I’ve enjoyed getting to know my guest author today. Like me, she writes about tough, real-life subjects. Carol McClain is the award-winning author of four novels dealing with real people facing real problems. She is a consummate encourager, and no matter what your faith might look like, you will find compassion, humor and wisdom in her complexly layered, but ultimately readable work.

Aside from writing, she’s a skilled stained-glass artist, an avid hiker and photographer. She lives in East Tennessee. Her most recent interests are her two baby does Peanut & Buttercup. Like all babies, they love sitting on laps and being bottle fed.

You can connect with her at carolmcclain.com.

On Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/author.Carol.McClain

On twitter and Instagram: @carol_mcclain

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14030286.Carol_McClain

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/carol-mcclain

Borrowed Lives

God Only Lends Us Those We Love for a Season

Distraught from recent tragedy, Meredith Jaynes takes pity on a young girl who steals from her. Meredith discovers “Bean” lives in a hovel mothering her two younger sisters. The three appear to have been abandoned. With no other homes available, Social Services will separate the siblings. To keep them together, Meredith agrees to foster them on a temporary basis.

Balancing life as a soap maker raising goats in rural Tennessee proved difficult enough before the siblings came into her care. Without Bean’s help, she’d never be able to nurture these children warped by drugs and neglect—let alone manage her goats that possess the talents of Houdini. Harder still is keeping her eccentric family at bay.

Social worker Parker Snow struggles to overcome the breakup with his fiancée. Burdened by his inability to find stable homes for so many children who need love, he believes placing the abandoned girls with Meredith Jaynes is the right decision. Though his world doesn’t promise tomorrow, he hopes Meredith’s does.

But she knows she’s too broken.

Genesis of Borrowed Lives

Difficult questions with impossible answers always send me to my keyboard. I think, How can a character heal from this? I then write until I have the answer. This is especially true for Borrowed Lives.

At one time, I thought I understood addiction. Then I worked with addicts. This taught me how little I understood. I’ve heard testimonies of parents teaching their children to make meth. Parents locked their children out of the home until they sold the required number of drugs. Lost jobs, car accidents, broken families, homelessness, disease—all of these are the end result of addiction.

You’d think an addict would be sick of the life. But …

Even when sober for years and with a restored family, I’ve seen devoted Christians fall back into their addiction. It boggles my mind.

For years I’ve mentored addicts and worked with organizations dedicated to helping them recover. I’ve seen failures, but I’ve seen success.

I rejoice with those who have found new life and love and children and are relishing the years the locust had devoured.

I rejoice with children who’ve found love in foster homes. We need so many more good ones.

But more than those who’ve fallen into addiction, I’ve seen cruelty in the church or from well-meaning people who ladle on guilt when things go wrong.

How does one overcome tragedy?

Borrowed Lives works through pain with love and hope. It resonates with victory over despair. You will not be able to put down Borrowed Lives until the final page.

What people are saying about Borrowed Lives:

“Borrowed Lives takes the reader on a voyage of loss, hope, love, and faith from beginning to end.”

“Love, joy, triumph, despair, and everything else that paints the tapestry of human life are here in rich detail.”

“Borrowed Lives is a down-home, true to life story you won’t want to put down.”

Available now: