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Mental Illness

American-born Frederick Smith has left everything he’s ever known to return to his German homeland. While he tries to remain uninvolved in the terror that surrounds him, his thirst for adventure and camaraderie draw him into the army of the Third Reich.

All Jakob Schmidt wants is to play music and marry his childhood sweetheart. Yet this is not the world he was born into. His cousin Friedrich arrives in 1923 and instantly becomes the paternal figure Jakob never had… until his estranged father moves back in.

Amber Prichard is thriving in her role as pastor’s wife, mom, and indispensable church volunteer—until chronic illness threatens to upend everything. Now unable to prove her value, she is forced to reevaluate how she defines herself. Inspired by an ancestor’s faded journal and heirlooms, she must work with her arch-nemesis if she wants to accomplish what is now impossible on her own.

Gunter Schrader was left behind when his brothers went to war in 1914. Two and a half years later, he makes his way to the front, though it means leaving the young woman he loves and lying to his widowed mother.

The need to fight refuses to let him go, even after the guns fall silent in 1918. Reunited with his brother Jochen and hungry to continue the struggle to secure Germany’s borders, it is only the desire for a deeper connection that threatens Gunter’s plans.

Jakob Schmidt joined the SS for the pride and prestige of the uniform. Now, all of Berlin lies before him, from career prospects to beautiful women who would like nothing more than to spend an evening in his company. Yet beneath the façade he carries moral injuries he wants no one to see.

A collection featuring seventeen short stories about broken people finding hope in the hardest times…

Zoran, a teen in foster care, has been separated from his sister and has lost all trust in people. Depression looms over his life, drawing him to give up on his childhood dream of a home.

Grief creates a chasm in Constance and Ranaan’s marriage after multiple miscarriages and the loss of their premature daughter. They question their belief in God…and each other.

Fifteen-year-old Kathie discovers she’s pregnant. Afraid, heartbroken, and abandoned by those she trusts, she realizes she has only one way to regain the love and life she has lost: end the pregnancy and pretend it never happened.

Six years ago, Hannah Leah Abelard needed a fresh start. She changed her name to Abbey Rhodes and enlisted in the United States Army as a part of the “Ever Vigilant,” 18th Military Police Brigade. They taught her how to be a great cop. Abbey moved to Tennessee three years later and joined Metro Nashville’s Police Department.

Now, in her third month with Homicide, Abbey is thrust into a case that may bring the walls she built crashing down around her, exposing a dark past she thought she’d left behind. A young pastor is found dead in the bottom of his baptistery and Abbey is forced to investigate the one place she swore never to return—the church. The case takes Abbey deeper into a tangled web of lies and secrets where the most dangerous ones may be her own.

Nashville Homicide Detective Abbey Rhodes is caught between a high-profile murder and multiple disappearances in a homeless camp. When the Mayor discovers the victim is the stepson of Jonathan Lee Thomas, a wealthy investor in the city’s East Bank Project, he forces Abbey to abandon all other cases. She faithfully follows orders until her a friend goes missing.

 

Each case triggers Abbey’s PTSD, bringing the past and its secrets crashing down around her. She stretches herself to the limit as her investigation jeopardizes the safety of her closest friends, and she must face the guilt when one of them is shot. In the end she learns every life has value.

Rock-bottom has a name for Rebecca Chastain, and it’s Dahlia, South Carolina.

Once a celebrated big-city journalist with a promising future, Rebecca now finds herself shattered—jobless, abandoned by her fiancé, and haunted by her own desperate attempt to escape it all. The small-town newspaper job in her granny’s hometown isn’t just a step down but a humiliating reminder of everything she’s tried to outrun. If not for reconnecting with her childhood friend, Josh, she’d already be gone.

Then there’s Devon—an eleven-year-old boy with eyes too old for his years, caring for his ailing Memaw while hiding stories he’s terrified to share.

Tiff Steadman has spent seven years running from the broken pieces of her past—the alcoholic parents, the convicted-felon brother, the shame of being “one of those no-good Steadmans.” Now, as editor of the Dahlia Weekly, she’s finally built the respectable life she’s always craved. With a proposal from her upstanding boyfriend Bobby, everything seems perfect.

Until her past comes knocking.

James Steadman has found God behind prison bars, but freedom feels more terrifying than his cell ever did. All he wants is a chance to reconnect with the little sister he once protected—the sister who now refuses to even acknowledge his existence. When his parole officer sends him to Dahlia, James discovers Tiff’s walls run deeper than he imagined, and starting over means confronting the wreckage they both left behind.

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  • Aubrey Taylor
  • B.D. Lawrence
  • Beth Steury
  • Brianna Lynn Campbell
  • D. T. Powell
  • Fred von Kamecke
  • Jessica Brodie
  • Lori DeJong
  • Mitchell S Karnes
  • Rebecca Reed
  • Sarah Hanks
  • Shannon McNear
  • Terri Lynn Thompson

Brave Story Topics

  • Abortion/Prolife
  • Abuse
  • Addiction and recovery
  • Church Hurt
  • Crime/Violence
  • Divorce/Remarriage
  • Grief
  • Homosexuality
  • Human Trafficking
  • Loss of A Child
  • Mental Illness
  • People of Color/minorities
  • Pre-Martial Sex/Adultery
  • Prostitution
  • Racism
  • Self-harm/suicide
  • Sexual Assault
  • The Occult/Demon Possession/Spiritual Warfare
  • Trauma
  • Getting Real with God, an excerpt
  • Writing Fiction That Addresses Homosexuality
  • The Source of Courage
  • Will You Still Trust Me?
  • Ask Me Anything

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