Blog Archives
Get Involved However You Can
Worth of a Girl centers around an eight-year-old girl from Uganda whose young life is altered forever when she is forced into a trafficking ring disguised as a trade school. Why did you choose to tell the story through eight-year-old Bibi’s perspective?
I chose a young girl’s point of view to show perspective. The innocence of a child who trusts adults to do right by them and to help, not hurt, them provides a stark contrast. It reveals truth versus the ugly evil of the world. A child tells the story much better than an adult.
How did you approach writing trauma in a way that is honest but not overwhelming or exploitative?
My books are about children and the evils they face, whether it addresses abandonment, exploitation, or abuse and loneliness. Because the plot is meant to be inspirational, I want to give the reader a sense of the trauma without actually telling it with explicit words. Grueling words, swearing, or foul language are not necessary if the author can show the action. One’s imagination can play a bigger role if the reader is told what to think. It’s been proven: ‘you’re more afraid of what you can’t see. ‘They’ll understand and see it, feel it, if it’s written honestly and plainly without a lot of detail.
The contrast between promise (school, clothing, opportunity) and reality (exploitation) is powerful. How did you develop that tension?
First, and foremost, I pray and ask God to help me write words that convey reality and tug on readers’ heartstrings. Then, I put myself in the main character’s head as much as possible. Although I’ve never faced these terrible conditions, I can imagine what it must feel like. I’m probably not even close. I do know, however, what failed promises feel like and the disappointment that follows. Extensive research (over three years) went into this book from interviews with African missionaries to documentaries and other reading. I learned what many girls had to do and endure to survive. Many of the incidents in the book were derived from real testimonies.
What kind of conversations do you hope this book starts among readers, churches, or communities?
The goal of this book is awareness of child exploitation. The awful plight of innocent children who are taken and abused, tortured, and sometimes killed needs to be known. It doesn’t just happen overseas. It’s close to home; it might even be happening down the block from where you live. Who would know? I hope readers will get a sense of urgency to help these children in some way, even if it’s through their church in helping children, fostering kids, or opening their hearts to volunteer. Not everyone can donate money. Many communities have groups that minister to children in some way. I sew dresses for girls overseas. It is known that if they have a new dress, especially with a label on it, it means they are being watched — thus, less likely to be taken by a predator. If I’ve helped just one girl in that way, my mission and goal have been fulfilled. I hope others get involved in any way possible.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
When Bibi faces challenges beyond her control, her bold, unshakable faith guides her with courage and strength. But how will she endure her fate? What will it take to save her?
When the new missions doctor, Dr. Steve Warden, arrives in Uganda, he suspects something nefarious is going on at the trade school. He never expected to unearth the dark underbelly of Evil directly beneath those who vowed to help the children. With righteous indignation ignited, he determines to seek justice for the children and rescue Bibi, even if it means taking down his own colleague and well-known people of the community.
Worth of a Girl
Worth of a Girl is a faith-centered suspense novel that follows eight-year-old Bibi, a Ugandan girl who thinks she is being sent to school, only to be drawn into a trafficking operation disguised as a trade school. From there, the story becomes a survival narrative about deception, cruelty, rescue, and the long road back to dignity. It’s fiction, but the book makes clear that it is rooted in real patterns of child trafficking, and that real-world grounding gives the novel its weight.
I enjoyed how plainly C.A. Simonson tells this story. The writing is direct, accessible, and emotionally clear. There is no fancy distance between the reader and the pain here. We experience so much through Bibi’s innocence, and that choice gives the early chapters a hard kind of irony because I understood the danger long before she did. That made the book unsettling in an effective way. I also thought Simonson handled contrast well. The false promises of dresses, schooling, and food sit right beside the reality of exploitation, and that gap becomes the whole engine of the novel. The dialogue and character lines felt pointed at times, but in this case, I could see why. This is the kind of book that wants to tell a story and sound an alarm at the same time.
I found myself responding just as much to the author’s moral choices as to the plot. This is not a morally gray book. It is openly interested in evil, faith, protection, and restoration, and it leans fully into a Christian framework where prayer, providence, and courage shape the way forward. That will work well for some readers. For me, it mostly worked because the book’s strongest thread is not abstraction but worth itself, the insistence that children who are treated like property are still fully human, still precious, still deserving of safety and a future. I appreciated that the ending does not stop at rescue. It keeps moving toward rebuilding, education, work, community, and leadership, especially in Bibi’s later life, which gave the novel a sense of earned hope instead of quick relief.
I would recommend Worth of a Girl most strongly to readers of Christian fiction, issue-driven suspense, and redemptive drama, especially those who want a novel that is emotionally straightforward and grounded in a real social crisis. It’s not a subtle book, and I don’t think it wants to be. It wants to witness, to warn, and to restore some sense of hope. I respected that. Readers who want a heartfelt, faith-shaped novel about survival, rescue, and human dignity will likely find a lot to appreciate here.
