Christine's Got a Brand New Baby

If a writer knows the subject and setting well, the story comes to life. With this new baby of mine, Sofi’s Bridge, I’d like to take you on a tour of my beautiful home close to the Cascade Mountains that bridge Washington State and British Columbia, Canada.

In my opinion I live in one of the prettiest places in the world, often compared

Wood carvings featured
in homestead of Sofi's Bridge.

to the Swiss Alps. Since I literally live only 3 miles as far as the crow flies from the US border, I used my own valley and created a fictional vale in Washington State. I did this only to give the book an American setting since those readers make up the majority of the market. But just between me and you, the story is really set in Canada. But shhhh, let’s keep that a secret.

Below are 3 scenes in which I used my province to create the fictional town of Orchard in the US.

~*~

The view from my dining room window.

Sunlight slanted from the west as they entered the valley. Farms created a velvet patchwork, and the tang of recently mown hay sweetened the air. The opposite side of the bridge met them at the entrance to town, where the hammers of steelworkers driving rivets into the trusses rang like a welcome home.

Neil stopped at the crossroads.

Sofi savored the outskirts of the town she’d spent most of her childhood summers. Already her spirits lifted. A high-wheeled freight wagon rolled toward Gronberg’s livery stable. Railway lines would make it so much easier to transports goods in and out of Orchard. But there were things she hoped would never change—the red and white awning of Helsing’s mercantile, the steeple of a white clapboard church that sought the sky. With a quiet nod, she motioned to Neil to take the road following this side of the gorge.

~*~

Sofi’s Bridge starts out though in Seattle, which I drive to a few times each year, so again I know the location well. Here’s another snipped created from my own memories driving out of Seattle and heading north.

~*~

Puget Sound

A rising sun melted the morning fog. Where the roads were good, the Cadillac ran smoothly at thirty-five miles per hour. Not so with the out-of-the-way paths

Sofi chose, taking them through cultivated farmlands that hugged the water.

Neil kept to a low speed to avoid jarring as the thin tires travelled the rutted byways. They’d come almost forty miles. Now a smattering of small islands floated on the intense blue of Puget Sound. To the northeast, rolling mountains furred with evergreens gradually molded higher and higher. Ireland wasn’t the only emerald land, but his halfhearted smile faltered when he glanced at Sofi.

~*~

A romantic scene from the book is set in one of my favorite places in all the world, taken directly from my visits to the Alpine Meadow in Manning Park BC,

just across the border from the same glorious Cascade Mountains in Washington State. In fact, each summer I look out on the US side from this location when I go to view the alpine flowers at their peak in mid-July.

~*~

At the summit they reined the Clydesdales under a shady tree. The wind, carrying a clean pine fragrance, blew unimpeded as though they’d reached the top of the world and grasses swayed in the breeze.

Neil walked with Sofi along a pathway strewn on either side with blue and purple lupine, pink phlox, yellow arnica, and red Indian paintbrush. In the distance, pale blue and turquoise ice from glaciers filled crevices between serrated granite heights. Quiet awe filled his face as he swept his gaze three hundred and sixty degrees and studied the glaciers that though they were miles away seemed close enough to touch. Above the tree line, gray peaks scraped the sky, some still capped with snow.

Sofi could only hope that up here for a while he could let go of whatever pain he was hiding from the world, and from her.

Read the first chapter of Sofi’s Bridge for free by clicking HERE.

SOFI’S BRIDGE by Christine Lindsay

Seattle Debutant Sofi Andersson will do everything in her power to protect her sister who is suffering from shock over their father’s death. Charles, the family busy-body, threatens to lock Trina in a sanatorium—a whitewashed term for an

insane asylum—so Sofi will rescue her little sister, even if it means running away to the Cascade Mountains with only the new gardener Neil Macpherson to protect them. But in a cabin high in the Cascades, Sofi begins to recognize that the handsome immigrant from Ireland harbors secrets of his own. Can she trust this man whose gentle manner brings such peace to her traumatized sister and such tumult to her own emotions? And can Neil, the gardener, continue to hide from Sofi that he is really Dr. Neil Galloway, a man wanted for murder by the British police? Only an act of faith and love will bridge the distance that separates lies from truth and safety.

