Christian author Susan Schroeder hopes to reach people’s hearts and improve their relationship with God through her stories. Her historical novel Season of Defiance (Lighthouse Christian Publishing) is a character-driven adventure about a half-Indian, half-white man of noble blood and his journey into despair and loss of faith after accidentally killing a friend, and how he finds his way back to God. In this interview, the author explains what inspired her to write about these themes, shares how the story intersects with the historical record, and reveals the biggest challenge for a Christian author writing about that era…
Season of Defiance is a historical drama set in Colonial America that struggles with issues like justice and prejudice and forgiveness. Why were you inspired to write a novel that dealt with these themes?
These are the same issues that man has struggled with since he was thrown out of the Garden of Eden. I wrote this story because I felt moved to show that accepting God’s sovereignty in our lives is the only cure for the many injustices that plague us in life.
What drew you to set your novel in this particular time and place?
The novel is set in the early 1700s because it’s such a fascinating time period in our nation’s history. The American colonies were a fresh new frontier. People were full of hope for the future. Faith in God was a normal part of people’s lives.
I chose to make my character an adopted member of the Mohican tribe because I’ve been fascinated with the Mohican ever since I read James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans when I was a child, and I set the story in what is now known as Stockbridge Massachusetts because that’s where the tribe that I have raising Rafe until he was ten would’ve lived, having been forced to move in 1664 after a war with the Mohawk.
How does this novel intersect with the historical record? What research did you do to get the details right?
I researched on the internet to find out what the fashions of the day were, how they wore their hair, what the society of that time period was like. I even looked up old maps from that time period so I would know how long it would’ve taken someone to walk or ride from one place to another.
Some of the places in the story actually existed, like the Stockbridge School where Rafe learned about God from the missionaries. Venue House in front of which one of the characters is sold into slavery was a real place too.
It was the original Nassau marketplace from which slaves were sold in the 18th and 19th centuries, although I used artistic license and turned it into more of a records repository in my story. I also used an anecdote of the Governor of New Providence taking steps to rid the island of pirates. It was fun weaving those few tidbits of actual history into the story.
What are the challenges for a Christian author writing a story set in this era?
The biggest challenge for me as a Christian was portraying the wickedness and debauchery of the pirates without it becoming offensive to the reader. I was careful not to include gratuitous violence, and avoided using curse words. Instead, I wrote “he cursed” or something similar. I don’t know about others, but when I read curse words in a story, it really ruins it for me.
Another problem, not related to being a Christian writer, was that the way people spoke in the early 18th century is quite different from how we speak today. Of course we have no recordings, but we do have writings from that time, which my research revealed were more formal than the spoken word.
I’d always thought they didn’t use contractions, as is portrayed in some novels and movies of the era, but in my research I found an article that said they actually did use them. I chose to write the conversations in my novel mostly in a modern manner, with a word from the era thrown in here and there when appropriate. I felt this made the conversations more natural for the reader and would help keep them focused on the story instead of on the odd language.
What do you hope readers get out of reading Season of Defiance?
Like Rafe, everyone has doubts about their salvation from time to time. They think because they’ve done something wrong God couldn’t possibly love them. Or they’ve been convinced by constant bullying because they’re different in some way that they’re not worthy of God’s love.
I’m hoping this story will bring them to an understanding that there’s nothing God can’t forgive and no one God cannot love. His love is that great. I have Romans 8:38-39 on my computer’s home screen to keep me mindful of just that:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Visit Susan Schroeder’s author page:
https://www.familyfiction.com/authors/susan-schroeder
Season of Defiance
Lighthouse Christian Publishing
Susan Schroeder