We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all been betrayed. Some wounds are deeper than others and some take longer to heal. In Betrayal, the latest story by Robin Lee Hatcher, two people at the turn of the twentieth century must learn how to trust God in order to learn how to trust each other.
Q: WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION DRIVING THE STORY IN BETRAYAL?
There were a couple of questions I explored in this novel. First, how do we let go of the hurt we feel when those we most trust betray us? And two, how do we let go of the things in our pasts of which we are most ashamed? Few (if any) people manage to go through life without being hurt by others and without doing or saying something they later regret. But to be healthy and mature, we have to learn to forgive and to be forgiven.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES FROM THE STORY WHERE YOU DREW ELEMENTS FROM REAL LIFE?
I have written a number of novels where I could answer your question easily. Not so for Betrayal. This story is much more the result of a hundred small lessons learned in my life and shared by way of my own worldview. As a novelist, everything I read, everything I hear, everything I see, every person I meet becomes grist for the writing mill. And whatever lesson God is teaching me in the present or that He has taught me in the past will surely find its way into a work in progress at some time or other.
Q: IN YOUR NEW NOVEL, WHO IS THE CHARACTER IN THIS STORY WHO SURPRISED YOU MOST?
I can’t say Hugh “surprised” me, really, but I can say I am fond of a wounded hero. I loved watching Hugh grow into a man of integrity. I loved seeing him become a new creature in Christ, to be able to take hold of that truth and put it into practice in his world.
Q: HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH STORY TO WRITE?
Stories choose me, rather than the other way around. Novel ideas are a dime a dozen, in my opinion, and if an idea doesn’t hold my attention for long, then I let it go. How can I hope to keep a reader interested for 300+ pages if I can’t stay interested long enough to write it down? So the kind of stories I look for and wait for and long for are the ones that grab me by the throat and refuse to let go, the ones that demand to be told.
Q: WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
Coming in June of 2013 is A Bride For All Seasons, a mail-order bride novella collection that I wrote with Margaret Brownley, Debra Clopton, and Mary Connealy. Right now I am wrapping up revisions on Beloved, the sequel to Betrayal; it will release in late summer 2013. Releasing in 2014 will be a stand-alone western romance and a women’s fiction that is just beginning to come together in my mind.