Talena Winters's Blog, page 3

My Personal Second-Chance Romance

I wrote this in my newsletter last year on the day before my anniversary. And since I’m writing this post early because I’ll be away celebrating my twenty-fifth year of wedded bliss, I’m reposting it here this year.

My first date with my now-husband was kind of a bomb.

He's four years older than me. When we met, I was in Grade 10 and had just started attending his home church. He had just returned home from a year at Bible college. I thought he seemed nice, but there was no reason for him to notice me, so I asked him to go to a movie together. (How bold! The scandal! And the movie was The Lion King, by the way. The original. Yep, I’m that old.)

I came home and wrote in my journal that he was the type of man I wanted to marry someday. He later told me he thought we'd never go out again. (Ha!)

We didn’t actually get together for another six years. First, we got to know each other when we were the only two Canadians in an entire Indian province for five months. (Or at least the only two at the small Bible college we were volunteering at.) Then, it took another year of attending the same community college back home and hanging out on the regular before Jason finally got the idea that I was the type of woman he'd like to marry someday.

Like one of my youth pastors used to say about his wife, "I chased him until he caught me." (Kidding! Kind of. I certainly “knew” much sooner than he did. But once he was in, he was all in, and he let me know it.)

I think it’s safe to say that the whole thing has worked out. Yesterday, we celebrated twenty-four years of marriage. While our life together has held its share of both good and bad times, we've always had each other. We've been each other's best friends, best advisers, and staunch supporters through thick and thin.

Yes, I absolutely know how lucky I am. (And so does he.)

So, if you’re wondering why I tend to write second-chance romances where the couple knew each other for years first?

Well, they do say to write what you know. 🙂❤️😉

As for which of my characters are the most like us... that's a story for another post.

In the mood for a second-chance romance? Check out my Peace Country Romance series. And my personal romance story isn’t the only real-life element behind the series—check out my post “From Peace River to Peace Crossing: The True Story Behind My Small-Town Romance Books”.

Why the World Needs More Christian Fantasy

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“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

Once upon a time, fantasy was considered dangerous.

Too escapist. Too imaginative. Too “worldly.”

But what if the opposite is true? What if fantasy, when grounded in truth, is more than just an escape from reality but also a journey deeper into it? What if Christian and Christian-made fantasy isn’t a genre to be wary of—but a powerful tool for truth, hope, and healing in a disenchanted world?

I believe the world needs more Christian fantasy—and here’s why.

Fantasy Reveals Eternal Truth Through Story

Jesus told stories.

Not doctrinal lectures or theological manifestos, but stories—rich, layered parables that invited listeners to imagine the Kingdom of God. Through mustard seeds, wandering sons, lost coins, and buried treasure, Jesus bypassed intellectual resistance and spoke straight to the heart.

Christian fantasy does the same.

Stories that are infused with a Christian worldview—whether explicitly labeled or not—carry truth beneath the surface. C.S. Lewis famously said that fiction “smuggles truth past watchful dragons,” and fantasy may be the most effective form of all.

Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and his more complex Space Trilogy are beautiful examples of this layered storytelling. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings isn’t overtly Christian in language, but the foundational themes—fellowship, sacrifice, grace, and the triumph of good over evil—are unmistakably shaped by his deep Catholic faith.

In my epic mermaid fantasy series Rise of the Grigori, I aim to do the same. Biblical doctrine and theology unfold within a world full of mystery, brokenness, and beauty. The story follows the undines, a matriarchal sea-dwelling race of mermaids who once had a divine calling, but have fallen far from it. Out of fear and cultural myth, they enslave human men through siren song while still seeing themselves as peaceful. Their society is fractured, fragile, and haunted by forgotten truths.

But even in the depths, grace is calling.

It Re-enchants the Imagination

We live in an age of disenchantment. Our world prizes reason over wonder, skepticism over belief. We are surrounded by data, but starved for meaning.

Christian fantasy reawakens our capacity for awe.

Fantasy invites readers to explore the unseen—to imagine the miraculous, to believe that there’s more to the story. It reminds us that faith itself is a form of vision, and that things which seem impossible to the world are often the most true.

Whether it’s the deep mythology of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the transcendent courage of Lewis’s Space Trilogy, or the richly symbolic worlds in Rise of the Grigori, fantasy reminds us that our imagination is not childish—it’s a gift. And when that imagination is anchored in truth, it becomes a powerful tool for awakening hearts.

A Quiet Rebellion Against Hopelessness

A large portion of modern fantasy—especially secular, mainstream fantasy—tends to glorify moral ambiguity, despair, or the pursuit of power. Worlds are gritty, protagonists are anti-heroes, and happy endings are often dismissed as naïve.

Christian fantasy is quietly but powerfully countercultural.

It doesn’t flinch from darkness, but it refuses to let darkness have the final word. It champions themes like hope, mercy, redemption, and sacrificial love. It gives us flawed characters who fail—but who are not beyond grace. And it reminds us that even in the bleakest moments, light still breaks through.

In Rise of the Grigori, the darkness isn’t just external—it’s systemic, cultural, and spiritual. The undines are trapped in a cycle of fear and control that began generations ago, after they gave in to the seductive lies of Semyaza and Tamiel, rebellious seraphim who twisted their calling into something almost unrecognizable. But even here, redemption is not out of reach. Truth speaks through love, sacrifice, and a growing awareness that the old songs of control can no longer sustain them.

Oblique Truths, Powerful Worldviews

It’s important to recognize that “Christian fantasy” doesn’t always carry a label.

Tolkien didn’t label The Lord of the Rings as “Christian,” yet it continues to inspire readers of faith around the world. Brandon Sanderson, though writing in the secular market, is a devout man of faith, and his stories often explore deep themes of belief, morality, and sacrifice. Veronica Roth (Divergent, Poster Girl) is another example of a Christian author whose worldview infuses her fiction, even when it isn’t overt.