PURCHASE LINKS for Sofi’s Bridge Paper & Ebooks

AMAZON.com 

Barnes and Noble

Pelican Book Group

About Christine:

Christine Lindsay is the author of multi-award-winning Christian fiction. Tales of her Irish ancestors who served in the British Cavalry in Colonial India inspired her multi-award-winning trilogy Twilight of the British Raj, Book 1 Shadowed in Silk, Book 2 Captured by Moonlight, and explosive finale Veiled at Midnight.

Christine’s Irish wit and use of setting as a character is evident in her contemporary romance Londonderry Dreaming and newest release Sofi’s Bridge. 

A busy writer and speaker, Christine and her husband live on the west coast of Canada. Coming August 2016 is the release of Christine’s non-fiction book Finding Sarah—Finding Me: A Birthmother’s Story.

Connect with Christine:

Please drop by Christine’s website www.ChristineLindsay.org or follow her on Amazon on Twitter. Subscribe to her quarterly newsletter, and be her friend on Pinterest , Facebook, and  Goodreads

The Real Story of St. Patrick by Christine Lindsay

Just like all holidays, St. Patrick's Day takes on some ridiculous forms of celebration from green beer to dressing up in silly clothes.

There are some fantastical legends about St. Patrick, such as him banishing all the snakes from Ireland. While it’s true there are no snakes there, it wasn’t the saint to the Irish who managed that. Ireland is like New Zealand, Hawaii, and Iceland in that regard--just no snakes.

There are certain truths though that we can rely on about St. Patrick, from some of his own writing, The 

Confession and A Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. It is true that Patrick was born around the year 389 and into a Christian family in Britain. His family were Romanized Britons and not nationals. His father Calpurnius was a magistrate and a deacon in the local church. 

Patrick was indeed kidnapped when he was around 12. 

He'd been out on his father's farm when Irish raiders captured him. He was taken to Ireland and sold as slave, spending the next 6 years as a sheep herder.

But like many of us, when bad things happen we often turn our sights toward God. It was while Patrick was a captive that his nominal Christian faith grew deeper. As a teen and a young man Patrick tried to shared his faith with his captors. Eventually Patrick did escape and made his way back to Britain to be reunited with his family. 

He was not a highly educated man, but did go to France and spent time as a monk in the Abby of Lerins in Gaul. One night Patrick dreamed that he heard a voice calling to him in the Irish language (Gaelic), “We beseech you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more.”  

While Patrick was not the first missionary to Ireland, he did return to Ireland as a bishop in 432. For the next 30 years until his death, his preaching and baptisms strengthened the already growing church. Due to Patrick’s promotion of the ascetic life of worship, he boldly went into areas that were firmly pagan, teaching the Irish Druids how to worship the Creator instead of His creation.  

He died and was buried in Downpatrick in N. Ireland, and I have been to his grave. 

My aunt, me, and my daughter Lana 2006

Like many ancient cultures, Ireland has a rich oral tradition, and while there is nothing in Patrick’s writings to confirm this, he probably did use a simple shamrock to explain the Trinity. Tradition says that St. Patrick picked up a shamrock, which in the Irish Gaelic language means diminutive clover, and explained that this little piece of flora was one leaf and yet it was made up of three leaves. 

The shamrock helped the Irish, including me as an Irish child, to understand an amazing aspect to God’s person: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Three in One.

Click on this link Londonderry Dreaming to hear some toe-tapping Irish music.

Irish-born Christine Lindsay is the author of multi-award-winning Christian fiction. She is currently writing her eighth book. To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, why not read some of Christine's books set in Ireland or that feature an Irish hero, check our Londonderry Dreaming and Sofi's Bridge coming May 2016.

Londonderry Dreaming available as an ebook, and Sofi's Bridge coming out in ebook and print May 2016.