The Breath of Peace

There have been days when I thought we would never – never – get this book through.

Now finally, praise God, its two-and-a-bit-years slog to see the light of day is done.  I am so grateful to my agent MacGregor Literary for handling the self-publishing, and for all of you who prayed it through.

It’s available in paperback and also as an e-book.

It's available from US Amazon in Kindle format here, and in paperback here.

And from UK Amazon in Kindle format here and in paperback here.

The paperback is available from the Create Space store, here.

I think the paperback will be available from Amazon too – maybe take a while for that option to become available – though of course Create Space is also an Amazon venture.

The Breath of Peace is the seventh novel in the Hawk & Dove series.

Each of those books addresses a biblical theme and a related Christian life theme.  This one explores Ephesians 5 and what might really be meant by the idea of ‘submission’ – which is not, I think, one person lording it over another or telling them what to do.

It also considers the importance of how we speak to one another, be that in a community, a family or a marriage – because that is probably the biggest driver of the ambience in a household.

I have always been intrigued by the detailed, close-up content of what ‘happily ever after’ might really mean, in the context of ordinary human lives with all their frailty and all their baggage.  This book re-visits William and Madeleine a year after their marriage to find out how they’re getting on.

A really startling thing happened to me when I was writing The Breath of Peace.  Though it has lots about the monks at St Alcuins Abbey in it too, you will appreciate that centre stage is the marriage between William and Madeleine.

Well!  In the week leading up to St Valentine’s Day – which, here in the UK, is specifically about lovers; we don’t send our aunts a happy Valentine’s card – I got an email.

Writing a novel, one becomes completely immersed in that imaginary world – it becomes more real than the ordinary day-to-day.  So there I was, back in the early spring of 2011, writing the Breath of Peace all about William and Madeleine’s marriage.  And one morning I fired up the computer, opened my email, and there in my inbox was an email with the subject line “With love on V-day” – from Will and Madeleine!!!

It was as though everything stood completely still.  I just sat and stared at it.  For ages.  Completely stunned.

It had a prosaic explanation, of course - I am on the mailing list of a man who speaks and writes about vegan diet, whose name is Will Tuttle.  What I didn’t know at the time is that his wife is called Madeleine.

But I like to think that I am one of the few novelists who has dreamed a world so utterly real that her own characters actually sent her an email from the fourteenth century.

If you read the book and enjoy it, I shall be so grateful if you could review it on Amazon, and also help me put the word around; because I’m self-publishing this time, so any publicity is entirely down to thee and me.