A Review of ‘Julia’s Gifts (Great War Great Love #1)’ by Ellen Gable

Ellen Gable, the award-winning Catholic author of eight books, has embarked on a new series that mothers will be happy to share with their daughters. In the first installment, Julia’s Gifts, we meet Julia just before Christmas 1917 in Philadelphia, during World War I. She is shopping for a Christmas present for her beloved, and praying for his safety. The reader soon finds that she has not yet met her ‘beloved’. She will be turning 21 soon, and she is hopeful that she will meet her future husband in the upcoming year. 

In March 1918, Julia’s friend encourages her to join the Red Cross, and they begin their service as nurses in France. Untrained, the innocent and naïve Julia is thrown into a world replete with the challenges of lice, flu, pain, sorrow, and blood. She not quite gotten her feet wet when she is told to prepare a German officer for interrogation by Major Peter Winslow, a Canadian who has become bitter and angry after receiving news of a personal tragedy. 

At this point, the reader may think the story will unfold in a predictable way. However, in the messy world of war, nothing happens in exactly the way we think – or hope – it will. The characters cope with their fears and anxieties while reshaping their perceptions of themselves, others, the world, and God. Where does love fit into the picture – if it all? Gable’s story explores that phase of young adulthood that is often defined by an initial disillusionment when confronted with reality. With faith and the grace of God, this stage can result in a blossoming and rediscovery of one’s true self and purpose.

Gable’s books are written in line with the Theology of the Body. She purposely wrote this book so that there are no sexual themes that might be deemed inappropriate for young adolescents. This book presents an opportunity for mothers and daughters to talk about how to prepare for future marriage. There are themes of war, including pestilence, severe injuries, illness, dying, and one suicide, but these are tempered by Gable’s gentle writing style.   

For more information see the author’s publication website Full Quiver Publishing. 

Or purchase the book at Amazon now: 

Paperback edition 

Kindle edition 

If you enjoyed this review you may enjoy my reviews of these books by Ellen Gable:

Emily’s Hope 

In Name Only 

A Subtle Grace 

Stealing Jenny 

Review of “Stealing Jenny”: A Novel by Ellen Gable

I have reviewed Ellen Gable’s first two novels “Emily’s Hope” and “In Name Only” on this blog, and have eagerly awaited her third novel. Ellen is a pro-life writer who writes in an engaging manner, with keen personal insight and always a hopeful and pro-life message.

After enduring three miscarriages, Jenny is expecting her sixth child. Denise is her neighbor, who secretly envies Jenny her ability to pro-create and watches her and her children from across the street. She is plotting to kidnap Jenny and steal her baby.

Unknown to Denise, Jenny has a complication that requires a caesarian section. Although the title gives away the main event of the novel, the reader is kept in suspense, as the well-being of Jenny and her baby are held in the balance.

At home, Tom takes care of his five children, praying and hoping that Jenny will be found and returned before she goes into labor. Kathy is the police detective who follows the scanty clues to try to find her whereabouts.

“Stealing Jenny” departs from the Ellen’s previous novels in style in that it is modern, without historic elements, and more of a thriller in its genre, with out-of- the ordinary events happening to the heroine. However, the undercurrents of faith, hope, and marital love present in the first two novels are the same here.

The self-analysis that the characters go through in her first two novels is also a big part of the book. Ellen writes in the omniscient third person, bringing the reader into the thoughts of each of her main characters. At times, the characters reminisce, letting us know what has happened in the past to cause them to act or think the way they do in the present. Ellen does this skillfully and seamlessly.

Why anyone would be so ignorant and blatantly disregarding of human life to try such a scheme, Ellen explains by giving Denise’s history. Ellen’s attitude toward the protagonist is a Christian one, hating the action but showing sympathy toward the sinner.

Any woman who has ever really wanted to conceive; any woman who has been through a miscarriage; and any woman who has been through a difficult pregnancy, will sympathize with Jenny, even before she gets kidnapped. Her condition adds a heightened dimension to the plot of a kidnapping.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes suspenseful novels. If you are going to give this to a teenager, you should read it first. The book deals with such topics as premarital sex, abortion, and labor in an unusual situation. The moral viewpoint is Catholic and pro-life.

“Stealing Jenny” will be available from Full Quiver Publishing and Amazon.com on September 15, 2011.

Look for my review of “Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship”, edited by Ellen Gable, in the coming weeks.

