My guest today is author Naomi Rawlings and her topic is The Strength to Overcome our Failures. Here’s Naomi:
When originally volunteered to write a post for Lyn’s blog, I liked the idea of doing something about the heroine of my most recent novel… until I sat down at my computer and started to think. As a woman, I’ve naturally built most of my novels around my heroines, but Love’s Every Whisper was built around a man, Elijah Cummings, and his desire to start a life-saving team after his father’s boat capsizes and his father drowns in a storm. And of course, since this was a romance novel, I then need to fill in the blanks with a heroine. What kind of person would be completely wrong for my hero, a determined fisherman with big dreams?
I ended up with Victoria Donnelly.
Victoria is a failure, and not just a subtle failure, but a big one that everybody notices. Maybe if she could manage to speak more than ten words without stuttering. Maybe if she could suffer through a society dinner without spilling something on her dress. Maybe if she wasn’t as tall as an oak tree, didn’t have a jaw that looked like a square bucket or a nose that stuck out like a ship’s rudder, she’d be able to find a husband. But as she nears another birthday, Victoria still has no husband.
Victoria Donnelly faces an extraordinary amount of pressure,
both from her parents and society. The time period is different, and society certainly expected different things from women in 1883 than it does today. But some of the basic principles are still the same. Society always has expectations of people, and families always have expectations of their members. In Victoria’s case, she needs to overcome her stutter, which worsens whenever she gets nervous and brands her as an outcast at social functions. The more she tries to speak normally, the more nervous she gets. The more nervous she gets, the more she fumbles her words. The more she fumbles her words, the more she’s branded as an outcast. The more she’s branded as an outcast, the more she tries to speak normally and fit in. It’s a vicious cycle that she doesn’t know how to stop.
other peoples’ expectations in their proper places
As the story progresses, Elijah and Victoria’s friendship deepens, which causes Victoria to start changing her opinion of herself. She looks to God’s Word for advice about her failures and her future rather than to society’s expectations. When she decides to put other peoples’ expectations in their proper places—below her relationship with God—then she finally finds the courage to overcome her failures.
QUESTION: What do you think about
society and the expectations it often forces on people? Do you ever feel like other people are putting pressure on you? How do you deal with it when other people have expectations different from your own? What are ways you can stop from putting unfair expectation son other people?
To purchase, click here. Love’s Every Whisper: Historical Christian Romance (Eagle Harbor) (Volume 2)
Blurb:
Victoria Donnelly is, as always, a failure. With five years of failed courtships behind her and the calendar inching closer to another birthday, Victoria’s determined to redeem herself and snag a proposal from a wealthy childhood acquaintance, Gilbert Sinclair. But returning to Eagle Harbor stirs up long forgotten memories. And worse, old affection for her betrothed’s enemy.
Elijah Cummings has loved Victoria for fifteen years. But fishermen’s sons don’t marry shipping barons’ daughters. He knows it. She knows it. The entire town knows it. Resolved to keep his distance from Victoria, Elijah focuses on establishing a much needed life-saving station, risking his own life by rescuing sailors stuck aboard shipwrecks.
He knows how to save drowning sailors, but how is he to save a woman from the biggest mistake of her life—without destroying both their hearts in the process?
Thanks, Naomi. I think you did a great job with your heroine. Let me repeat Naomi’s
QUESTION: What do you think about
society and the expectations it often forces on people? Do you ever feel like other people are putting pressure on you? How do you deal with it when other people have expectations different from your own? What are ways you can stop from putting unfair expectation son other people?
For more online:
www.facebook.com/author.naomirawlings.
To be informed whenever Naomi has a new book release, consider signing up for her Naomi Rawlings Author Newsletter.
PS: Ola Norman won Ann H Gabhart’s The Innocent. Congrats!–Lyn