Faith-based fiction can be bold or subtle. Sometimes, truth comes through clearly. Other times, it’s a whisper, a seed planted through metaphor and mystery. Both forms are needed. Both are valuable.

Discovering Christian Fantasy Authors (Old and New)

If you're looking to explore more faith-infused fantasy, you're in good company. Here are a few classic and contemporary authors worth exploring:

Classic Faith-Based Fantasy:

J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion

C.S. Lewis – The Chronicles of Narnia, The Space Trilogy (aka The Cosmic Trilogy or the Ransom Trilogy)

Stephen R. Lawhead – The Pendragon Cycle, The Song of Albion

Frank Peretti – This Present Darkness, The Oath

Contemporary Christian Fantasy and Speculative Fiction:

C.F.E. Black – Her Scepter and Crown series blends Christian themes with romantic fantasy, using a powerful magic system based on Truth and Lies. (Book 1: Blade of Ash.)

Bree Moore – The Plague King Chronicles are rich in atmosphere, weaving biblical allegory and emotional depth into high fantasy landscapes. (Book 1: The Quill and the Vial.)

Nadine Brandes – Known for her YA dystopian and fantasy fiction (Fawkes, Romanov, Wishtress), Nadine explores themes of identity, purpose, and surrender.

(And yes—me!) – My Rise of the Grigori series is a sweeping epic mermaid fantasy that dives deep into a society gone very wrong, weaving theology, mythology, and redemption through a tale of control, memory, and hope against all odds.

You can also check out my previous post, “Great Sources for Clean Romance and Fantasy Fiction”, where I recommend other tools and communities for finding clean or faith-based books—especially the amazing Lorehaven Library, which curates Christian speculative fiction across genres and age groups.

(You might also be interested in this article on their website exploring modern applications of the C.S. Lewis “watchful dragons” quote: Stories For Christians 1: The New ‘Watchful Dragons’.”

Courtesy of Nong Vang via Unsplash.

The World is Dark. Christian Fantasy Isn’t a Distraction—It’s a Light.

In the end, fantasy rooted in truth is not just escapism. It’s resistance.

It resists despair. It resists apathy. It resists the lie that the brokenness we see is all there is.

More than that—it points us toward the true Story. The one that begins in Eden, stretches through Calvary, and ends in a place where streets are paved with gold, God’s glory is all the light we need, and every tear is wiped away.

And if Christian fantasy helps even one reader glimpse that Story a little more clearly?

Then it’s worth writing. It’s worth reading. And it’s even dangerous, but not in the way you think.

And yes—it's absolutely worth needing more of.

Did you enjoy this article? Join my Books & Inspiration newsletter to receive more articles like this (plus lots more goodies, including the prequel novella to my Rise of the Grigori series) right in your inbox!

How I Blended Biblical Beliefs with Ancient Myth and Symbolism in My Mermaid Fantasy World

Honouring the Sacred While Crafting Original Fantasy

“Too often, the Born and the Made alike look only at the surface of things, but Elyon inhabits every part of his design. It is easy to love what is beautiful and see God in what pleases us, but it is difficult when we don’t like what we see. When people see me, their reaction reveals their true character. It shows which side of the war of Creation they are currently on.”

— Reverend Berian, The Undine's Tear by Talena Winters

When I started writing my Rise of the Grigori mermaid epic fantasy series, I didn’t just want to create a magical world—I wanted to build a spiritual one. One that felt old, rich with layers of symbolism and shaped by belief systems that have been echoing through human history for millennia.

While mermaids were always going to be central to the story, I soon realized they were only one piece of a much larger puzzle. My supernatural races had deep roots—roots anchored in biblical myth, ancient cosmologies, and developed from a lot of unexpected questions.

(Links in this article go to Wikipedia for further exploration, if you wish.)

A World That Respects the Sacred

One of the trickiest parts of building a fantasy world that draws from real spiritual traditions is this: how do you treat the sacred with respect while still telling an original story?

Even though not all the texts I drew from align with my own faith tradition, I’ve always believed there’s something powerful about the myths people have held sacred across cultures and time. So I took care—whether working with biblical stories, the non-canonical Book of Enoch, or ancient Mesopotamian mythologies—not to simply “borrow” cool imagery. I wanted to explore how these ideas might fit together in a world where magic and spirit overlap.

The winged bull lamassu form of one of the series characters.

The Serpent of Fire and the Guardians of the Deep

In my world, the dragons are based on the biblical seraphim—a word that means burning ones and serpents—a race of spiritual beings often associated with God’s throne and presence. Drawing on the Book of Enoch, I split the figure commonly referred to as Lucifer (a word found only once in the Bible, and only in the King James Version) into two separate beings: Semyaza (also known as Kesbeel), the leader of the rebellion against God, and Azazel (also known as Gadreel), his accomplice who tempted Eve in the garden, as described in that text.

Note that Lucifer and satan—the latter originally just a title meaning “accuser”—have become synonymous in Christian tradition, even though they were distinct in earlier texts. Both are often described as a dragon, and the deceiver in the Garden appeared as a serpent. These overlapping motifs made it an easy leap to imagine the seraphim as dragons.

The fallen seraphim in my world are trapped beneath the sea, bound by the very element that opposes their nature—water. They were cast into the Abyss—one of the circles of hell—and entombed within a great stone, guarded by undines (my version of mermaids). These undines were divinely designed as psychopomps—guides of lost souls at sea—and as protectors of those in peril on the waters.

