In the great expanse of writing, sometimes the world can get really small.
Recently, my sister-in-law, Jean, suggested a co-worker read my Gabby Wells thriller, Kneel & Prey. The co-worker remembered book and Bauer. That was about it. A few mouse clicks later the co-worker bought a novel written by a Catholic author about a devout young woman living in a small Florida town.
But it wasn’t Kneel & Prey. And the book wasn’t written by me.
The novel, At Home in Persimmon Hollow published by Franciscan Media, is written by Gerri Bauer.
How different are these books? Let’s compare. Gerri’s book synopsis is as follows:
At Home in Persimmon Hollow is the first book in a series chronicling the world of Agnes Foster and the people of frontier-era Florida. In 1886, Agnes is forced to leave the Catholic orphanage in New York where she grew up to start a new life as a teacher in Persimmon Hollow, a small Florida town she has seen only in a newspaper ad. With nothing but her strong Catholic faith to sustain her, she leaves behind the only home she’s ever known and the little girl she hopes to adopt, and encounters a wild and beautiful new landscape, and a town full of hardworking, faith-filled people. She also meets the difficult, yet handsome and hard-to-ignore Seth Taylor, a man whose heart has been hardened to God after a terrible loss. Just as Agnes starts to feel Persimmon Hollow could be a good home for her and her daughter, and that Seth could be her love, tragedy strikes in the form of a trio of evil men from both their pasts, intent on doing them more harm. Will their fragile new love survive? Will Seth return to his faith? Can Agnes finally escape her dark past and find a bright future?
Kneel & Prey’s synopsis is a wee bit different:
Can Gabby Wells Stop a Mass Murderer? In the small, quiet town of Safety Harbor, a disturbed mind was planning the unthinkable and Gabby Wells had to stop him. Rumors were swirling that one of her classmates was planning to commit mass murder during the Fourth of July celebration and she had only hours to find him before he turned the crowded streets into a river of blood. She was willing to risk everything, even her own life, to keep the ones she loved safe. If she failed, more than just bloodshed was at stake. Gabby could very well lose her soul in the process and end up in hell… right next to her murderer.
Needless to say, the co-worker was a bit confused when Gerri’s book read nothing like what Jean had told her.
I took the opportunity to reach out to Gerri and tell her of the humorous mix-up. At first she thought my email was spam. Why? Because her husband’s name is Pete Bauer!
We live in a small, weird world sometimes.
Gerri and I have been in contact since then and I am comforted to find another author called to write fiction driven by strong Catholic characters.
Who knows what will happen the next time someone doesn’t buy my book!