For The Joy of Reading.

  

This blog is a long one and one that you may not agree with, which is your right but here it is.

Have you been watching Murder Before Evening Song the min TV-series based up Rev Richard Coles cosy mystery novel? It seems stories which involve Christians, churches and crime are popular. Before this there was the Grantchester, Father Brown, Cadfael and the recent film Concave.

It is not just vicar-sleuths’ people are reading regardless of their beliefs and practices. Susan Howatch, C S Lewis, and Catherine Fox,  are some Christian authors who have become well known. Their books sell well, have earned credible success and readers for the authors and publishers far beyond the small pond of Christian publishing in the UK.

Here is the rub – I have read some stonking books by Christian writers that barely mentions the ‘G’ or ‘C’ word, are not set in a church and not everyone is paid-up Christian but rarely do they adorn the shelves of Christian bookshops let alone larger bookstores.

I googled the top 10 current Christian fiction authors. Virtually all of them were from the US and Canada (Frank Peretti author of The Present Darkness.) Karen Kingsbury (family sage), Francis Rivers (romance), Terri Blackstock (suspense), Max Lucado (children). C S Lewis was about the only British author on the list and even today his classic Narnia series is categorised as children’s fiction.

So, why are the books mentioned in the first paragraph so successful despite their Christian themes, locations, and faith-based characters?  Could one answer it is because they are sold under the banner of genres other than ‘Christian Fiction’ For example, the Amazon categories for Murder Before Evening Song are 1. Gay fiction, 2. LGBTQ & Mystery Fiction & 3. LGBT & Mystery Film. Susan Howatch’s Sins of the Father are Women Literary Fiction, Contemporary Lit Fiction and Women’s Contemporary Fiction. Grantchester series – Movies Tie-in Fiction, Historical Fiction & Film, TV Tie-in.  Fox is the exception - Women Literary Fiction and Women’s Christian Fiction. In other words, they are aimed at widest market and, in some cases, the most relevant ones to the author’s profile.

But there may be another reason. When I walk into a Christian bookshop whether it is in a church, cathedral or shop, there is little in the way of fiction books other than the retailing of the Bible or children’s fiction and what adult fiction is available are predominantly overseas imports that are often overtly evangelical, or sanitised preachy stories.  If, as a Christian I am turned off by these kinds of books it is understandable that publishers are reluctant to invest in home-grown quality Christian fiction for fear of alienating their readers and marketing any book with a whiff of faith within another genre.  I suspect they also do so because they are unaware there is an alternative to imports here in the UK.

The inaugural ACW's Book of The Year candidates and winner, Ruth Leigh, demonstrate the unique selling point we have as UK authors that, in my opinion, is being woeful overlooked by publishers and book retailers – We have in the UK Christian writers who can produce fiction across the genres whether it be crime, rom-com, sci-fi, dystopian, history or others.  Books that are Christian friendly and provide a light touch faith world-view of our everyday messy-complicated lives wrapped within a cracking story 

Sheelagh is the author of In-Between Girl, a contemporary suspense novel Book 1 of The Birchwood Inheritance published by Resolute Books. You can find out more about Sheelagh here