I’d like you to meet my very good friend Marlo, and then to read her very good book, Beyond the Night. Marlo and I have been friends for over a decade and in that time I’ve witnessed her scale the peaks and plumb valleys of life. She’s taken every circumstance that God and life has given her and crafted something wonderful from each one. She’s also comforted others with the comfort she herself has been given. Be sure to read the fascinating story behind the story after the blurb. Then order the book. You won’t regret it.
THE BLURB:
They say love is blind.
This time they’re right…
As a woman lies unconscious in a hospital bed, her husband waits beside her, urging her to wake up and come home. Between them lies an ocean of fear and the tenuous grip of memories long past. Memories of wonder. Of love. Memories of a girl named Madison and a boy named Paul…
Madison Foster knew she was going blind. But she didn’t want pity—not from her mother, not from her roommate, and especially not from her best friend Paul—the man she secretly loved.
Paul Tilden knew a good thing when he saw it. And a good thing was his friendship with Maddie Foster. That is, until he started to fall in love.
With the music of the seventies as their soundtrack and its groovy fashions as their scenery, Maddie and Paul were drawn together and driven apart. Then one night changed everything…forever.
And only now, when life tiptoes past the edge of yesterday, along the rim of today, can they glimpse the beauty that awaits them…beyond the night.
THE BIO:
Marlo Schalesky is the award winning author of six books, including her latest novel Beyond The Night which combines a love story with a surprise ending twist to create a new type of story. She has also had over 600 articles published in various magazines, had her work included in compilations such as Dr. Dobson’s Night Light Devotional for Couples, and is a regular columnist for Power for Living. Marlo recently earned her Masters degree in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and is currently working on more “Love Stories with a Twist!” for Waterbrook-Multnomah Publishers, a division of Random House. She owns her own construction consulting firm and lives in Salinas, California with her husband and four young daughters.
A BIT ABOUT THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
When my grandfather was going blind, he took a shotgun to the backyard and ended his life. He was a good man, kind and wise. Blindness didn’t change that. It wouldn’t have changed it. But the fear of it did.
It didn’t have to be that way. Today, there are 1.3 million people in the United States alone who are legally blind. Another nearly 9 million are visually impaired. Every day in this country people find out they are going blind. Seniors, mothers, fathers, children. Last year, it was my own mother.
So, Maddie’s journey through blindness and fear grows out of my family’s experiences. It also, in a broader sense, comes out of my own. For even though blindness is a specific malady, Maddie’s condition is also a metaphor for the dark times we all face. For the difficulties that come and rattle our faith, for those times when we can’t see what’s ahead, when life is masked by shadow and doubt.
For Maddie, losing her physical sight prompted her journey through doubt and fear. For me, it was infertility and miscarriage.
If there’s one thing I know about it’s living the life God has given you when it’s not the life you dreamed. Infertility taught me how to do that. It taught me that life takes unexpected turns and dark, difficult times come. And it taught me that it’s not the darkness that will destroy you, but the fear of it.
So, in many ways Beyond the Night explores my own questions, my own doubts, my own faith journey in facing the darkness, facing fear, with hope and dignity. That’s why Beyond the Night is about overcoming the fear of the unknown , rather than letting it overcome you. It’s about finding the light, the hope, the promise that lies beyond the darkness.
And I think we could all use that, whether we’re going physically blind or not.
Find out more, enter the BEYOND THE NIGHT CONTEST, see the trailer, read a sample chapter, and more at Marlo’s website at: www.marloschalesky.com
Get It On Amazon.com >
Publisher: Waterbrook-Multnomah, a division of Random House
