We need your help! Carol McClain joins me today to chat about some of her current and past favorite books, and we’re missing a title! If you loved animal books as a kid, you might be the one to save the day. Keep reading!

Thank you for joining me today! I always like to start at the beginning, so what was your favorite picture book as a child? What did you love about it?

The Little Lost Lamb. Ironically, my mother hated it, but I reread it over and over. In this story, a little, black sheep got lost. The shepherd couldn’t find the lamb and had to give up and tend the other sheep in the flock. But the happy, “lost” critter lived happily exploring the world.

In my mind, she found freedom and adventure. My mother saw the loss of a loved child.

To this day (and I’m ancient), I can still see the illustrations and recall the story.

What was your favorite chapter book? What did you love about it?

I can’t tell you the name of the books. All of them dealt with animals who could talk and had emotions and human connections with one another. I think I totally loved the story about animals, and their human nature provided emotional context.

Maybe someone reading will recognize the story and remember the title for you. Now I’m curious!
Have you ever had a book recommended to you that you didn’t like? No names, but what didn’t you like about it?

Friends adored a Pulitzer Prize winning book (now a motion picture). I hated it. The story opened near the end of the saga with a broken man with no hope. Why read a book that offered despair? The story seemed to wend its way through the minutiae of life with the protagonist always making the wrong decisions.

He turned into a thief and ended up earning money enough illicitly (if I remember correctly) to make up for all the ills he’d done. I could not figure out why it achieved such a prestigious award.

If you could be part of any fictional family, which would you pick?

This is so totally out of my character, but I’d love to join the household of the Crawleys from Downton Abbey.

First, I want clothes like Mary Crawley wore. They were beyond gorgeous. Then, I’d love to live in that house. I relate much more to Sybil and her political affinity and desire for social justice—not at all like Mary.

I’d love interacting with the servants (all except Thomas Barrow—although he’s the perfectly scripted hero—I hated him, then the writers made me have compassion on him). My favorites of this crew—Anna and John Bates.

If you could turn any of your books into a movie, which would you pick?

My book due out later this month or early March would be an excellent movie. In Borrowed Lives, unspeakable tragedy falls on an artisan. Nine months later, she finds three abused children living in a hovel near her home. (Hold on. This is far more uplifting than the Pulitzer Prize winner from above). She takes them in, and this action becomes the vehicle for all their healings.

The story isn’t a fairy tale. Life doesn’t become perfect. Each child is damaged, and each book points out the way to healing.
I believe, in my humble opinion, this novel offers everything a movie or TV series needs. Humor (I can’t help myself. Humor is an integral part of my voice), sorrow, romance, weird family characters and a great theme of both the issues drug addiction causes and the redemption Jesus brings.

Who’s your favorite author?

My preferred genre is contemporary fiction because I love the messy lives of humans. I love Lisa Wingate. She creates issues about hard situations that don’t have easy answers.

Her style has the most influence on mine. It’s intelligent and knowledgeable. I get lost in her work.

Share five books from your TBR (to be read) pile.

The Brightest Hope by Naomi Musch
Before the Season Ends by Linore Rose Burkard
The Speed of Light by Elissa Grossell Dickey
Who Put the Vinegar in the Salt by Linda Rondeau
Bridges by Deb Raney

God Only Lends Us Those We Love for a Season

Distraught from recent tragedy, Meredith Jaynes takes pity on a young girl who steals from her. Meredith discovers “Bean” lives in a hovel mothering her two younger sisters. The three appear to have been abandoned. With no other homes available, Social Services will separate the siblings. To keep them together, Meredith agrees to foster them on a temporary basis.

Balancing life as a soap maker raising goats in rural Tennessee proved difficult enough before the siblings came into her care. Without Bean’s help, she’d never be able to nurture these children warped by drugs and neglect—let alone manage her goats that possess the talents of Houdini. Harder still is keeping her eccentric family at bay.

Social worker Parker Snow struggles to overcome the breakup with his fiancée. Burdened by his inability to find stable homes for so many children who need love, he believes placing the abandoned girls with Meredith Jaynes is the right decision. Though his world doesn’t promise tomorrow, he hopes Meredith’s does.

But she knows she’s too broken.

Carol McClain is the award-winning author of four novels dealing with real people facing real problems. She is a consummate encourager, and no matter what your faith might look like, you will find compassion, humor and wisdom in her complexly layered, but ultimately readable work.
Aside from writing, she’s a skilled stained-glass artist, a budding potter and photographer. She dabbles in the bassoon—but has little talent with it.

She lives in East Tennessee with her husband and soon will own two Nigerian Dwarf doelings.

You can connect with her at:
www.carolmcclain.com
On Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/author.Carol.McClain
On Instagram and twitter at: @carol_mcclain