Born for Adversity: A Behind the Scenes Look

A blog post by Aubrey Reiss Taylor

I am thrilled to have two books coming out this fall, one of which is part of the Brave Authors collection, Every Life Treasured: Three Novellas About the Value of Life. My story, Born for Adversity, is bound with stories by Hannah Hood Lucero and Jennifer Q. Hunt. All three of the stories in this collection look at the idea of “choosing life” from a different angle, and Born for Adversity takes a look at pregnancy as a result of unwed, consensual intimacy.

The years following the First World War were chaotic in many parts of Europe. Born for Adversity examines that experience through the eyes of Lani Schumacher, a young woman who is half French and half German.

Lani loved a young man. She slept with him in the hopes that doing so would make him stay. Yet he did not stay.

The novella picks up after Lani discovers she is pregnant. It walks with her through hiding the truth, confessing to her parents, confessing to the priest (Lani lives in a predominantly Catholic part of Germany), and deciding whether it would be worth it to end the pregnancy in secret. It also walks with her through accepting that the young man she loves will never come back, and through the temptation to fall in love again too quickly. (I included that aspect because, while not every young woman has dealt with an unwanted pregnancy, many of us have experienced the temptation to rebound.)

The story also allows the reader an opportunity to meditate on the idea of what it means to guard one’s heart, what it means to choose life, and what it means to place our lives (and the lives of those we love) in God’s hands.

For a number of reasons, I wrestled with how to end this novella. I really wanted to show the baby’s trajectory, because (spoiler alert) I know what an amazing young man he turns out to be. Plus, I am much more comfortable writing from a male’s POV (I have no idea why). I also wanted to connect the book to my Separate Ways series.

After three or four different attempts, I finally landed on an epilogue that I love, which takes place 19 years in the future and is told from the young man’s perspective.

My editor said she didn’t think it was a good idea: “We’ve been with Lani throughout the whole book. We want to know what happens to her.” It’s true, but I’ll be honest: I knew I needed the epilogue to come from her child’s perspective. Above all else, it would speak to the value of allowing an unwanted child a chance at life, because in the other novella I have coming out this fall (September 9^th), this same young man, Thomas Jodl, gets to play the hero’s role.

This novella is entitled Schneewittchen, and is a retelling of the Snow White story, set appropriately in Germany, where it was once recorded by the Grimm brothers. The year is 1944, and Germany is facing the knowledge that the war will eventually be lost. With that background, I’ve included many elements of the original story, along with some twists, and some good guys in the places you’d expect to find the bad ones.

I can’t wait to share both of these novellas with the world. If you’re a fan of stories about the world wars, or have always been curious about the German perspective, I invite you to pick them both up. They work in either order: if you read Schneewittchen first, you get to know Thomas Jodl as an adult. If you read Born for Adversity first, you get to know his backstory. Plus, it’s a great way to dive into my Separate Ways series, a German-perspective saga of the First and Second World Wars.

Pre-order Every Life Treasured (which includes Born for Adversity and two other novellas) now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FBLGJBMJ

Pre-order A Worthy Love (which includes Schneewittchen and three other fairy tale retellings) now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6VVP4DB

As a child, Aubrey spent countless hours creating characters and writing stories. Thirty years later, she took up her pen again, uniting her fascination for history with her passion for redemption. The stories she creates are a unique brand of gritty, honest wartime sagas, written from the German perspective. She is the mother of three, and married to her best friend Brian. When she’s not writing or taking care of home and family, she enjoys making music, reading, dancing, or spending time with friends.