I was blessed to grow up in a loving household where I was taught about faith, morality, and a positive outlook on life. I grew up reading stories that encouraged imagination and had good morals woven throughout.  While I understood that life has troubles and you can even experience them as a child, for me, life was pretty wonderful and most of the stories I read echoed that.

 

And then I started to grow up. 

 

As it turns out, life is actually full of a lot more darkness than I realised. From early teenage years and into young adulthood, I began to experience the world for what it can be; betrayal in friendships, violent evils of the world, families separated from one another in a pandemic, people around me struggling with serious mental health issues, drunkenness, promiscuity, and desensitisation to sin. As time went on, I experienced loss, attacks against my family, confusion, and hurt. I’ve now seen more fully the darkness of the world and know I am yet to experience more. 

 

Sadly, fiction for young readers does little to ease the pain. Many books published today are riddled with smut, hopelessness, and morally grey or even straight up evil characters being portrayed as “good.”

 

Yet, whilst meeting the world’s darkness was still a shock, I had a light living in me and knew the truth– there is grace, hope, peace, joy, and love to be found in the world. All that to the credit of the foundational beliefs ingrained in my mind and spirit as I grew up, and the faith I have in my Saviour.

 

In an ever darkening world, I want to shine light into young lives to give them the foundation that they need to stay strong and not be shaken when the inevitable hurt comes along. My stories will achieve that for younger teens beginning to experience life for themselves.

 

They are “cold frame” books to prepare young people for the real world by admitting that there is darkness but they do not need to be overcome by it.