In 2017, after turning in the manuscript for You’re Gonna Love Me, I was reading my long-used (over 20 years), well-loved Bible which is full of highlights, dates, and notes in the margins. Suddenly I wondered what this Bible might mean to members of my family after I am gone. Will one of my daughters or grandchildren or as-yet-to-come great-grandchildren one day leaf through this book and hear God speaking to them because of something I wrote or marked within these leather covers?
This led me to the idea for a new series, Legacy of Faith, where an ancestor’s Bible will touch the lives of those who never knew him.
The first book in the series, Who I Am with You, will be in stores on December 11, 2018. Here’s a bit about it:
Jessica was pregnant and facing divorce when her husband and daughter were killed in a car accident months ago. Left to endure the tragedy and her pregnancy alone, she pulls away from her friends and community instead of leaning on them for care and support. She feels far away from God, lost and floating without an anchor. Then at her grandmother’s funeral, Jessica receives a gift—her great-grandfather’s Bible—which she relegates to a shelf in her house to gather dust alongside the other remnants of her faith.
Ridley has suffered loss too. Disgraced in his job, his career seems to be over for good. He is both bitter and shamed. Adding insult to injury, his girlfriend of more than a year leaves at the first sign of trouble. Ridley retreats to a vacation property owned by his parents to lick his wounds and hide from the press. When he first arrives, he meets Jessica, his closest neighbor in this mountain community. But the last thing he wants is to become involved with her or anyone else in Hope Springs. All he wants is to be left alone.
But God doesn’t intend to let Ridley and Jessica go on hiding from life, even at its most difficult. Thumbing through the Bible later, seeing notes in both pencil and ink, Jessica begins a journey back to faith and wholeness. And the broken roads they have followed bring Jessica and Ridley to each other as well.
In each novel in the series, readers will also meet the ancestor, Andrew, beginning in the late 1920’s and following him and his family through much of the tumultuous 20th century. I am dearly loving ❤ the opportunity to write his story through time.
Last week I turned in the revisions for Who I Am with You to my editor. The manuscript is now undergoing line edits while I am back to work on the second book in the series (it releases in late spring/early summer 2019). My due date fast approaches!
I hope you are as eager to read my new book as I am to share it with you. And if you would like to be kept up-to-date about new releases, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter.
~robin
Who I Am With You sounds like a must read. Sometimes when I go to flea markets or second hand stores and see old Bibles I search through some of them looking for notes and highlights from the past user. To date I haven’t been able to find any. Sadly most of them look as though they’ve never been read.
Perhaps the Bibles that have writing in them aren’t given away but are kept on shelves, like my grandmother’s is on mine.
Looking so forward to this up in coming series. What a wonderfully unique idea for a book/series.
Thanks, Jackie.
Love this. I use my mother’s Bible when home and Love the highlights. I am adding my own. I hope one day my daughter or grandkids will do the same. I would love to be able early reader for your book. Thanks. Looking forward to it.
How cool that you are adding to the marks your mom made. Blessings!
I started re-reading all your books on my Kindle (there’s a bunch!), And am currently in the Kings Meadow romance series. I am looking forward to the Legacy of Faith series.
Thanks, Anne, for rereading my books. Makes my day to know you enjoy them so much.