Eric Wilson refuses to be preachy. He’s seen enough to know we need more than platitudes to turn hearts toward God.
For several years Wilson penned edgy thrillers like Dark to Mortal Eyes (Waterbrook) and his redemptive vampire trilogy Jerusalem’s Undead (Thomas Nelson) in hopes of reaching those who might never set foot in a church. But it wasn’t until he was tapped to write the novelizations of the movies Flywheel, Facing the Giants and Fireproof that Wilson’s fiction hit the New York Times bestseller lists—and his views on publishing Christian novels began to evolve.
“My heart hasn’t changed,” Wilson says. “It still beats for those on the fringes of the faith. My focus, though, is now two-pronged: While I have plans of writing more books along the lines of my earlier novels, I’ve decided to also deal with topics more fitting for the average reader in a Christian bookstore. This, too, is true to my heart, since I love all my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
What if, instead of being tested by Satan through tragedy, a family is given six million dollars and made successful beyond their wildest dreams? A twist on the story of Job, Wilson’s One Step Away (Bay Forest) is the first in his By the Numbers series.
“Our American Christianity focuses so much on success,” he says. “If things are going well, we tend to attribute that to our own goodness. If someone else is struggling, we assume there must be something out of order. While both may be true, it really comes down to having godly discernment. I thought it would be fun to write a book that helped expose some of these things in a suspenseful way.”