Literarily Speaking

People of the Book is the fourth and final book in the Extreme Devotion series from New Hope Publishers. Like the other books in the series, People of the Book was birthed through my passion for the persecuted Church. I am a long-time supporter of ministries like Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors, and I make it a practice to pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer for their faith daily.

This first became a concern for me in the late 1980s, as I watched the violence and upheaval in South Africa just prior to the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the overthrow of the Apartheid system. Knowing what Apartheid represented, I wondered how Christians in South African dealt with the obvious inconsistencies of Apartheid and Christianity. That sparked a thought about what might happen if two people from opposite sides of the issue met and fell in love. I decided I would base the story around an interracial romance in a time when such a thing was not only despised but quite dangerous.

And yet it never seemed time to write the book until a couple of years ago. I was in a meeting with my agent and publicist and publisher, discussing some nonfiction proposals, when my publisher asked what other ideas I had on the back burner. I mentioned the idea of the South Africa novel (which by that time had become a series in my mind), but I quickly added that I knew they didn’t do fiction. The publisher said they never had before but might be open to this idea.

The next months were spent in developing a detailed series proposal and quite a few sample chapters for the first book, but eventually we signed a contract and New Hope’s “Fiction with a Mission” line was launched. I tried to cover various ideologies around the world in deciding which countries to use as backdrops for the four books, but I knew one of them had to be a Muslim country. Hence, People of the Book, set in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, having been to only one of the four countries I wrote about, I had to do extensive research online, but that wasn’t enough. I also enlisted the help of at least one person who either lived in that country at the time I wrote the book or had lived there extensively in the very recent past. The most difficult personal resource to find was one from Saudi Arabia. Women there, whom I met online, were either hostile or understandably fearful of talking/working with me. Then, at a writers’ conference, I met a young women who had spent nearly her entire life in Saudi Arabia and only recently moved to America. She was not only willing but anxious to talk to me, and so we proceeded, with her firsthand input providing me with an invaluable resource.

People often ask me if the four books in the Extreme Devotion series are based on true stories. I explain that all are loosely based on a conglomeration of true events, but no one specific story or person (though Red Ink, set in China, comes closest). With People of the Book, the impetus for my Saudi friend’s willingness to work with me came from an experience with someone she knew in Saudi Arabia, a young woman who was martyred—by her own family—for becoming a Christian. My friend put it this way: “She can no longer speak for herself, so I have promised God I will speak for her—every chance I get.”

What a blessing and privilege to be a part that—for we must all be willing to speak out for our brothers and sisters in Christ who pay such a high price for their faith. As Hebrews 13:3 tells us, “Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also.”

Kathi Macias is a multi-award winning writer who has authored more than 30 books and ghostwritten several others. A former newspaper columnist and string reporter, Kathi has taught creative and business writing in various venues and has been a guest on many radio and television programs. Kathi is a popular speaker at churches, women’s clubs and retreats, and writers’ conferences, and was named 2008 Member of the Year by AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association). Kathi “Easy Writer” Macias lives in Homeland, CA, with her husband, Al, where the two of them spend their free time riding in Al’s new sunburst orange Corvette. You can reach Kathi or find out more about her writing and speaking at www.kathimacias.com . You can also visit her “Easy Writer” blog at http://kathieasywritermacias.blogspot.com/

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