Latest project: Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People’s Choices (9781426751172, $15.99, Abingdon Press).

What is the message of Ragged Hope? The core message of Ragged Hope is that even when hope is tattered by the consequences of other people’s choices, it remains strong. Hope may look ragged, beaten up, faded, but that’s perception only. The hope God offers is indestructible, no matter what we’ve done or what’s been done to us. 

What sparked the idea for this book? In a word, compassion. The prayer, “Lord, break my heart [for] what breaks Yours” was answered more fully than I expected. Listening to “fallout” stories broke my heart and stirred me with admiration for the resilience and tenacity of the survivors. I longed to throw a spotlight on how they pushed through pain and found hope hidden in the folds of the fallout.

Why did you choose the particular stories that appear in the book? So many stories remain to be told, but I chose a selection of those that represented both the all-too-common and the inexpressibly painful, hoping that each reader would either sense their own story had been given voice or that they finished the book with a deeper understanding of pain they hadn’t experienced.

How did you collect the stories? A sea of stories floated around me in the lives of people I love, those I see every Sunday morning, those I minister to through books and speaking engagements, those against whom I brush in the course of everyday life. I dialed in to listen to their pain and observe the wonder of their incredible survival instincts and God’s intimate responses to them.

How has your own life been affected by a decision someone else made? Our family held its collective breath through tension-filled years of concern for our heartbroken son and his toddler children as they walked a very difficult path. We were caught in the tangle of what at times was raw fear for them. We learned more than we cared to about addictions and the justice system, observed, but were unable to change dangerous living conditions and dried the tears of little ones who survived because of their relentlessly faithful father and the grace of God. The fallout from that season has settled, but we have the grandparent version of flashbacks of some of those scenes.

How is hope more than simply anticipating when a problem will go away? When God said, “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom. 5:5), He had to have meant more than anticipation for the endpoint of a crisis. Some crises have no endpoint this side of eternity. That verse is linked to the promise of His presence through it all. Our hope is the anchor point that assures us He sees, He hears, He understands, He cares, He weeps, and He is there in the midst of it.

You write that Ragged Hope is not a how-to book, but a celebration. How is that? America both sympathizes with and cheers for wounded soldiers, including amputees from military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re moving forward. They’re adjusting to artificial limbs and life changes. They’re walking again, running, competing in sports, dancing. They and their families—and all of us—are changed forever by what they endured in the line of duty. But we’re also changed, buoyed in spirit, by their determination to keep moving and step into the bright future, no matter how altered and challenging it might be. Horrific stories. Heroic responses. In that sense, stories like those in Ragged Hope are a celebration of survival.

What do you hope readers will gain from this book? A heart more sensitive to the distresses faced by those who live in the aftermath of other people’s choices. Greater confidence that in our own crises, hope is still there, even if it seems hidden or battered. Assurance that—small as they are—our efforts to show ragged-hope survivors they are not forgotten mean more than we can imagine. A clearer understanding of the indestructibility of the hope God offers. 

When is your upcoming Facebook chat, and what can readers expect there? The Facebook chat is on Aug. 1 at 8 p.m. EDT. Readers will be able to discuss Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People’s Choices, ask and answer questions and win prizes. Readers can watch the Cynthia Ruchti Reader Page on Facebook for details. 

Is there anything else Christian retailers should know about Ragged Hope? Ragged Hope is the kind of book that soothes rather than stings. Only God can heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds [Ps. 147:3], but Ragged Hope holds the jar of ointment, the hand of the hurting one and the hopes of those who care.

ASK THE AUTHOR: Wil Mara
LATEST PROJECT: Frame 232: A Jason Hammond Novel (9781414359519, $13.99, July).
PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers.

What is the main  “What if?” question in Frame 232 related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

“What if new evidence concerning the Kennedy assassination—something with conclusive proof that Oswald did not act alone—was discovered by an ordinary person, and a few very powerful people who had taken part in the conspiracy and were still alive wanted to make certain that evidence never saw the light of day?”

What inspired you to explore this possible scenario in fiction form?