Pages: 314 | ASIN : B0G6KNFMNB
A Certain Mercy
A Certain Mercy is a work of historical biblical fiction that follows Zara, a neglected wife in first-century Jerusalem, as she is drawn into a dangerous attachment to Auriga Maximus, her husband’s slave charioteer, while the story also moves in the shadow of Yeshua’s ministry and the moral weight of mercy, forgiveness, and redemption. The book sets personal longing against a larger sacred story, and that contrast gives it its shape and tension. Zara, Auri, Joram, Reah, and Yeshua all occupy that world in different ways, and the novel makes clear from the start that this is not just romance in costume. It is a story about desire, conscience, and what mercy might mean when people have already made a mess of things.
I enjoyed how earnest the writing feels. Author Linda Dindzans is clearly writing from conviction, and I think that matters here. The prose often leans into a formal, biblical cadence, and while that took me a little time to settle into, it eventually felt like part of the book’s atmosphere. There is a lot of emotional directness on the page. Zara’s loneliness is not subtle. Her hunger for tenderness, her shame, and her self-justifications are all laid out in full light, and that candor gives the novel a steady emotional pulse. I also appreciated how Reah functions as more than a side character. She becomes a moral counterweight, a witness, and sometimes the plainest voice in the room, which the book needs.
Dindzans says in her author’s note that she wanted to stay close to what people in that time would have known, feared, and misunderstood before the resurrection and before the Gospels were written, and that intention comes through. The novel is interested in doubt as much as belief, and in the gap between hearing truth and living it. That gave the book more texture for me. It treats mercy as something costly, almost abrasive at times, because it has to rub against betrayal, pride, fear, and wounded love. That part felt grounded. Even when the novel moves toward the openly redemptive, it has earned enough pain along the way that the theme does not feel pasted on.
I would recommend A Certain Mercy most strongly to readers who enjoy Christian historical fiction, biblical fiction, and character-driven stories that take faith seriously without losing sight of human weakness. Readers who like immersive period detail, moral tension, and stories that place intimate human drama beside the life and teachings of Jesus will probably find a lot to appreciate here. For me, the book worked best when it trusted that old, difficult truth at its center: people can be tangled, wounded, and very wrong, and still not be beyond mercy.
Pages: 408 | ASIN: B0FTTCK72Z
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
Dying to Meet the Newcomer by Judith Fournie Helms
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Her Masks & His Truth
Nataly Restokian’s Her Masks & His Truth opens on a jittery nightmare. Anna, a former television star now living in Quebec City, fears losing control of her own story, then settles into her real unrest: a love-marriage stretched thin by infertility, displacement, and a private hollowness she can’t name. When Simon Levesque, an older political candidate collecting signatures, appears at her door, their conversation becomes a hinge: Anna is drawn to his unbothered serenity, and his quiet certainty points her toward a meeting she thinks is with a man…until it becomes clear she’s being introduced to Christ.
What I didn’t expect was how insistently the book braided the domestic with the doctrinal. One moment, I was inside a marriage argument that feels granular and authentic, money, family pressure, language-barrier shame, the raw ache of failed IVF, and the next I was in a confessional rush of spiritual autobiography that speaks directly to the reader. That gearshift could have felt jarring, yet it often works because Anna’s inner life is already a storm: she’s performative, defensive, funny in flashes, and then suddenly pierced by a sharp sentence. The prose isn’t trying to be coy; it wants to testify, and there’s a kind of firm candor in that.
I also found myself appreciating the book’s portrait of pride as a costume. Success and beauty are masks that don’t quite suffocate you, but do keep you from breathing deeply. Anna’s history (celebrity glamour, a complicated past, a marriage forged in sacrifice) adds friction to the conversion arc beyond a simple “lost to found” template. Still, the narrative’s strongest scenes for me weren’t the big declarations; they were the smaller, human moments where love is messy but durable, Joe’s tenderness, Anna’s bruised humor, Simon’s patience that refuses to escalate into ego. The story’s faith-forward intent is unmistakable, but it’s most persuasive when it lets longing stay complicated instead of instantly neat.
I think Her Masks & His Truth is perfect for readers who actively seek Christian fiction, inspirational romance, faith-based contemporary drama, and redemption narratives, especially those who like spiritual mentorship threads and conversion-centered storytelling. It will likely resonate with fans of Francine Rivers’ emotional, testimony-leaning style (think the spiritual-romance sweep many readers associate with her work). Her Masks & His Truth is a tender and unflinching reminder that the most convincing rescue is the one that reaches the heart without flattering it.
Listening Length: 8 hours and 18 minutes
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
