Hello, readers!

Today I’m honored to feature this lovely guest post by Tamera Alexander, the Christy Award–winning and bestselling author of many books, whose latest novel, A Million Little Choices, releases today.

I could hardly believe it when I was granted the opportunity to feature this piece in the first place (sight unseen), and all the more so after I read what Tamera wrote. I was amazed — not only because am I currently at work on my first dual-timeline story and the challenges she describes ring all too real, but also because she articulates so beautifully the heart behind her books, which echoes mine.

When the Past Meets the Present: Writing a Dual-Timeline Story

by Tamera Alexander

The stories that have lived inside me the longest are often the most difficult to write, and A Million Little Choices was certainly that. Not only because it’s my first dual-timeline story, and not only because of the subject matter—marriage and infidelity—but because these characters are all so real to me, and the settings so tangible, that my first words on the page often felt frustratingly inadequate and thin compared with the living, breathing movie inside me.

A Million Little Choices is about two women from different centuries who live in the same house and who share strikingly similar journeys. The setting is Atlanta, where I was born and raised. Even the antebellum house depicted in the dual-timeline story is personal . . .

When I was a preteen, we had youth group outings on Sunday nights. Following church, a few of us would often drive into Atlanta, and we’d sneak into an old, abandoned, boarded-up antebellum home. We’d wander around with flashlights, brushing aside cobwebs and trying to avoid plumes of dust. For me, it felt like walking through time, and I can still recall thinking about the people who’d lived in that house and wondering what their lives had been like. Experiences like that are where my love of history took deeper root. Yet the seed of that love was first planted when I was nine, on a trip to Germany.

But before you think it was too glamorous a trip—there were eight of us in a VW Bug. My mom, brother, and grandmother sat in the back. My aunt and uncle were up front, and their two babies just floated from lap to lap. I sat in the cubbyhole in the back, fake-smoking little bubblegum cigarettes as we chugged around Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

It was when we toured a twelfth-century castle on the Rhine River that something happened inside me. Feeling the cold stone wall beneath my hand as we descended into the belly of that castle changed me forever. Yet it wasn’t until nearly 35 years later that God revealed what he would eventually do with the seed he planted that day. But his timing is always perfect.

Since writing my first novel in 2004 and seeing it published in 2006, I’ve learned repeatedly that it’s truly not about me. God has taught me to write for an Audience of One. Don’t get me wrong, I hope my readers are swept away to a different time and place (or two different times and places, in this instance), that they feel all the emotions, that they take the journey with the characters. But ultimately? My deepest desire is for a reader to take a step closer to Christ, however he Holy Spirit leads them. Because it’s all about him. Not about me.

Writing is a form of worship for me, a way to give back to Christ a portion of all he’s given me. Jesus used the power of story to convey unshakable eternal truths to his listeners, and I strive to follow in his steps as I write. While some people might not pick up a history book or a book about how to better their marriage, they’ll happily pick up a novel, and through taking that journey, their lives can be forever changed. Not by a sermon. But by a story.

I hope that proves true in my first dual-timeline story A Million Little Choices (November 2023 from Focus on the Family/Tyndale).

About the Author

Tamera Alexander is the Christy Award–winning bestselling author of numerous books, including Colors of Truth, With This Pledge, A Lasting Impression, A Note Yet Unsung, To Whisper Her Name, and more. Her richly drawn characters and thought-provoking plots have earned her devoted readers worldwide. Tamera and her husband make their home in Nashville, where they enjoy life with their adult children and precious grandchild, who live nearby. Add two rambunctious but lovable Australian Terriers to the mix, and life is pretty full and rich!

Connect with Tamera at tameraalexander.com.

About the book

Claire Powell’s life is turned upside down when her beloved husband admits to a “near affair.” But when Stephen accepts a partnership with an Atlanta law firm without consulting her and buys a historic Southern home sight-unseen―it pushes their already-fractured marriage to the breaking point. Claire’s world spirals, and she soon finds herself in a marriage she no longer wants, in a house she never asked for.

In 1863, Charlotte Thursmann, pregnant and trapped in a marriage to an abusive husband, struggles to protect her unborn child and the enslaved members of her household. Desperate, she’s determined to right the evils her husband and others like him commit. But how can one woman put an end to such injustice? Especially if her husband makes good on his threat to kill her?

Both Claire and Charlotte discover truths about themselves they never realized, along with secrets long hidden that hold the power to bring God’s restoration―if only they choose to let it.

Buy the book here.

Happy reading!

❤️ Katherine