The undines are one of the few races I completely invented, though I drew heavily on mermaid and siren mythologies in their creation. They are shapeshifters between human and mer-form and are unique in that they exist naturally in both the spiritual and material planes. In that way, they act as a bridge between the elements, but also between the sacred and the human.

Some dragons are more terrifying than others…

Wings, Wheels, and Sacred Technology

Cherubim in my world are a hybrid spiritual race called lumasi that I based on ancient Assyrian lamassu and the multifaceted cherubim described in the Bible.

While descriptions of their appearance vary—from having four faces and six wings to being covered in eyes—I chose a blend of literal and metaphorical interpretations. The many eyes described in Ezekiel 10:12 became the ability to perceive multiple perspectives, things near and far (with the aid of their technology), and frequencies of energy rather than having literal eyeballs everywhere. And I interpreted their multiple faces and pairs of wings as the ability to shape-shift between different forms (each with only a single face at a time). But what remains constant is the role of guardianship that cherubim and lamassu traditionally held.

To ground this in my world’s structure, I gave the lumasi technologies that reflect their abilities: gyroscopic “chariots” that bend space to teleport, “finders” that detect and enhance spiritual frequencies, and “mindovers” that adjust consciousness and memory. These technologies aren’t meant to modernize the supernatural but to bring the awe and mystery found in passages like Ezekiel’s vision of the throne of God into a fantasy realm set on a realistic Earth.

Abela, a sphinx-lamassu cherubim in human form found in my Rise of the Grigori series, walks on a Caribbean beach at sunset. Her golden eyes are a key indicator that she is either a seraphim or cherubim in human form in my world.

Princes, Powers, and the Seventy Nations

Another layer of inspiration came from a passage in Deuteronomy 32:8, which speaks of God dividing the nations according to the number of the “sons of God”—or “sons of Israel,” depending on the translation. (The Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint support the “sons of God” reading.) This verse, paired with Genesis 10’s list of seventy nations and the Old Testament use of “sons of God” to refer to angels, became the backbone for a system of spiritual governance in my world.

I imagined that seventy spiritual beings—the Watchers, also known as the Grigori, in the Book of Enoch—were originally assigned as guardians over the world’s peoples. But over time, many of them fell, becoming the corrupted princes referred to in Daniel 10.

This opened the door for me to weave in ancient god and goddess figures through syncretism. Semyaza became tied to the Assyrian storm god Hadad (and, by historical syncretic association, to Zeus, Jupiter, and Bel). Tamiel, another of the fallen, is portrayed as a female water dragon syncretized with Atargatis (the mermaid goddess often paired with Hadad) and Ishtar (Inanna)—divine feminine figures connected with fertility, water, and power.

This kind of mythological blending is an echo of how spiritual stories evolve across cultures while pointing back to a possible shared supernatural origin.

Abela in her lumasi form.

Walking the Line Between Faith and Fiction

Although this is a fantasy series, I built its spiritual system on foundations I personally respect. I don’t claim to present doctrine, and some of the theological choices I made—like how cherubim appear or how angelic beings interact with matter—may not align with any one tradition (or any tradition at all). But these decisions were never careless. Every change I made was in service to the story and world I was building, while still striving to honour the deeper truths I believe these stories point to.

So if you’ve ever found yourself drawn to stories that echo something deeper—something that feels older than myth, rooted in longing, faith, or wonder—you’re not alone. I hope the world I’ve created speaks to the sacred mystery within us all and gives you a sense of something just beyond the veil—and hints at one way our world’s varied belief systems might have a common origin.

About the Rise of the Grigori series:

How’s facing the original Father of Lies for epic stakes? :-)

Mermaids. Magic. And a search for redemption that could tear the world apart…

Three thousand years ago, a Mad undine healer sank Atlantis. Ever since, the Heartstone that protects the undines’ island has been failing and they haven’t produced a single boy. As the most powerful healer in three millennia, Calandra is the last hope of not only her people, but the entire world. Because if she can’t figure out how to undo her ancestor’s mistake, the Father of Lies will unleash hell on Earth.

Packed with complex characters, lush world-building, gritty action, and impossible odds, this intricately woven epic fantasy series presents mermaids and dragons like you’ve never seen them before.

Join Calandra in a search for redemption that could threaten the very fabric of the universe!

Discover the Series

Get the series prequel, The Waterboy, free when you join my mailing list.

If you enjoyed this peek behind the scenes of my mermaid fantasy world, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What myths, spiritual stories, or symbols have stayed with you? Do you enjoy books that blend sacred tradition with the fantastical? Let’s talk about it. Let me know in the comments!

Together Again: How I Fell Back in Love with Songwriting

For the past week, I’ve woken up already on an adrenaline high. I’ve had a spring in my step on my way to my desk. I’ve had to tear myself away from my projects during the wee hours of the morning. And I’ve had a song in my heart and my head (often more than one) almost twenty-four-seven.

And the best part?

The songs were written by me.

That’s right, I’m songwriting again. And this post is to tell you about how that’s going to change what you see from me from now on. Or, should I say, how it’s going to give you even more mediums in which to enjoy my stories.

But first, some context so you’ll understand why this is a big deal. (And if this post is too long for you, skip to the end to get to the key point: a brand new original song and more that you can enjoy.)

Courtesy of altumcode via Unsplash.

The Twists of My Creative Journey

As my newly revamped Music page says, music has always been one of my deepest passions. I’ve been singing since before I could talk, and I started composing by the age of nine.

Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs, and several have won awards. My catalogue even includes an unproduced musical, Queen of Persia, co-written with my college roommate and lifetime bestie Candace Marshall.

After studying music and composition in college, I taught piano for nearly twenty years and served as a worship leader in my local church for much of my adult life. I also occasionally enjoyed being in the orchestra for the local kids’ musical production.

