Imogen’s Chance:
She has given herself a chance to fix her personal history. But will old mistakes bring up new emotions?Imogen Browne longs to make up for past mistakes before she can move on. She quietly resolves to help the Dorazio family, whose lives she accidentally upset. Her biggest challenge is Asher, the one person who may never forgive her. And he is facing a crisis of his own. Imogen must tread very carefully, as trying to fix things may well make them shatter.
A sensitive story about misplaced loyalty, celebrating life and falling in love. Can family secrets concealed with the best intentions bear the light of day?
To purchase: Amazon
To purchase: Amazon
My Review:
Imogen’s Chance brings the hope of healing front and center in this gentle romance and challenges you to think through what you believe. No matter whether you agree with her character’s take on it or not, Paula does a great job keeping you engaged thoughout the character’s discovery on the matter.
Faced with a terminal diagnosis, Asher is forced to face what he believes. Will he make a choice for life or simply give up and let what the doctors consider to be inevitable happen?
Trying to make up for past mistakes, Imogen’s strength shines through as she discovers more to herself than even she knew.
Trials such as sickness will put everything in life to the test. Is it true? Is it real? How will I choose to believe and live? All of these questions are dealt with deftly and with dignity. And at the end, you are left asking yourself, “what do I believe?”
I enjoyed this work of fiction that also made me think. The only issue I found was a technical one that hopefully the publisher will put to rights in the next edition. In the electronic version, the spacing between many scenes was almost non-existent, making a few places confusing, but not enough to interfere with the enjoyment of the story as a whole.
If you want a story that will both prod you to think about life issues while at the same time entertain you with its love through adversity story, then I highly recommend this book to you.
About the author:
Award-winning author, Her novel, Picking up the Pieces, won the religious fiction section of the 2011 International Book Awards.
Her novel, Best Forgotten, was winner of the 2011 CALEB Award in the fiction category and also recognized as the best overall entry for the year, chosen over memoirs, devotionals and general non-fiction.
Paula’s books are a skillful blend of drama and romance tied together with elements of mystery and suspense.
Paula is the author of Picking up the Pieces, The Risky Way Home, A Design of Gold and Best Forgotten. She is one of the four authors of The Greenfield Legacy. Her new novel, Imogen’s Chance, will be published in April, 2014.
Connect with Paula:
An Interview with Paula
How does your faith affect your writing?
I’ve only been a Christian since my teens. When I was about 16 years old, I became fascinated by the question of whether God is really willing to have an input in the lives of individuals. I started my quest to find out in every way I could. This attitude of seeking, hungering and thirsting has swept me along for over twenty-five years.
Once, I stayed at the holiday house of friends whose bookcase was full of the sorts of books I used to read before I got interested in searching for God’s heart. It was a very visual picture of how my mind and heart have been shaped over all those years, to a God-seeking heart, because in addition to the classics and novels I saw there, I have shelves filled with books about seeking God and many different translations of the Bible.
I don’t necessarily set out to insert Christian input into each novel I write. It just turns out that way. It seems honest and natural for at least one character to have thoughts and yearnings similar to my own.
Tell us something about the central theme of the book.
In this book, the main characters, Imogen and Asher, each feel an urgent desire to fathom the heart of God, for their own reasons. She longs to make up for past mistakes and feel truly forgiven, while he is battling a potentially fatal illness, and questions why God would allow this upon him, and whether or not He may be prevailed on to heal him.
Their lives get tangled up together, for reasons which need to be read to be found out.
Tell us something about the story behind the story
I hate it when friends and loved-ones get sick. For a long time, I’ve been interested in researching theories behind divine healing. I’ve listened to people tell their personal healing testimonies. I’ve shared a few of my own. I’ve read several non-fiction books written by healing ministers and evangelists. It’s been a fascinating study.
One the one hand, God remains a mystery and we can never rely on apparent principles or steps to coerce Him to act on our behalf. But on the other hand, healing has been revealed in the pages of the Bible to be a subject very close to His heart. When we search the pages, we may find that it’s tied up with His promises and perhaps even woven into our covenant with Him. I wanted to explore these ‘a-ha’ moments in the experiences and honest questions of the characters in ‘Imogen’s Chance.’
I haven’t seen it done often, but for me, fiction turned out to be a great vehicle for such a theme, as I could pull what I learned out of the realm of dry theory, keep it light enough to retain interest, and make it deeply personal in the lives of these characters I hope you’ll come to love.
Another thing I enjoy is setting my novels around my own environment, which I’m familiar with. One of my favourite coastal retreats in South Australia is a little town called Port Elliot. It’s very picturesque and I love to swim and walk there with my family. Along the shore is a treacherous and slippery stretch of rocks which used to be notorious for shipwrecks. For years, I’d wanted to use it for some of the exciting content of a novel, and some of the events in this one turned out to be perfect for it.
The final result is a novel with some very thought-provoking themes, all wrapped around a story of romance and mystery, as old family secrets which have been hinted at are finally revealed.
I enjoyed Paula talking about her search to better understand God's healing. It is wonderful to have that exploration spill over into fiction. I pray many will be inspired to wait on the healing power of God. Great insightful interview. Thanks