Tell us about your book, Louise.
Daughter of Destiny takes place in the South Pacific Ocean. This is a very special book to me, and I hope everyone will find my characters and subject matter interesting and entertaining.
My “tagline” for the story is “Rejected by man, accepted by God.” Do you find that intriguing? Let me tell you a little more about it.
I wrote this story as an “answer” to James A. Michener’s great novel, Hawaii. As much as I enjoyed Michener’s epic tale, I was dismayed by the way he disparaged the brave missionaries who risked their lives—and often lost them—to carry the story of God’s love to the indigenous people of the Sandwich Islands and many other islands of the South Pacific. Because I personally know many missionaries and understand their kind and generous hearts, I wanted to tell a true-to-life story based on the many missionary stories I’ve read and heard. Obviously, since my setting is on an island in the middle of the ocean, and my characters must sail halfway around the world to get there, a water setting was inevitable. With a crazy problem with seasickness, I am definitely not a sailor, but oddly, I like stories set on the water.
In 1822, Jonah Adams plans to be a missionary on the island of Fénua in the South Pacific, but when the woman he loves rejects his proposal, he impulsively asks his mother’s young companion to be his bride. Leah Smith knows she is Jonah’s second choice, but she loves both him and the people of Fénua, the island where she was born to a whaler father and his loving wife who sailed with him. First separated by miscommunication and then by disaster, both Jonah and Leah seek to find God’s will for their lives in fierce, unforgiving worlds
Second choice. These words haunt Leah Smith as she agrees to marry Reverend Jonah Adams, the man she has loved since childhood, the man who first proposed to another woman. Placing God’s will above her own heart’s longing to be loved by Jonah, she accepts his businesslike proposal and sails with him to the distant South Pacific Island of her birth. Rejected. The word buffets Jonah Adams’s mind like the violent wave that surround him. Why has God rejected his well-designed plan of missionary service?
Is your appetite whetted yet? I hope you’ll visit my Amazon page where you can find Daughter of Destiny for sale for on $.99. I chose to self-publish this story because it’s a little difficult to find a publisher for a stand-alone novella. To publish this book, I had a lot of help from many people, including my beautiful granddaughter who posed as my cover model.
If you would like to purchase my novella for your Kindle or other e-book reader, please click on this hot link: Daughter of Destiny. If you would like to know more about my books, please visit my Website.
Just bought it! Three reasons: Leah Smith is the name of a lovely young woman at our church. Louise Gouge is a wonderful author, and I enjoy her books very much, and my great great grandfather was one of the first missionaries in the Tonga. Rev George Lee was also a missionary in Washington DC and took his training in London in the very early part of the 19th century. (Yes, I'm old. But in my defense, my grandfather and father waiting until later in life to have children. My grandfather was born in 1879!)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thank you, Louise! I love South Pacific stories.
Thank you, Barb! We have a lot in common. My maternal grandfather was born in 1850, and my grandmother in 1875. Also, my daughter served as a missionary in Zaire in 1991. I wrote about her adventures there in a fictionalized story, Escape from Kikwit.
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