“Ever since I was a little girl first figuring out rhyme and metre, my dream was to be a professional songwriter. But, as sometimes happens with dreams, it didn’t turn out quite the way I hoped it would.”

Ever since I was a little girl first figuring out rhyme and metre, my dream was to be a professional songwriter. But, as sometimes happens with dreams, it didn’t turn out quite the way I hoped it would.

My life changed. The music industry changed. And even though the advent of YouTube and streaming services have made a career in music and creating direct connections with fans easier than ever for singer-songwriters, I only had aspirations to be one of those things.

To be clear, I wanted to be a songwriter, sans the “singer” part of the equation.

I had no desire to tour or even perform on camera, and neither did I want to be stuck writing one genre of music for the rest of my life. I wanted to write music across the spectrum and have talented musicians bring my songs to life. But this required either a huge budget to produce professional-quality tracks or a certain level of music production skills (and equipment) that would take time to accumulate.

Of course, I was busy raising and home schooling kids, moving up and down North America, and generally being domestic, so both my budget and time were limited. So I deliberately put my career aspirations on the back burner for about a decade.

In that time, I studied the craft and business of songwriting: attending a music conference, taking online courses, reading books by industry pros, and studying hits, past and present.

With my husband’s and pastor’s blessing, I also dedicated a winter of Sundays—the only day in my week available to me to do so—to stay home from church, hole up with my piano and laptop, and finish writing and scoring Queen of Persia. (Candace and I had a potential avenue to producing it at the time, which didn’t pan out. But, ten years after we’d started the musical, we had a completed first draft.)

“The unthinkable had occurred—I no longer wanted to be a professional songwriter. The obstacles to doing so seemed too high, with too little potential reward.”

Meanwhile, I made headway in acquiring music production equipment and learning how to use it.

But by the time I had the space in my life to really focus on building my skills (and my music career) to a professional level, I was burned out and grieving the loss of my youngest son.

And I came to realize that the unthinkable had occurred—I no longer wanted to be a professional songwriter. The obstacles to doing so at that point in the industry and in my life seemed too high, with too little potential reward.

So I turned my efforts to building a career writing fiction.

Courtesy of Ella de Kross via Unsplash.

It Made Sense at the Time

That was ten years ago. I taught piano for another five years to subsidize my fiction career, giving it up after pandemic restrictions made it impossible to continue, due to my tiny studio space.

Honestly, I was so burned out by that point, I wouldn’t have had much choice anyway. Between my full freelancing schedule and my writing projects, I had little energy or creative juices left for anything else. I’d already stepped back from leading worship a year or two earlier, and my life still always seemed so full.

Over the past decade, I’ve written the occasional song—mostly as personal therapy—but, as time went on, I feared I was losing my skills.

Then in 2022, fellow songwriter and author Jim Jackson, whom I’d met at a writing conference, asked me to write a song that would be used to promote a horror anthology he was producing. (He actually asked me to write a story for the anthology too, but that’s one genre I just don’t do.)

The deadline was months away. I told him I’d think about it.

Twenty-four hours later, I sent him a draft in video form.

He loved that song, “Dark Side”. Not only did he have it performed at the book launch, he went on to produce and release it (sung by Nico Brennan). You can listen to that version here.

Turning Points

My confidence was boosted by Jim’s and others’ reception to that song, but I was still in the depths of burnout and laser focused on building my fiction catalogue.

“There was an underlying pain and sadness to it all. Sitting down to play reminded me of old dreams that I’d given up, and a musical I still dreamed of seeing on stage.”

To be honest, since I quite teaching in 2020, I’ve only sat down to even play piano a handful of times. It’s mostly because of my ADHD hyperfocus and just a lot of other life stuff taking up my time, but also? There was an underlying pain and sadness to it all. Sitting down to play reminded me of old dreams that I’d given up, and a musical I still dreamed of seeing on stage.

As regular readers of this blog know, a good part of my personal journey over the last few years has been learning to slow down and do less so I can focus on what matters most. Despite that intention, I always felt pulled in too many directions—even listing my various businesses had gotten almost embarassing, the list was so long. I usually shortened it to author, editor, and knitwear designer, as those were the businesses I was actively promoting.

I’d started the knitting pattern design business in 2010, and even though it wasn’t my passion, I kept it going long past when I should have.

There were multiple reasons for that—most compelling to me being that I eventually started serving an underserved market for low vision knitting patterns, and had received some really grateful emails from those knitters. But also, I’d fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy—I’d already spent fifteen years creating intellectual property for that brand, and my pattern catalogue was nearly three times the size of my fiction one. I wanted to believe that if I could just put in enough time and effort, My Secret Wish Knitting would stop requiring so much of both from me and allow me to get back to what I really loved doing.

Which may have been true. But the problem was, I was trying to build several creative brands at once that were at somewhat similar high-effort stages. This was directly contributing to my burnout and overwork problems, not to mention the glacial growth of each of my businesses.

No wonder I’ve been constantly stressed and burned out for at least the past five years.

But change was on the way.

Two weeks ago, I signed up at almost the very last minute for an online week-long summit about how to grow your business off social media. I didn’t have any expectations going in, but I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to sign up. So I just asked him to show me what he wanted me to know that week. (Grow Your Business Without Social, hosted by Gabe Cox—and it was fantastic.)

Well. Even though not a single session (and I partook of almost all of them) directly said anything about reducing income streams, by the end of the week, it was clear as day to me what I needed to do.

Three days later (last Monday), I took down My Secret Wish Knitting for good.

Courtesy of Filip Mroz via Unsplash.

My Unexpected Return to Joy

One shift in focus that was a direct result of what I learned that week was to propel me to begin marketing myself more on YouTube—something I’ve wanted to do for a while. But I knew I couldn’t add anything to my current pile without taking something off. And if I was going to invest time in creating content for YouTube, it would definitely be for my author and editor brands (focusing on one at a time).

