It’s Tuesday and today, Sandra Byrd one of my fave authors shares about her story and her latest novel, Bon Appetit.

I’d never thought of myself as a particularly strong girl – I couldn’t pass the presidential fitness award due to my poor showing on the flexed arm-hang – but as I grew into a young woman, and then a woman, my idea of what a strong woman was grew, too. I began to see evidence of strength in my friends, and even in myself, though the form it took in each of us was often very different. In my life, strength began to manifest itself as a willingness to take risk.

Being willing to take a risk, take a chance, means that you’re willing to be and look imperfect, to fall on your face in the pursuit of chasing something new, of understanding that you will never keep a perfect 4.0 in life. Why not? Because you’re constantly trying something you haven’t mastered – but would like to. When I went to college I went on a writing scholarship, but when I got there I panicked. Who gets published, hardly anyone! I thought. And I’ll have a student loan to pay back nevermind bills to pay. I promptly changed my major to something safe and lucrative – business real estate.

I liked real estate. I still do. But I didn’t love it, and hadn’t changed because I wanted to; I changed because I was unwilling to risk failure in writing, and because of good old fashioned fear. But God got me around to where I needed to be anyway. I went to work for a real estate publisher. And then became an editor. One day I’d told God that I really still wanted to write…but the odds! He whispered to me, do you lean on odds or God? I jumped into the water and found that it was fine.

My latest series, French Twist, is for lovers of romance, of food, of life, of France. The books, Let Them Eat Cake, and Bon Appétit are for women who want to take a risk, at any time in their lives, to follow their passion and do what they love. It’s for, and about, a woman who is willing to politely set aside the expectations that others have for her life and figure out how God has created her. I still can’t do the flexed arm hang. But I’m living a very satisfying life.

Please visit me at www.sandrabyrd.com to learn m ore about the books, and to email me about how risk taking (or lack thereof!) has affected your life, too.