeptical, attorney Rachael Flynn’s strange dreams lead her to believe the mother is telling the truth. But who would steal a baby only to leave it for dead? When the baby disappears again, Rachael agonizes over her decision to allow the baby to be returned to his mother. Did she make a terrible mistake? And where is that missing baby? Who would wish the child harm? Rachael races to see past the deception that threatens to send a young mother to prison and a newborn to a terrible fate. Here’s what one early reviewer said of Days & Hours: (Kelly Kelpfer, Novel Reviews): "Days & Hours is tragic, beautiful, awful and realistic. Susan Meissner has done it again. This is the first of her Rachael Flynn series that I've read, and I will be picking up those I've missed. Meissner writes with depth and compassion, honesty, and a poignancy that wraps around the reader, bringing her characters to life in the reader's imagination." |
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| Widows and Orphans
Harvest House, 2006 Widows and Orphans kicks off my legal mystery series featuring wife, mother and lawyer Rachael Flynn. In this story, Rachael’s ultra–ministry–minded brother, Joshua, confesses to murder. Rachael begs him to let her represent him, certain that he is innocent. But Joshua refuses her offer of counsel. As Rachael works on the case on her own, she begins to suspect that Josh knows who the real killer is, but she is unable to get him to cooperate with his defense. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] Why won’t he talk to her? What is Josh hiding? This book gets its title from that little verse in the book of James where we're told pure religion is to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Rachael’s brother has taken this verse to heart, literally, which is why she can’t believe he is guilty of murder. With this story I wanted to challenge our way of thinking about what God expects us to do for widows and orphans. They are mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, not just the little verse in James. I think we're called to care for them in a very specific, direct way. But what is that way? Have we stopped to consider it? One of my characters in this book took the verse to the extreme. But at least he took it. What about the rest of us? It's something to think about. |
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| A Seahorse In the Thames
Harvest House, 2006 This is a story about a woman who is very much in need of an encounter with loveliness. Life has been unfulfilling for Alexa, sometimes downright tragic. She has lost her vision for finding extraordinary within the ordinary. The book begins with Alexa’s vulnerable, older sister Rebecca running away from her group home. Worried, Alexa sets off to find Rebecca with the help of her reluctant-to-get-involved twin sister, Priscilla. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] So really, Alexa’s on a dual-search. She wants to find her missing sister, and she wants to find a shimmer of hope that her life won’t always be the way it is right now. The idea for this story came about when I was reading the newspaper back in the summer of 2004. A London fisherman found a seahorse swimming in the weeds near the shoreline of the Thames. This made national news because a seahorse hadn’t been seen in the River Thames in decades. To me, that was a picture of finding beauty in a most unexpected place. I developed a story line around this idea that sometimes you have to bend down and look close for glimpses of loveliness, but they are there. They can be easy to miss, especially when life seems a bit chaotic. But they are there. I dedicated this book to a young friend of mine named Chelsey, whose life was drastically changed two years ago when a snowmobile accident took away her ability to walk, to speak and to see. Yet she finds little reasons to rejoice, every day. She amazes me. She is like that little seahorse sparkling in the water; a bit of loveliness in an otherwise dark place. . . |
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| In All Deep Places
Harvest House, 2006 In All Deep Places is a story about the deep longing for heaven that God has placed within each one of us. Most of the story takes place in fictional Iowa town named Halcyon; a word that means peaceful. But for Luke Foxbourne, a successful writer who grew up there, the town is not very aptly named; at least not for him. He shook the dust off his feet when he left seventeen years ago and now lives with his wife and two daughters in Connecticut. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] But Luke has a problem. The deadline for his next book is fast approaching and Luke can’t get past Chapter 10. While struggling with this dilemma, his father suffers a devastating stroke and Luke finds himself suddenly back in his Iowa hometown. While keeping his father’s newspaper in print while he recovers, Luke is reunited with unsettling memories of Norah — the first girl he ever kissed — and her little brother Kieran. The seventeen years he has been away seem to dissolve as Luke spends night after night in his old bedroom, looking out his window to the empty house next door where Norah and Kieran lived; and where heartache found an easy home. To his surprise, Luke suddenly feels empowered again to write; empowered not to write the next chapter of his manuscript but to write something else instead: Norah's story. And his own. |
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| The Remedy for Regret
Harvest House, 2005 Tess Longren is 28, single and at a crossroads in her life. She finally has a job she enjoys as well as a proposal of marriage from a man she loves, but Tess is unable to grasp this future that seems to shimmer with hope. Her mother's long-ago death, which happened six hours after she was born, is a constant, though subtle ache that Tess cannot seem to move past. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] Coupled with this is an inordinate sense of sadness for the regrets of others, including the remorse of a childhood friend, Blair Devere Holbrook. When Blair asks Tess to accompany her to their childhood home to resolve a situation left unsettled fifteen years ago, Tess falsely imagines that by helping her friend find peace, she will find contentment for herself. The Remedy for Regret is about finding the courage to change a painful situation but it is also about the courage to bear what cannot be changed. It is about understanding both the limitations of an imperfect world as well as the vast resources of a perfect God.
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| A Window to the World
Harvest House, 2005 One day in the spring of 2004 I was reading the newspaper and I read about a family who was led to believe that their kidnapped daughter had returned to them after years being missing. It turned out that the whole thing was a hoax — the woman who claimed to be their daughter was an imposter and the story had a very unhappy ending. Read More. [Expand/Collapse] This true story set me to thinking about what it would be like for a family to have their abducted child returned to them, which then led to thoughts about what is must be like for the friends of children who are kidnapped. When I began to consider this, I began to see the seeds of a story. I began to see that when a child loses a best friend to a kidnapping, that child becomes a victim, too, and I could imagine that no one really treats them like one, because, after all, that child isn't missing! I could imagine that this child might grow up not fully recognizing he or she has deep insecurities and doubts. And from there I could imagine that God could pave the way for healing and restoration because He is very good at that.
The message of this story is that past experiences — even the sad, ugly ones — shape us into who we are. While we must move past the painful events in our lives, we mustn't forget God was in control when things went sour. He knows we live in a broken world where evil flourishes. But broken though the world may be, it is still subject to His might, majesty and mercy. The terrible things we experience or witness sadden Him, but they do not surprise Him. And if we don't get in the way, He often forges beauty out of ugliness.
I grew up in San Diego, in the northern part of the county where this story takes place. The fictional neighborhood that Megan and Jen live in could be anywhere in North County . Rancho Hills High School does not exist, but it is much like Poway High School , where I graduated, and also Mt. Carmel High School , the cross-town rival when I was in high school.
There are many canyons and ravines in the foothills of Poway where I lived, and yes, they are home to rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widow spiders. But they are also beautiful in a rough kind of way and are the warmest, toastiest shades of brown in the summer. La Jolla Shores , the coastal town mentioned in the story, boasts one of my favorite beaches. Like the canyons near my childhood home, the Pacific coastline, despite its dangerous vastness, riptides and chilly temperatures, is breathtakingly beautiful. It is a window to the world — majestic, stunning and wild. |
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| Why the Sky is Blue
Harvest House, 2004
Why the Sky is Blue, my first novel, began as a personal challenge to myself to increase my compassion for women in crisis pregnancies. I have long felt a tremendous concern for the unwanted unborn and have found it easy to lend my support to pro-life endeavors. But when I was challenged a few years ago to measure my concern for pregnant women carrying children they did not plan to conceive and cannot keep or do not want,... Read More. [Expand/Collapse] |
1 comments and creative thoughts:
I havent ready any of Susan Meissner but I've heard wonderful things. Adding her to my TBR list. Thanks!
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