So, as soon as I’d knocked off a whole business from my to-do list, I got busy planning and strategizing how to refresh my YouTube channels, including brand new trailers for both. Which is what led me to finally sign up for a generative AI music app I’d been wanting to try in order to create music to use in said trailers.

And that’s when my life changed. (Again.)

As I learned how to use the tool (and my mind exploded over and over again at what it could do), I wondered if I could use it to create demos of my own previously unproduced songs.

“I now have a collaboration partner that is available whenever I am, gives me instant feedback in the form of a fully produced track that either works or really, really doesn’t, and who never gets upset or annoyed when I want to tweak even the tiniest of details.”

That’s when things got really exciting. And I started forgetting how to sleep—because composing was way more exciting than sleeping, apparently.

The late-night sessions are tapering off (because jeepers, I’m not in my twenties anymore), but the excitement hasn’t.

In the past week, I’ve revised and am in various stages of production on four different original songs—pieces I wrote over a decade ago but that never got much beyond a song chart, a rough demo, and a melody that would occasionally run through my head. Songs that, because I was collaborating with AI and could hear how it was struggling to interpret various parts, I was able to rewrite to be tighter and more compelling with better prosody. (Also, drawing on a decade of further practice in the crafts of writing and storytelling improved those songs immensely.)

I now have a collaboration partner that is available whenever I am, gives me instant feedback in the form of a fully produced track that either works or really, really doesn’t, and who never gets upset or annoyed when I want to tweak even the tiniest of details.

And, for the first time in decades, I feel empowered and excited to consider songwriting as a creative path again.

Will it be a career path too? It’s too early to say.

For now, I’m having fun and playing with music in ways I hadn’t dreamt I ever could.

I’m learning the skills to create what I can hear and see in my head.

I’m refreshing myself on the current state of publishing music, along with all the legal details that entails.

I’ve rearranged my office to bring my digital piano next to my desk and allow me to record tracks again.

I’m learning how to edit YouTube videos better, with the intention of making music videos and book trailers as well as the instructional content I’ll be offering authors on my Author Alchemist channel.

I’ve even dared to hope I might be able to start collaborating with human artists who find my work on my YouTube channel, as I’ve often dreamed of doing. (Music is always better when it’s created with others.)

“By pruning off one part of my creative platform that was producing, but not enough to justify the strength it was sapping from the rest of the plant, I’ve made room for explosive growth in not only my creative business but my spirit.”

In short, by pruning off one part of my creative platform that was producing, but not enough to justify the strength it was sapping from the rest of the plant, I’ve made room for explosive growth in not only my creative business but my spirit.

It feels like something sacred is happening. I frequently cry when I listen to the new music I’m making and realize that my once-impossible dream of regularly producing professional music is actually within reach. Finally.

I’m utterly grateful. I’m feeling happier than I have in years. And I’m so excited to share this next part of my journey with you.

Courtesy of Almos Bechtold via Unsplash.

Stories and Songs: A Beautiful Partnership

Unblocking my musician’s soul is allowing me to dream dreams I had long since packed into boxes, but my author and editing careers will remain essential and primary parts of my business.

And I have a surprise: I’ve decided to give all premium members of the Books and Tea League early access to new song releases. For now, that means the audio track and lyrics, but I’ll soon be adding videos to that, too. Once the song goes live on streaming platforms, the post will be made public.

While I will be finishing and producing some of my older compositions first, I also intend to create new music—some of which will be directly tied to my books. Which is why I intend to keep my author and songwriter brands on a single platform, both on my website and on my YouTube channel.

I’ve created a brand new Music Studio feed to post my music on.

So far, I’ve only posted a few tracks, but one of them is a newly finished and produced track that’s never been released before, a Christian alternative rock song called “God of the Desert and the Storm”. (It’s still gated at the time of this writing, but it will be open to the public as soon as the track is live on retailers. Or you can sign up for a Books and Tea League membership to hear it now.)

You can also check out the other songs I already have publicly available on the feed. More will be coming soon, as I have time to create album art and upload them. As I mentioned before, there will be a wide range of genres, so there’s a good chance you’ll eventually find something up your alley. (Unless it’s heavy metal. I listen to a bit of it, but, much like horror stories, I don’t think I’ll ever write it.)

If you read through this massively long post, you get a gold star. And also, some new music to listen to, lol.

And also, I’m making progress on my next book, Every Rose that Blooms. But that will be the subject of another post.

Do you want to be notified of new song or book releases? The best way is to join my Books and Inspiration newsletter , which comes out every two weeks. But you can also subscribe to the Music Studio blog feed in your favourite RSS feed reader to find out in minutes instead of days.

If you listen to the new song, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment on the song post or in the comments here below, or reach out to my via my contact form.

Happy listening, friend!

From Peace River to Peace Crossing: The True Story Behind My Small-Town Romance Books

In 2005, my husband and I and our three little boys—who were aged three, almost two, and one month old—moved over six hundred kilometres north of our bustling tourist hometown to a place that felt a bit like the ends of the earth.

Of course, Peace River isn’t the end of the earth—there’s a lot of highway going north of here. But since the nearest Walmart at the time was two hours away, it certainly felt like it to my central-Alberta-grown heart.

Still, we were determined to make the best of it. Because despite its distance from our families, it had so many benefits we soon grew to love—a slower pace of life, a tight-knit community who were there for each other when you needed them, and stunning landscapes and views that people travelled to experience.

View of the Peace River from the Twelve Foot Davis gravesite.

