My thanks to Susan Dean Elzey for stopping by The Character Connection for a guest post during the blog tour for her book, Miracle of the Christmas Star. Guest Post
My favorite character in my novel Miracle of the Christmas Star would have to be Sariah, the mother in the story who is the main character. She lives during the time Jesus lived on the earth and has a baby the same night He is born. Her baby, Hannah, is born dead, however, until the light of the Star of Bethlehem shines into the window and onto Hannah, bringing her to life. She is left crippled, however, to use the vernacular of the day, but after Sariah hears reports that it is the long-awaited Savior whose light shone on her baby, she begins to look for Him and believe that He can help her daughter.Sariah is my favorite character because we have a lot in common. I also have a daughter with cerebral palsy, upon whom the character of Hannah was based. Sariah is the mother I strive to be—loving, patient, full of faith, courageous, and always, always devoted to her daughter.
I have often been impressed by the stories of the brave and loving families who brought their family members to Jesus to be healed, especially the courageous people who actually took a roof apart and lowered a crippled man down into the house where Jesus was so that he might be healed. I wanted to tell a story of the hardship, love, and faith of family members during the life of Christ who dared to hope that He would help the one they loved and then did whatever was necessary to bring that to pass.
I have always believed that had I lived during that time and heard there was someone who could heal my daughter, I would carry her on my back, crawling if I must, to take her to the Savior to be healed. Those thoughts played around in my mind for several years until one day I was inspired to create a mother like the one I hoped I would be. The story line crystallized rather quickly in my mind, and I just had to commit Sariah’s story to paper. It was out there; I just had to capture it in words.
I wanted her to be strong, so I created her as a character with a skill, which she used throughout the book. I wanted her to be full of faith, but to occasionally falter to be more human and to give others the opportunity to help her. She loves and is loved and is kind and patient—much more so than I am! As the story progresses, she must be stripped of everything besides her faith so that when she needs it, it’s all she has left and it is enough.
What I like most about her is that she is so totally selfless and wants only to do what is best for her Hannah. She doesn’t see what pure-hearted person she is, though, so I created a friend for her to point that out to her when her faith in herself fails. There isn’t really anything I dislike about her, except that maybe she doubts her faith, but I don’t really dislike that because that humanizes her so that she doesn’t become unrealistic and within the story, gives her opportunities to grow in her faith and trust in God.
About the BookMiracle of the Christmas Star
Book Details:
Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc.
Published: September 2011
Genre: Holiday Christian Historical Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Price: $12.99
Buy Links: Amazon
Blurb:
Hannah died the night she was born. The new star's light brought her back to life, but left her stricken with palsy. Sariah, Hannah's mother, believes Hannah can be healed, if only she can find the Savior. Miracle of the Christmas Star is a tender story of love, faith and endurance that will touch your heart and remind you why miracles happen.
Blurb:
Hannah died the night she was born. The new star's light brought her back to life, but left her stricken with palsy. Sariah, Hannah's mother, believes Hannah can be healed, if only she can find the Savior. Miracle of the Christmas Star is a tender story of love, faith and endurance that will touch your heart and remind you why miracles happen.
About the AuthorSusan Dean Elzey
Susan Dean Elzey was raised an Army brat and moved to southern Virginia when she was a teenager. She is the mother of seven grown children, stepmother to two, and a grandmother to an ever-increasing brood of grandchildren. Her oldest daughter has cerebral palsy and is the inspiration behind the character of Hannah in her latest novel, "The Miracle of the Christmas Star."
Susan works as a writer and an adjunct English professor at a community college in a constant battle against comma mistakes and sentence fragments. For years, she has written a weekly humorous column entitled "7XMOM" (Seven Times Mom)for the "Danville Register & Bee" newspaper in which she shares the experiences of her life and of her family that, as her children say, "make us look stupid."
"Miracle of the Christmas Star" is Susan's fourth novel.
Connect With Susan:
Author Web Site
Susan works as a writer and an adjunct English professor at a community college in a constant battle against comma mistakes and sentence fragments. For years, she has written a weekly humorous column entitled "7XMOM" (Seven Times Mom)for the "Danville Register & Bee" newspaper in which she shares the experiences of her life and of her family that, as her children say, "make us look stupid."
"Miracle of the Christmas Star" is Susan's fourth novel.
Connect With Susan:
Author Web Site
About the TourCedar Fort Blog Tours
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| 25 | 26 | |||||
| The Character Connection/ | The Plot Thickens/ | |||||
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Fire and Ice Photos/ | A Casual Reader’s Blog/ | Keepin’ Up with LDS Bookstores/ | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Practical Frugality/ | LDS Women’s Book Review/ | The Wormhole/ | Reviews by Molly/ | Why Not? Because I Said So/ |
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