Featured Book: All My Belongings

From the back cover:

 

A new identity can’t protect Becca from a past that refuses to go away.

Where do you turn when changing your name doesn’t give you the anonymity you want? When running hundreds of miles away isn’t far enough? When your search for a place to belong lands you right back where you began?

 

One phone call destroys all the hope Becca Morrow has for a life beyond the shame of her past. Further discredited by the death of her elderly, ailing patient—the mother of the influential businessman, Isaac Hughes—Becca’s new life is shattered and her longing for love slips away. Working to clear her name, Becca must learn to see beauty in the ugliness of dying, to accept the tenderness in forgiveness, and—at last—discoer that where she belongs isn’t as much about her family history as it is about her faith in the One to whom she’ll always belong.

 

An interview with author Cynthia Ruchti:

 

Finish this sentence. Inspirational fiction is . . .

 

…life in story form, with its jolts and joys. All fiction should move us in some way. Inspirational fiction moves us in a positive direction, making us more compassionate, wiser, bolder, hope-filled, joy-hemmed. The best inspirational fiction doesn’t create impossible scenes but the courage of possibilities.

 

What’s your favorite scene in All My Belongings?

 

Such a tough question! I can tell you which ones made me weep, but that would be giving away too much of the story that I long for my readers to discover on the journey. One that I relive in my mind is when Becca first meets Aurelia, the woman for whom she’ll serve as caregiver. Their instant connection despite Aurelia’s dementia and health issues creates such a tender picture of the true meaning of caregiving.

 

Are you anything like Becca Morrow, your main character? If you could cast her in a movie, whom would you choose?

I think Becca’s shining moments show who I would long to be on my best days. I feel the compassion she feels. She is better at living it out. I picture her as an Amy Adams character, or the woman here (wish I could remember her name), more beautiful than she knows, with an inner courage hard-fought from the past from which she emerged. She’s ashamed of her family of origin and is on a life-long quest to find out where she truly belongs.

 

Describe Isaac Hughes. What actor would you hire to play him?

This is the face I see as Isaac. Thirty, more medium brown, sunglinted hair than this shows, and with a more casual, ruffled hair style; dark brown eyes, which this doesn’t show; almost 6 feet tall; he would be more tan at the start of the story. I know. It doesn’t sound like this at all. But I love the expression on his face and the jaw-tracing light beard. Isaac is a successful businessman and leans heavily on his guy friends who meet once a week to hold each other accountable and turn to God’s Word for life advice. He doesn’t know his family of origin and is on a life-long quest to discover where he truly belongs. Ah, there’s the rub!

 

 

What do you want your readers to take away from this novel?

 

There can be such exquisite beauty in end-of-life moments, even when they’re excruciatingly difficult. Unconditional love, forgiveness for the unforgivable, and trust in the sovereignty of God set the stage for that tender dance. I also long for readers to be moved by the difference between taking care of someone and true, pure caregiving. For the readers who are caregivers, for a season or a lifetime, my prayer is that they’ll be blessed that someone told bits of their story.

 

 

 

Do you have another novel in the works? Tell us about it.

 

In the spring of 2015, my next novel—As Waters Gone By—releases with Abingdon Fiction. It’s the story of a woman torn up by disappointments, struggling to discover how to hold her marriage together when her husband is incarcerated.

 

For fun, what do you like to snack on while you write?

 

If you’d asked me that a couple of months ago, I would have said, “Potato chips.” But a healthy flow of deadlines and potato chips don’t mix well. So now I’d say, “Green peppers or…I know, hard to believe…water with cucumber slices.”

 

About the author:

Cynthia Ruchti is an acclaimed author and speaker with more than 30 years of broadcast experience. The Professional Relations Liaison for American Christian Fiction Writers, Cynthia has also written articles for numerous magazine and industry publications. Her books have recently been honored with Selah Awards for fiction and nonfiction, AWSA and CAN Golden Scroll Awards for fiction and nonfiction, and Christian Retailings’ BEST Awards for both fiction and nonfiction.

 

You can learn more about Cynthia and her books at: http://www.cynthiaruchti.com/

 

 

Thank you, Cynthia, for stopping by.

 

Cynthia is offering a copy of All My Belongings to one of you. Please answer this question in the comment box along with your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you’re the winner.

Readers, for Becca, seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time contributed to her sense that she’d finally come home. The waves spoke of an endless future that stretched beyond the wide horizon, compared to the narrow confines from which she’d come. Is there a place, a location, that makes you feel as if you’ve “come home”?