As I was watching one of the countless documentaries on [the assassination], I was introduced to a little-known figure called the Babushka Lady—a woman who had been standing in Dealey Plaza wearing a headscarf (aka a babushka) and was apparently holding a camera of some kind. I’d like to point out here that this was a real person, not the product of my or anyone else’s imagination, and that her identity remains unknown to this day. Anyhow, seeing her sparked an idea—what if she’d had a film camera, what if she captured something that no one else noticed and what if, out of concern for herself and her family, she decided to keep her film a secret for half a century? 

What is the significance of the title?

The key image in the Babushka film—the one that opens the door to everything else for Hammond and Sheila—just happens to be frame 232.

Would you give us a short summary?

The daughter and only child of the aforementioned Babushka Lady—the name I gave in the story is Sheila Baker—discovers the film after her mother’s death and contacts Jason Hammond, our wonderful Christian hero, for help. Hammond is the son of a wealthy industrialist who, along with Hammond’s mother and only sibling, died tragically in a plane crash years earlier. As a result, Hammond has been struggling with his faith and has been escaping the pain by throwing his energies and resources into solving the most high-profile mysteries of 20th century. In the case of the Babushka film, he knows he’s onto something huge. 

Jason struggles with the loss of his family. What is his crisis of faith?

Like so many people, his crisis was born from suffering through a massive loss, and that suffering continues unabated. He goes to bed with it, wakes up with it, feels it with every breath. His family were good people, so he cannot make peace with the magnitude of the tragedy in relation to his belief in the Lord. What’s interesting, though—and this is where the agonizing tension is most taut—is that he’s still a believer. Think about it—if he weren’t, there wouldn’t be any conflict at all. And this unresolved issue provides a giant story arc that will span many books. Hammond’s bruised and battered faith is the real story in this series. 

Latest project: Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams Into New Beginnings (9780849964800, $15.99, Thomas Nelson).

What is a resurrection year, and where did you first hear of this concept? I’d describe a resurrection year as a year of new life following the death of a dream. I’d love to take credit for the phrase, but it was the British author Adrian Plass who suggested it to me. I was talking to Adrian off-air one day after interviewing him on my radio show. We’d gotten to know each other a little over the years and so I told him about the difficult journey my wife, Merryn, and I had recently been on, and how we were thinking of starting the new year afresh. He listened intently and then said, “In the Christian scheme of things, new beginnings come after the death of something, just as Jesus’ resurrection followed his crucifixion. After what you’ve just told me, I think a ‘Resurrection Year’ is just what you need.”

What prompted you and Merryn to leave Australia, travel Europe and resettle in Oxford, England? Our broken dream was not being able to start a family. We had pursued that dream for 10 years—through special diets, healing prayer, numerous rounds of IVF [in vitro fertilization] and even a two-year wait on the Australian adoption list. By the end of that 10 years, Merryn was in a mess. She needed a new beginning. Apart from longing to become a mum, Merryn’s only other dream was to live and work overseas. When she was offered a job at Oxford University, we saw it as God’s way for that secondary dream to become a reality. 

What made you finally decide to stop trying to have a child? In short, because we couldn’t continue on anymore. Proverbs 13:12 says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. Well, Merryn’s heart was sick. The constant waiting picks away at the fabric of your being—waiting each month when you’re first trying for a child; waiting for blood test results when you’re doing IVF; waiting for the phone call when you’re waiting to adopt. Your emotions get a battering during this wait, as your hopes are constantly raised then dashed. As we approached our 10th year of waiting and also approached the age of 40 when fertility becomes even harder, we decided to try one last round of IVF before bringing the journey to an end. As readers of Resurrection Year will discover, that final round was eventful.

You left a significant platform in Australia as a national radio show host, best-selling author and speaker. Why? Because Merryn needed me to. … Having seen her reduced to tears night after night from having her first dream denied, I couldn’t watch her miss out on a second. But I wasn’t the hero in this. Leaving my career and ministry in Australia was hard. I didn’t leave it with a light heart or the joy of a saint who delights in sacrifice. In the book, I describe our experience of infertility as our “wilderness” journey. To some degree, leaving Australia and coming to the U.K. plunged me into a second wilderness experience—not knowing who I was or what my purpose was to be. But God has been up to something all along, and this book is part of it. A whole new season of ministry is beginning—a very unexpected one.

