Have you ever had a pair of shoes that were so perfectly worn around your feet, so completely comfortable, that you never wanted to take them off or wear another pair? New shoes can be the opposite—uncomfortable and sometimes even painful. But often they are also beautiful, and it is well worth the effort to try them on, break them in, give them time to adapt and mold to your feet.
Our comfort zone is the same. It is safe and easy to hang out with other people like us. People with the same background and life experiences. People who think the same and believe the same and act the same. People we get and who get us. But there can be great beauty in breaking away from the familiar. In attempting to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has gone through things we never have, whose background or family or life experiences have shaped them or their values or beliefs in ways that ours have not.
As an author, I have been working hard, particularly with my last few books, to pull on a new pair of shoes with each character I create. My books are largely set in Canada, so writing a book with people who all look and sound like me isn’t remotely authentic. And I want my books and stories to be authentic, to be real. I have a deep longing for every reader to be able to relate to at least one person in every book of mine, to find someone who looks like they do, or thinks the same way, or has been through what they have been through. So that every reader knows they matter. That they have value and worth. That they are seen and heard. By me. And, far more importantly, by God.
My latest release with Mountain Brook Ink, Driven, and my next one coming in September, Forged, feature one of my favourite characters—Puerto Rican-Canadian private investigator, Jax Rodriguez. And I recently contributed a story to an anthology put out by The Mosaic Collection, All Things New. The main character in that story is Laken Jones, a black, male cop who grew up in Toronto, Canada—about as far from my experiences in life as possible, other than that I also grew up in Canada and we share the same faith in God.
It’s incredibly scary to try and put myself in the shoes of someone when I can never truly understand what he or she has been through or experiences on a daily basis. But I desperately want to try.
To me, one of the primary reasons to read (or write) fiction is to increase our empathy for others, particularly those who are different from us. I hope and pray that my efforts—humble and faltering though they may be—will help increase my empathy and understanding for others, and that they will do the same for all those who honour me by reading my stories.
My wish and prayer for you is that you will join me in kicking off your comfortable shoes, tugging on a new pair, and investing the time and effort into wearing them around a little, until they, too, become as comfortable as they are beautiful.
Sara Davison is the author of four romantic suspense series—The Seven Trilogy, The Night Guardians, The Rose Tattoo Trilogy, and Two Sparrows for a Penny, as well as the standalone, The Watcher. A finalist for more than a dozen national writing awards, she is a Word, Cascade, and Carol Award winner. She currently resides in Ontario with her husband, Michael, and their three mostly grown kids. Like every good Canadian, she loves coffee, hockey, poutine, and apologizing for no particular reason. Get to know Sara better at www.saradavison.org and @sarajdavison
Children aren’t the only ones who can disappear…
Driven by ongoing grief and relentless dreams, Holden Kelly is determined to track down the child his brother Gage abducted eight years earlier. The rescue that might have saved Matthew Gibson’s life had cost Gage his. Proving his brother hadn’t sacrificed his life for nothing might be the only way Holden can start fully living his again. And it could be the last chance he has to find his way back to the wife he loves but who is also mired in grief and a crisis of faith.
Mikayla Grant has nightmares of her own. A road trip with private investigator Jax Rodriguez—a man she is strongly drawn to even though his primary goal seems to be to drive her crazy—can’t be the way to heal from a terrible loss. Can it?
As Holden, Mikayla, and Jax follow the missing child’s trail from Toronto to Chicago, their mission is not as secret as they thought. Someone knows they are coming and will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the child Gage rescued.
And to make sure that no one ever hears from the three of them again.