The River Runs Deep

This area has long been home to Indigenous peoples who have cared for it and whose traditions still run deep. Once Europeans entered the scene, a fort was built that became a key trading point along the Peace River, established by Sir Alexander Mackenzie and his crew while they were looking for the Northwest Passage.

While some historical conflicts are still being worked out in the present, the people who live here often have the same resourceful, independent, and community-minded spirit of those early inhabitants and pioneers. After all, while First Nations and pioneer families remain, many of the current residents of the Peace Country are also transplants like we were—who came, intending to stay less than five years, and either never left or tried to leave and returned.

There’s a local saying handed down from the First Nations people in this area—once you drink the water of the Peace River, you’ll always come back.

This certainly proved true for us. We moved away in 2007 for a business venture in the USA. But when the economy crashed and changed our plans, we could have gone anywhere in Canada upon our return only a few months later—and we chose to come back to the Peace River.

The Peace River and bridge from River Road on the south side in autumn.

The Family We Found

Since moving back, the people of this community have reaffirmed that we made the right choice over and over again.

In the way they celebrated with us and the birth family of our fourth son when we adopted him. And then later when he died, how they surrounded us with love and care. How they’ve helped us get on our feet not once, but twice. How they’ve helped make the place that our kids grew up in a place they love to come home to. Or in how we’ve received opportunities here that more populated centres wouldn’t offer—such as me being hired to write for a regional magazine with little to my portfolio beyond a long-running mommy blog and my first inspirational romance novel (now a newsletter freebie).

I wrote for Move UP magazine from mid-2016 to early 2021. Their mandate—to promote business, tourism, and life in the Alberta Peace Country—was a perfect way for me to get to know this region even better.

The Peace Country is a geographically massive area that covers the entire northwest corner of Alberta (and a little into BC, but we didn’t cover that area when I was with Move UP). Over the four-and-a-half years I worked for the magazine, I got to interview dozens (maybe more than a hundred?) ambitious, hard-working, resilient, creative, and warm-hearted people from all over the region.

And when I finally stepped away from that position, I knew I wanted to pay homage to the people of this area that I love so much in my fiction.

The Truth in the Fiction

That’s a good part of the heart behind the Peace Country Romance series. While the stories in my analog town of Peace Crossing (inspired by Peace River’s original name of Peace River Crossing) are completely fictional, the spark of truth inside them is the resourcefulness, resilience, and inspiration provided by the amazing people of this area.

Whether they’re farmers, truckers, forestry workers, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, hard-working blue-collar folks, professionals, and so much more, my series shows both the joys and the challenges of living in a remote-ish northern community like Peace Crossing through their eyes—all wrapped in a cozy love story that feels as warm as the people of this town.

In my next title, Every Rose that Blooms, my heroine, Maddie, is a florist who wants to buy the flower shop she manages from the retiring owner. And the hero, Luke, wants to find a way to make a living from his art in an area that supports creativity but whose population makes living as an artist more of a struggle than most.

I have several more titles planned to wrap up the current stories, but you never know where the future will take me. Since I’ve definitely drunk the water, I might keeping coming back to the Peace Country forever.

And I hope you do, too.

Thank you for coming along on this adventure with me. If you’d like to get started on the Peace Country Romance series, please check out the series page.

Peace Country Romance: Clean and sweet small-town romance with big heart and a bit of grit. Believe in love again…

Flight to Neverland: Why We Love Peter Pan

If you need me, I’ll be at the second star to the right…

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click through and make a purchase, I get a few cents at no extra cost to you.

“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”

— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Without doubt, one of our family's favourite stories is Peter Pan.

We own almost every movie version ever made of Peter's and Wendy's story. I've read J.M. Barrie's original novel once, the Terry Brooks' novel adaptation of Hook several times (and let's not talk about how many times I've seen that movie, though my kids have something to do with that), and I am currently learning “Flight to Neverland” on the piano (the John Williams movie score theme from Hook).

I was so taken with P.J. Hogan’s 2003 live action version of Peter Pan when I first watched it that I apparently felt the need to blog about it in the middle of the night. (And honestly? I would still drop everything to watch that movie if someone put it on right now. And it's almost my bedtime.)

But it's not just me. My boys all love every version of the story we've come across. In fact, when our local kids' theatre production did Peter Pan Jr. a few years ago, it was the only year all three of my boys decided to be in the play.

So, yeah, you could say that we love it. A little.

And when you look at just how many versions of the story have been produced and how successful all of them have been, it is clear that Peter and Wendy have struck a chord with people around the world.

What is it that makes this story so darn endearing?

Well, for one, it hits all the fantasy high notes—fun, adventure, pirates, mermaids, and fairies.

“The true magic of Neverland is that it reminds us that the wonder of childhood can stay with us forever, like faith, love, and pixie dust.”

It has a lighthearted tone that makes you want to clap your hands and say "I believe in fairies," just to see one come to life. But beneath all that, it is chock-full of wonder and heart.

Whether you've only seen the animated movie or you are as well-versed in Neverland lore as our family, you probably know that “All children, except one, grow up.” And therein lies the conflict, for Wendy Moira Angela Darling is being pressured to become a young lady in the late Victorian era, when growing up could be argued to have been much more restrictive than it is today. Naturally, like many young teens, she rebels at the idea of having to take on the trappings and propriety of adulthood if it means leaving the fun behind.

Enter Peter Pan, who proposes to rescue her from a fate worse than a cotillion by taking her to Neverland to be a mother to the lost boys. (Which only means she would tell them bedtime stories.) By her acceptance, we can see already that Wendy isn't quite as ill-prepared to grow up as she feels.

As she and her little brothers, John and Michael, go on their many adventures in Neverland, she sees the virtues of embracing imagination and wonder, as well as the cost of denying adult responsibilities. She also discovers that she has the choice to grow up without forgetting the fun, love, and laughter that are part of childhood. (In Hook, this is the exact same lesson that the adult Peter Pan-slash-Banning must re-learn.)