How did your travels before settling in England help you and Merryn move on? Our travels through Europe … helped us to see the “bigness” of life again. The historic and artistic glories of Rome opened our eyes to a larger world than we’d been seeing. The lovely Italian ritual of la passeggiata—an evening stroll through the village when one catches up with the neighbors—was restorative. The natural beauty of Switzerland was overwhelming. All up, our European trip was a chance to play again, to be amazed by beauty and to let some of the dead leaves of our old life float away.

How is this book about even more than infertility? Resurrection Year is a book for those who have experienced a broken dream or for those who know someone who has. … I hope Resurrection Year will breathe new life and hope into these and other readers, helping them to realize that a broken dream doesn’t have to define one’s life, and that while God is sometimes silent, He is never absent.

What else should Christian retailers know about Resurrection Year? Thomas Nelson has put a great marketing plan together for the book, and I’ll be doing a lot of media and speaking to get the message out. Those who’ve read Resurrection Year have told me, almost to the person, that they have five friends they’re buying the book for. I hope Christian retailers feel confident carrying quantities of the book and in giving it a prominent position in store! Something seems to be building around this little memoir.

Thomas Nelson is making available its New Spirit-Filled Life Bible in the New Living Translation for the first time this month. The new edition comes in a number of bindings and colors, including hardcover ($44.99), brick red Leathersoft ($79.99; $89.99 with indexing) and black bonded leather ($79.99; $89.99 with indexing).

The KJV Life Application Study Bible is available this month in a brown/tan TuTone color combination. The King James LeatherLike edition is thumb-indexed retails for $79.99. The popular Life Application Study Bible features notes that explain difficult passages and give information on Bible life and times. It also shows how the reader can “take it personally,” speaking to life circumstances, and has nearly 10,000 Life Application notes. 

The Premium Slimline Reference Bible in the New Living Translation is available from Tyndale House Publishers June 1 with thumb-indexing and large-print text in a slim binding. Retailing for $49.99, this TuTone brown/tan LeatherLike edition has classic reference features such as words of Christ in red, a dictionary/concordance, full-color maps, presentation pages, two ribbon markers, gilded page edges, a presentation page and a favorite-passages index.

Edited by Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation, The Mission of God Study Bible in the Holman Christian Standard Bible translation comes in two new colors—desert sand and cameo rose—June 1 from Holman Bibles (B&H Publishing Group). The study Bible includes more than 150 writings from leading voices in the church about what it means to live in the mission of God, and “Letters to the Church” from elder statesmen such as Billy Graham and Jack Hayford speak to the grand narrative of God’s mission in Scripture. Each of the LeatherTouch Bibles retail for $49.99.

ASK THE AUTHOR: Creston Mapes
LATEST PROJECT: Fear Has a Name (9780781408165, $14.99, June 1).
PUBLISHER: David C Cook.

What challenges does Jack Crittendon face in Fear Has a Name? 

First, he is working on an investigative story for his newspaper about a missing pastor and his family; that story in itself and the mysteries he discovers are harrowing. At the same time, his family has experienced a home invasion. As time goes on, it appears the “robbery” was not random, but that someone is stalking Jack’s wife, Pamela, and endangering their two young girls.

What inspired this novel? 

Many years ago we experienced a home break-in while my wife was at home with our first baby. The man entered the house violently. My wife was forced to grab the baby and run next door to a neighbor’s house. Many years later, I had a dream about a man loitering around the front door of a family’s home, ready to break in. I woke up and wrote down everything about that man. He is Granger Meade, the antagonist in Fear Has a Name. One of the interesting things about Granger is that he was unwanted by his parents and bullied as a youth. It is a timely story.

What is the story’s premise?

We all have our own unique personal fears. Some of those fears might have to do with threats from other people or circumstances out of our control. The premise of the novel deals with facing such fears, surviving and overcoming them, and, ultimately, choosing to love.

How do the characters handle fear?

That’s what I hope readers will find intriguing. All of the characters deal with fear differently. Pamela’s mother is a paranoid alcoholic, and Pamela battles tendencies of fear and paranoia. Although Jack is strong and courageous, he is up against unthinkable trials—and fears. Granger, the antagonist, fights fears of his own that stem from a troubled childhood and from having been brought up by parents who were legalistic religious fanatics. 

The plot clips along at an exciting pace and yet the characters are well-developed. How did you accomplish this?

