“My wife and I raised three sons,” he says,
“and there often seemed to be a real shortage
of good, clean, heart-pounding adventure and
suspense stories.”
He didn’t just want to give readers excitement;
he also wanted to connect with them spiritually.
“I began to write the type of stories I wanted my
sons and others to read—stories that help boys
become men of integrity, men who follow God.”
The latest volume in the series is Back Before
Dark (ZonderKidz). The friend of a boy named
Cooper is abducted; Cooper must choose how far
he is willing to go to help his friend.
“Kidnapping wasn’t the deeper issue on my heart
as I wrote,” Tim says. “It was another kind of abduction—
kids being lured away into dark things, dangerous
things: drugs, alcohol and so much more.”
He hopes Back Before Dark “will make the readers
think about how far they’d go to rescue a friend
from something or someone who will harm them.”
Shoemaker has received a lot of positive feedback
from readers about the first book, and not
just from boys. “I was really surprised by how
much girls loved the book.”
After one appearance at a
convention, a girl bought a copy
of Code of Silence and nearly finished
the book overnight. She
came back the next day and
“held out the book to show me
how close to the end she was,
and glared at me. I thought she
was upset with how things were
turning out. She shook her head
and explained that she loved
the book, and she was almost
done. She was frustrated the
sequel wasn’t available yet.”
“It’s things such as that that
really encourage,” Shoemaker
said, “and make a guy grateful
to God.”