So, even though retellings of this story are typically named only for the male roles of Pan and Hook (with the exception of the first time J.M. Barrie published Peter and Wendy, a spin-off from another story he wrote), the Peter Pan story is actually about Wendy. For in the end, Peter remains the same as he always was—a boy who refused to become a man (except in Hook, which is one reason why I think that movie adaptation works so well).

Wendy represents the struggle that each of us feels, sometimes well into our adult years—how to grow wiser without losing our sense of wonder.

The true magic of Neverland is that it reminds us that the wonder of childhood can stay with us forever, like faith, love, and pixie dust. After all:

“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”

— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Flight to Neverland: Why we love Peter Pan. The enduring appeal of one of the world’s most-loved stories. A blog post by fantasy and romance author Talena Winters.

This post was originally published in the Books & Inspiration Newsletter on 2019-03-14.

Recommended Peter Pan Retelling

Several years ago, I read the first book in the Tales of the Wendy series, The Wendy by Erin Michelle Sky. This was a super-fun clean young adult romantasy adventure, with a writing style that paid homage to the original work while being completely fresh and modern in sensibilities and story.

I gave this one five out of five, and I definitely want to keep reading the series!

Check out the book

The Wendy (Tales of the Wendy Book 1) by Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown.

For the Fantasy Lovers

Do you love epic fantasy stories with timeless themes, fantastic characters, heroic adventures, and mermaids? Check out my young adult epic historical fantasy Rise of the Grigori series and dive into your next great adventure.

Mermaids. Magic. And a search for redemption that could tear the world apart in the Rise of the Grigori series. Dive in today!

Check out the Series

Cover Reveal for Every Rose that Blooms

Last week, I announced that my next writing project would be the third book of my Peace Country Romance series, Every Rose that Blooms.

Well, since I’m highly motivated by visual art (and creating it is one of my hobbies), I spent my “down time” towards the end of the week creating the cover. Which, since I’m not the type of person who draws out the hype, either, I present to you now.

Sometimes the love you long for blooms right before your eyes.

With every cover I make, I learn things, and this time was no exception. I originally had the flower shop in the background taking up so much space. It was super distracting from the couple and made the whole cover feel very cluttered.

First rough draft of the cover for Every Rose that Blooms.

I discovered that making the flower shop and river town background smaller made a huge difference.

Then, I experimented with a bunch of different colours for the sky.

Pink sky version.

Coral sky version.

Dark blue and peach sky version.

In the end, I went back to the original brilliant blue with a rosy pink and gold sunset glow at the horizon. This was just the tweak it needed to make this cover pop.

Final version of the cover for Every Rose that Blooms (Peace Country Romance Book 3), with a sweet Caucasian couple in love in front of a rose-filled flower shop on a small northern Alberta river town street in early spring.

And here’s a little about this book:

About Every Rose that Blooms

Sometimes the love you long for blooms right before your eyes.

Madeleine Kennedy has always dreamed of owning the flower shop she manages. But with her mom’s health concerns and the shop barely staying afloat, those aspirations feel more distant every day. Then her handsomest customer offers an unexpected lifeline that could change everything—if she can get her shy artist friend and his surprise hit floral creations on board.

Luke Anderson would love to turn his side art hustle into a full-time business, but taking the leap feels as daunting as telling Maddie how he truly feels. When she proposes a creative partnership backed by an angel investor, he thinks he’ll finally get his opportunity. If only that impossibly good-looking doctor wasn’t always in the way.

But as their budding venture grows into something more, a Kennedy family crisis and the discovery that their silent partner is Luke’s charming rival put everything they’ve built at risk. With Luke and Maddie’s dreams and hearts on the line, will Luke take the chance and fight for their blossoming love?

Every Rose that Blooms is the third standalone title in the clean and sweet Peace Country Romance series. If you crave pining heroes, determined heroines, and swoony Valentine’s vibes, get ready to fall in love with a small-town romance that will make you believe in happily ever afters.

Sign up to my newsletter to be notified about the release.

P. S. Now that the cover is finished, I’ll soon start putting up early access chapters for Books and Tea League members. Keep an eye out for those!

Which version of the cover do you like best? Let me know in the comments!

Back to Peace Crossing: The Book I’m Writing Next

For some time, I’ve been struggling with where to focus my writing time—on my next sweet romance novel, Every Rose that Blooms (Peace Country Romance Book 3), or my next fantasy novel, which I'm tentatively calling The Romani's Curse (Rise of the Grigori Book 3).

I've been in the developmental stages of both, and making progress, but felt a conflict when deciding which to start drafting first.

Well, I've finally made a decision. Or rather, I think I acknowledged the path I knew all along would be wisest.

Starting this week, I'll be drafting Every Rose that Blooms. Early access chapters will be going up for Books and Tea League premium members to enjoy, and I'm hoping to complete the first draft by the end of summer. After that (or probably after my first revision of that), I'll start drafting The Romani's Curse.

My hesitation in making this decision was in not wanting to make my fantasy readers wait even longer for the next volume of this series. But in the end, it came down to which decision was best for my business and my readers as a whole—and I expect that having three completed sweet romance novels will make a significant difference to my bottom line. Hopefully, that will also allow me to free up more of my time for writing, which will benefit all of my readers more in the end.

However, I've still got new content coming out for you Grigori fans. Check out the bonus content for Rise of the Grigori in the Books and Tea League.

About Every Rose that Blooms

Sometimes the love you long for blooms right before your eyes.

