Romance Writer Karen Young Crosses Over to Christian Fiction

by Jana Riess, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 3/12/2008

Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster specializing in Christian products, announced last week that it has acquired Rita award-winning novelist Karen Young for a three-book contract, beginning with Blood Bayou in May 2009. Young, who has more than 10 million books in print, told RBL that she had been toying with the idea of writing Christian fiction for some time when she got a call from bestselling novelist Debbie Macomber last year. Macomber told her about an agent who was specifically interested in “someone who was established in popular fiction who might consider writing Christian fiction.” In the summer of 2007, Young joined forces with that agent, Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency, who took a rough proposal of Young’s to the International Christian Retailers Show in Atlanta. “She came back from Atlanta and told me, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but four publishers are interested,’” Young said.

Of the publishers (Tyndale, FaithWords, Howard and Zondervan), Young decided on Howard because she said she “connected with the people incredibly” and Howard was not at all put off by the “harder, grittier edge” of some of her novels, which feature scenes of “contemporary women who encounter realistic situations.” She was impressed with senior fiction editor Dave Lambert, who once edited her good friend Terri Blackstock. Also, it didn’t hurt that Howard is based in West Monroe, La., barely 300 miles from Young’s old stomping ground in Thibodaux. (She now resides in Houston.)

Young says that the move from the ABA to the CBA has been a breath of fresh air for her writing. Instead of focusing on the limitations of having to avoid objectionable content (especially swearing and sex) in her novels, Young feels a new freedom to explore her characters’ evolving relationships with God. “Whenever people are in dire straits, or circumstances are dark in their lives, it’s natural to turn to God. But in all of those books I wrote for the ABA, I just couldn’t go there. I feel free now to write a fully human character.”