I always try to start a manuscript with unique likeable characters who are thrown into trying circumstances. Because I am not a plotter, the characters—the type of people they are—determine how they respond to those trials. Once I get set in my mind what those characters are like, I do not stray from that, and I let their personalities determine how they respond. It’s as if I am just an observer saying, “Oh my, Jack’s old temper is going to flare,” or, “Oh wow, Pamela is going to insist they get a gun in the house.” My characters often surprise me, scare me and take me on thrill rides—often to places I’d rather not go. But, in doing so, I know the reader is going to be glued to the pages.

Why did you incorporate bullying in this thriller?

Ever since I was a boy I have had a soft spot in my heart for underdogs, including people who are bullied, overweight and unpopular in the world’s eyes. I do not like bullies! And I think bullying is one of the lowest things a person can do to another human being. I wanted to explore the topic a bit in this book and follow a boy who was bullied and unwanted into adulthood. I thought it would touch people’s hearts, help us become more concerned about other people’s feelings and make for a thrilling and thought-provoking story.

What faith-building ideas do you think readers will take away from this novel?

It is easy to say, “No matter what, God is sovereign.” It is easy to say, “All things work together for good.” But what about when the unthinkable happens? When it strikes hard and deep and turns our worlds upside down? What does that do to our faith? I actually don’t know what it would to do my faith or my relationship with God, but I wanted to explore that in this novel. Hopefully, readers will take away the thought that they need to reserve judgment and wear another person’s shoes before judging or criticizing anyone else—whether that person is a Christian or not.

Will there be more books featuring Jack Crittendon?

Yes! Fear Has a Name is the first book in the new series known as “The Crittendon Files.” We just finished the cover design for book two, Poison Town, a book that readers are going to love. I’m halfway through writing the third novel in the series. My publisher and I are confident once fiction-lovers get a hold of this first book, they are going to be clamoring for more. 

What other information would help Christian retailers recommend Fear Has a Name?

Express to customers and book-lovers that Fear Has a Name is not a horror story. As a reader myself, I don’t read books that are simply scary. It must have a solid plot and intriguing characters. Fear Has a Name is thought-provoking. It has spiritual depth. It deals with topics like bullying, gun control, depression and how people deal with unthinkable trials. It is a book that book clubs will love to discuss.

Pastor challenges believers to follow Jesus as their model and find a ‘whole new way of being human’

Grappling with tough issues one night concerning the bride of Christ, Pastor Jonathan Martin wrote “A Letter to a Ravaged Bride.” Martin’s letter challenges God’s people to “once again become the beautiful people of God for the world,” he writes.

In Prototype: What Happens When You Discover You’re More Like Jesus Than You Think?, Martin discusses how it is possible for the church to become beautiful by following Jesus’ example on how to live. Martin sees Jesus as a model for believers—“God’s prototype for a whole new way of being human.”

The author argues that each child of God must begin with an accurate understanding of his identity, just as Christ knew his true identity—that He “was loved by God the Father.” He explains that if believers encounter God like children, with innocence and trust, before fear and disappointment crept in, they can see that they, too, are God’s beloved simply because they exist. When believers know this deeply, Martin says, it affects their every decision, and they become more like Jesus.

Martin also examines what he calls “obscurity.” While it is not valued in our culture, he says, separating oneself from the busyness of life and focusing on God are important so that God can deepen the believer’s relationship with Him. In this type of wilderness, the Christian is strengthened, identity is reinforced, and he or she is freshly able to distinguish the voice of the accuser, as Jesus did in His wilderness experience. 

Obscurity then leads to calling, even though believers are all unlikely workers for God’s purposes, as Moses and David were, Martin said. At the author’s church, Renovatus in Charlotte, N.C., members embrace the reality that all believers are misfits. They call themselves “a church for people under renovation.”

Further, Martin points out that following Jesus involves the sacraments, the “bodily, physical practices” of baptism, communion and caring for the sick. He emphasizes community—with depth of relationship—and says that when we understand how much God loves us, we long to tell others our story of “belovedness” because it is part of a larger story, of what “God has in store for His creation.”

Prototype includes a study guide and releases this month from Tyndale Momentum, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers. To order, call Tyndale at 800-323-9400 or visit www.tyndalebooksellers.com.