When Heather James’
grandfather gave her a copy of
Gone with the Wind in high school,
everything changed.
A reluctant reader became a voracious
one, and James hasn’t looked
back since. She followed in her father’s
footsteps and became a lawyer
to pay the bills, but held onto
her childhood dream of being an
author. It’s finally become a reality
with the release of Unholy Hunger
(Kregel Publications), the first in
the Lure of the Serpent Series. A
story about a grieving mother’s
vigilante revenge against the unknown
pedophile who killed her
young daughter, the plot actually
sprang from a nightmare James
had about her own child.
Because of its tough subject
matter, Unholy Hunger is gritty,
but never gratuitous. “Writers
have the ability, the power even,
to either imprint their readers or
stain them,” James
says. “I don’t want
to stain my readers.
The hardest challenge
in writing this
book was the obvious
heartstrings involved.
I had to become
that woman
who lost her child,
and I really didn’t
want to go there.
Still, I knew it had
to be done.”
Pleased with the
end result, a mix
of edge, drama, suspense and humor, James wants
to clear up any misconception that Unholy Hunger
is a scary book. “It’s not,” she emphasizes. “The bad
things that happen to the children in this book happen
out of the reader’s view. Ultimately, I have to
answer to God for what I put out there, and I feel I
haven’t crossed any lines in that regard. I’m trying to
convey how important it is for parents to keep a close
eye on their kids, but I’m also trying to relay that we
have an enemy out there, above the flesh-and-bone
ones we may cross paths with on a daily basis.”