Hello Friends! I’m delighted to welcome to the blog multiple-award-winning author Cathy Gohlke. Cathy is a novelist who writes gripping stories about hard topics with a keen sensitivity and a heart of compassion. After penning several novels set in Europe, for her latest she has turned her attention closer to home. She’s here today to tell us a little more about her newly released Night Bird Calling.

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Cathy, welcome! Please tell us, what inspired you to write Night Bird Calling?

Years ago I wrote a number of short stories based on some quirky characters in a fictional North Carolina foothills town called No Creek. I loved those characters, but in order to create a novel I needed an outside character who could see both strengths and foibles in my town folk and still care about them, still want to become part of their community, and who could tie their stories together.

For many years I’ve also wrestled with the idea of writing about the racial divide and abuse I saw growing up during years of the civil rights movement in the South, as well as domestic abuse and church oppression, things I experienced in my youth and young womanhood. Night Bird Calling is the marriage of all those experiences and stories.

Night Bird Calling involves some very challenging topics like domestic abuse, racism, and church abuse. What motivated you to write on these topics?

I grew up mostly in the South during years of the civil rights movement, where I witnessed segregation, desegregation, racial oppression, and abuse but also heroic stands against injustice and some hard-won changes. I learned that attitudes do not change just because laws change. Transformation of the heart is also needed. That is as true today as it was then.

As a young woman, I ran away from an abusive marriage and an oppressive church. My journey toward emotional and spiritual healing took many years. I want women in similar situations to know that they are not alone, that God loves them so very dearly and that the condemnations of their oppressors do not come from Him. I wrote Night Bird Calling not only for victims of abuse, but in the hope that readers might gain insight, sympathy, and empathy for those who’ve been abused or pushed down, that they might better understand and see creative ways they can help, ways they can be a voice for the voiceless or those needing someone to walk alongside them.

Stories of racial division and wartime highlight the difficulty of living in uncertainty and dealing with the unexpected. How does faith play into this aspect of the novel and into the novel more generally?

None of us know the future. We don’t control the present. Life—our own and the community and nation in which we live—can turn on a dime. We all need a source, a touchstone, a safe place that also presents a moral lens and a high, stable bar. Jesus Christ and faith in His unfailing love and provision fills all those needs. Lilliana, Celia, Gladys, the McHones, and others to a lesser extent all learn this lesson and grow from it.

As an author, what did you particularly enjoy about crafting this story?

I loved writing the big personalities of small-town characters in No Creek, especially precocious eleven-year-old Celia Percy. Celia possesses a lion’s heart in a small body and is ready to rail against injustice and champion the underdog no matter what. Lilliana, the story’s timid young heroine who flees abuse, grows into the woman God intended her to be by relinquishing misguided beliefs, trusting in the Lord’s love for her, and reaching outside herself to help others. The town is peppered with courage, love, and kindness, as well as prejudice, meanness, and oppression. Such a diverse and racially divided town is a microcosm of our world. Only by embracing the worth of others while acknowledging the “beam” in their own eye could change come to No Creek. That is true for each of us. I love the parable in that.

Night Bird Calling presents intriguing and lovable characters in heartbreaking and challenging situations. Did the journeys of any of the characters surprise you as you wrote?

Marshall, the fifteen-year-old nephew of Olney Tate, descendent of slaves, surprised me. Marshall was sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his father was murdered in Georgia. Though Marshall could barely read or write, he had a keen eye and a thirst for learning. I knew Marshall was a hard worker and an honorable young man, but I did not anticipate his excelling so quickly or that he would develop a passion for healing and a desire to apprentice himself to Dr. Vishnevsky—a desire cut short due to the dangers of racism in No Creek. But it is in leaving No Creek that Marshall finds his future—a future that will be explored in my next book.

What did you learn by writing this novel, and what lessons do you hope your readers take away?

Night Bird Calling is fiction, as are its characters, though parts of Lilliana’s escape from an abusive marriage and her challenged growth into believing that God really loves her and has a plan for her life were drawn from my own life. I found the dredging up of memories I’ve wanted to forget and the necessary baring of my soul to write this story emotionally challenging, yet in the end I also found it freeing. Shame loses its hold once confessed. It is truly a gift if that confession helps free others.

Abused women are often told not to tell of their abuse and are threatened with dire consequences to ensure their silence. Often they are filled with shame that they cannot stop the abuse, cannot change their abuser, and feel helpless to change themselves or their circumstances. They believe their situations are unique, that no one will believe them, that they are truly alone.

I hope that in writing Lilliana’s story, other women will realize those things are not true, and that abuse does not come from God, no matter what their abuser or oppressor insists. I hope women realize their value lies in the very life God has given them and that He is above all the Husband who never fails us, never hurts us, the One who loves us and always wants a strong and healthy relationship with us. He wants us to be whole.

Thank you, Cathy! It’s been a pleasure.

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About the book: When Lilliana Swope’s beloved mother dies, Lilliana gathers her last ounce of courage and flees her abusive husband for the home of her only living relative in the foothills of No Creek, North Carolina. Though Hyacinth Belvidere hasn’t seen Lilliana since she was five, she offers her cherished great-niece a safe harbor. Their joyful reunion inspires plans to revive Aunt Hyacinth’s estate and open a public library where everyone is welcome, no matter the color of their skin.

Slowly Lilliana finds revival and friendship in No Creek―with precocious eleven-year-old Celia Percy, with kindhearted Reverend Jesse Willard, and with Ruby Lynne Wishon, a young woman whose secrets could destroy both them and the town. When the plans for the library also incite the wrath of the Klan, the dangers of Lilliana’s past and present threaten to topple her before she’s learned to stand.

With war brewing for the nation and for her newfound community, Lilliana must overcome a hard truth voiced by her young friend Celia: Wishing comes easy. Change don’t.

About the author: Three-time Christy and two-time Carol and INSPY Award–winning author Cathy Gohlke writes novels steeped with inspirational lessons from history. Her stories reveal how people break the chains that bind them and triumph over adversity through faith. When not traveling to historic sites for research, she and husband, Dan, divide their time between northern Virginia and the Jersey Shore, enjoying time with their grown children and grandchildren.

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Thanks to Tyndale Publishers for providing this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.