For Immediate Release July 1, 2010
Contact: Leah Hubbard
404-944-7232
Christian novel introduces a modern day “Samaritan Woman”
A marriage in trouble, a man-stealer with a plan…sounds like fertile ground for lots of drama in a novel, but how do you tell the tale and still deliver the message of faith, hope and redemption the way “Christian fiction” is supposed to? In her second novel, An Inconvenient Friend, author Rhonda McKnight, shows us how. She believes the Bible itself was full of messy drama, but God’s messages of love, hope and redemption resonate throughout.
In the book, Samaria Jacobs is the ambitious anti-hero that readers will love to hate. She’s a social climber with a truck load of debt that she believes will magically disappear if she finds the right man to write a check. Like the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in the John, chapter four, Samaria brings a host of emotional baggage to her relationships. Her mother’s no Claire Huxtable, her father abandoned her when she was six and she’s been nursing a broken heart for eight years. Samaria’s skewed view of the world drives her actions and hideously taint her values. In fact, her actions will keep your stomach in knots. This is “Christian fiction” at its edgiest. It’s a tense, seductive story about two women, one man and high stakes.
“This is not just about a conniving mistress,” McKnight says. Mistress stories have been done a thousand times. “It’s a journey toward sisterhood and it addresses the things women will do to themselves and each other in the name of getting or keeping a man.” Samaria Jacobs is not the only hurting woman with a voice in the book. Angelina Preston, the Christian wife of Samaria’s lover, struggles to keep her marriage together while trying to overcome the pain of a infertility. A parallel for the women is that both have controlling, emotionally abusive mothers. McKnight says, “Their mothers have defined and shaped who they are.” In Angelina’s case her mother’s coldness causes her to seek out female friendships, while Samaria avoids them. The two form an unlikely and inconvenient friendship. “I hope mothers raising daughters examine themselves after reading this book to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes,” McKnight says.
McKnight hopes An Inconvenient Friend gets women thinking about the things they do to each other. “Even in the church we have women who desire the pastor or other men in leadership. This man stealing and lack of respect for our sisters has to stop.” And because one of Samaria’s problems is unforgiveness, McKnight hopes people who are in the same place will see themselves. “I hope they would pause and reflect and perhaps think about the next step to get beyond unforgiveness. “There is a connection between our behavior and our unresolved emotional issues,” McKnight says. Like her debut novel, Secrets and Lies, McKnight believes that An Inconvenient Friend exemplifies the power of faith and hope in overcoming personal pain and the power of forgiveness to set us free.
About the author
Rhonda McKnight is the owner of Legacy Editing, a free-lance service for fiction writers and Urban Christian Fiction Today, a popular Internet site that highlights African-American Christian fiction. She’s a member of Faith Based Fiction Writers of Atlanta. When she’s not editing projects, teaching workshops about writing or penning her next novel, she spends time with her family. Originally from a small, coastal town in New Jersey, she’s called Atlanta, Georgia home for twelve years. An Inconvenient Friend is available wherever books are sold.
To interview McKnight or for more information, contact Leah Hubbard at 248.342.8806 or waabiz@aol.com or contact Rhonda at her website http://www.rhondamcknight.net/
Click Here to Order the Book
ISBN# 978-1601628640
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