For more information about the author Ellen Gable and her books:
www.ellengable.com
www.fullquiverpublishing.com
www.twitter.com/EllenGable
Editor, Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship www.comemybeloved.com
Author, "Emily's Hope" www.emilyshope.com (Honorable Mention 2006 IPPY Awards)
Author, "In Name Only" www.innameonly.ca (Gold Medal winner 2010 IPPY Awards)

Blogging and the Creative Writer

What, you may ask, does blogging have to do with the novel you are writing?

There are several reasons a creative writer may start an online journal.

First of all, writing a first novel is a very lengthy and difficult journey. Believe it or not, you have time on your side. Being an unknown, no agent is knocking down your door to complete your next book. You can take as many years as you need to perfect your craft and edit your novel to meet your standards.

During this time, it can be rewarding to be able to complete shorter projects and have them published in print or online. Small successes like this tell you that someone out there believes you deserve to be in print. You can tell people you are a writer and point to your publications as proof.

A web log can accomplish this objective as well as give you immediate feedback from your audience. You can also use your web log to draw attention to your print publications, or put your web page in your “bio” to bring print readers to your blog.

Blogging gets you into writing mode and helps you to hone your writing skills. Prolific writer Leticia Velasquez, whose award-winning blog http://cause-of-our-joy.blogspot.com/ brings awareness to many important issues, says, “My blog keeps my writing in top form,and I am learning to edit myself, which is the hardest thing to do. Not every word I type is a pearl of wisdom!”

The blogosphere is an arena in which writers encourage and inspire one another. When I recently contacted my old homeschooling friend Leticia to send her some information about the abortion-breast cancer link (you can read up on this at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute website which is bcpinstitute.org ), she (who already was quite aware of this issue) told me about her blogs (yes, she has two!).

That same night, I started my own blog. I sent the link to my sister, Joanna Gerold, also an aspiring writer and new graduate, and she started one too! Hers is about the creative process: http://part-of-something.blogspot.com/

It may not seem like one form of writing, such as the blog, may have anything to do with another, such as the novel. However, I have found that the inspiration for each type of writing runs from one to another. For example, when I am writing in my private journal I tend to have ideas for articles I might want to write for magazines. I jot them in the margin of my journal. Sometimes I have a dream that inspires a short story. These go into my idea notebook, which I keep next to my bed along with my journal. During the day, I constantly have ideas for my blog. When I am done blogging, I often think of new ideas I want to put into my novel. So it warms me up for that mode of work.

Once I get into my fictional world, it is very difficult to bring my back to earth. While I blog and write short essays on the computer, I write my novel long-hand in steno books. In the back of the book, I keep a journal of where I think I am going with a character or plot. Occasionally I have an idea for something else I want to write while in the middle of drafting a new chapter. So I don’t lost this idea, I pause what I am doing and write that down on a new page in the back of the same notebook.

I recently read some advice for writers that I did not agree with at all. (Feel free to discard any advice that runs counter to your own intuition - only you know how you work at your best!) This person said that you should concentrate on one project at a time, so as not to drain your energy from what is most important.

I think that is like saying love should not be spread out among too many people. When parents have more children, their capacity for love grows with the size of their family. Parents of large families have very large hearts! Our writing is like our children in that way. As we nurture one facet, it only helps the others.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:1

Pictured above are me and my sister, Joanna Gerold, when she came last August to help me with my newborn baby.

The Magic of Four

It was on a rainy summer afternoon like today that Lucy peered into a wardrobe and discovered the world of Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis forms the series of my most beloved books. I discovered them (with the help of my very literate mother) at the age of seven, and read each of the seven books seven times. There were four Pevensie children, and I do believe they are the reason I always held four to be my magic number.

There are two dreams I have had as long as I can remember. The first is to have four children. The second is to write (and publish) novels. Great novels, like those written by George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, L.M. Montgomery, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy (okay, I’m partial to the English), when read during the formative years, become part of you. Without them, the world would seem like a different place.

It is through the written word that God has shared himself through us. The writer – whether consciously or not - attempts to interpret His truths with the reader. She attempts to find the perfect word, to describe the perfect image, to convey the perfect thought.

Is that perfection attainable? My children argued this during the baking of oatmeal cookies today.

“I want them to be perfect!”
“There’s no such thing as perfect!”
“Well if there’s no such thing as perfect why is there the word?”

I have yet to complete my first novel. I’ve been too busy with the rearing of my first dream, the four children God has gifted me. I have the rest of my life to work on the second goal. In a sinful world, none of us can be the perfect mother or the perfect writer. (“All have fallen short of the glory of God.”) Like goodness, which is only truly attainable by God, I can only try to come as close as I can with the tools I have been given by my Creator.