Luke Anderson dreams of turning his side art hustle into a full-time business, but taking the leap feels as daunting as telling feisty florist Maddie Kennedy how he truly feels. After she proposes a creative partnership backed by an angel investor, he thinks he’ll finally get his opportunity. But when he discovers their silent partner is his charming rival, will Luke risk it all for the sake of their blossoming love?

Sign up for my newsletter to be notified about release (and get some other books to read in the meantime).

Prune and Grow: Digital Decluttering, Plant Parent Style

Courtesy of Jessica Arends (@mydailydestinations) via Unsplash.

Last week, I spent over half of my quarterly week off doing plant care. (If you just realized I’m going to be talking about plants and are tempted to click away, stick with me—I’m making a point.)

Like many people, my pandemic hobby was to become good at caring for houseplants. Though I’ve had plants my whole life, the ones that had made it that long were those that thrived on neglect. With the boom in YouTube plant gurus and a new-to-me home with plenty of sunlight indoors in 2021, I figured it was high time to learn how to properly care for not only those plants that had survived by luck alone, but a few more that I would like to own without replacing every year or so.

The end result is that I have quite a few houseplants—forty-one, by current counts, and that doesn’t include those I’m currently water propagating. So regular tasks and plant care actually take a fair amount of time.

(Not that I’m complaining. I love being surrounded by green and to regularly get my hands dirty, even when the ground outside is still frozen and covered in snow.)

One of the things I’ve learned as a plant parent is the value of pruning. If a plant has been struck by disease, pests, or has become sickly through poor watering and care practices, sometimes the best thing you can do for that plant is to cut off all the affected parts. This can sometimes mean cutting back almost everything above the soil.

It can be quite terrifying the first time you chop a plant so far back that you’re not sure it will survive. (And please do your research first, as not every plant will survive!) But once the plant is no longer burdened by the diseased portions and is given proper care and treatment, it usually doesn’t take long for it to bounce back, fuller and healthier than ever.

As it so happens, the other half of my week was spent doing a completely different type of pruning—pruning my digital footprint.

With the added attention my website has been getting lately, I noticed a very peculiar type of traffic on the rise. Oddities like this tend to crank up my anxiety, especially these days. Honestly, I’m still not sure what the people (or, more likely, bots) behind this traffic are trying to accomplish, but after consideration, I realized that it was high time I did some pruning to some of my older content.

As part of that, I’ve temporarily put this blog behind a free paywall while I “prune” some older posts that no longer serve my purpose. And although I’m experiencing some grief and anger at this situation, there is also a certain amount of relief, and a lightening of a mental load—like the feeling you get after you spring clean your home and get rid of the clutter.

I’m getting rid of digital clutter, and it comes with the same mixed feelings as parting with physical items that no longer “spark joy,” as Marie Kondo says.

Yes, it’s a big project. But the further I progress through it, the gladder I am that I’m doing it.

In our modern look-at-me, influencer culture, decluttering your digital footprint can seem so counter-intuitive. But, much as I know the work I put into my plants will reap a fuller, healthier indoor jungle, so do I expect this digital pruning to produce a better balance for me, my mental health, and even my brand as an author and creator.

Have you ever thought about decluttering your digital footprint—or actually done it? Did you regret doing it, or regret leaving it so long? What were your experiences? Let me know in the comments!

Prune and Grow

Courtesy of Jessica Arends (@mydailydestinations) via Unsplash.

Last week, I spent over half of my quarterly week off doing plant care. (If you just realized I’m going to be talking about plants and are tempted to click away, stick with me—I’m making a point.)

Like many people, my pandemic hobby was to become good at caring for houseplants. Though I’ve had plants my whole life, the ones that had made it that long were those that thrived on neglect. With the boom in YouTube plant gurus and a new-to-me home with plenty of sunlight indoors in 2021, I figured it was high time to learn how to properly care for not only those plants that had survived by luck alone, but a few more that I would like to own without replacing every year or so.

The end result is that I have quite a few houseplants—forty-one, by current counts, and that doesn’t include those I’m currently water propagating. So regular tasks and plant care actually take a fair amount of time.

(Not that I’m complaining. I love being surrounded by green and to regularly get my hands dirty, even when the ground outside is still frozen and covered in snow.)

One of the things I’ve learned as a plant parent is the value of pruning. If a plant has been struck by disease, pests, or has become sickly through poor watering and care practices, sometimes the best thing you can do for that plant is to cut off all the affected parts. This can sometimes mean cutting back almost everything above the soil.

It can be quite terrifying the first time you chop a plant so far back that you’re not sure it will survive. (And please do your research first, as not every plant will survive!) But once the plant is no longer burdened by the diseased portions and is given proper care and treatment, it usually doesn’t take long for it to bounce back, fuller and healthier than ever.

As it so happens, the other half of my week was spent doing a completely different type of pruning—pruning my digital footprint.

With the added attention my website has been getting lately, I noticed a very peculiar type of traffic on the rise. Oddities like this tend to crank up my anxiety, especially these days. Honestly, I’m still not sure what the people (or, more likely, bots) behind this traffic are trying to accomplish, but after consideration, I realized that it was high time I did some pruning to some of my older content.

As part of that, I’ve temporarily put this blog behind a free paywall while I “prune” some older posts that no longer serve my purpose. And although I’m experiencing some grief and anger at this situation, there is also a certain amount of relief, and a lightening of a mental load—like the feeling you get after you spring clean your home and get rid of the clutter.

I’m getting rid of digital clutter, and it comes with the same mixed feelings as parting with physical items that no longer “spark joy,” as Marie Kondo says.

Yes, it’s a big project. But the further I progress through it, the gladder I am that I’m doing it.

In our modern look-at-me, influencer culture, decluttering your digital footprint can seem so counter-intuitive. But, much as I know the work I put into my plants will reap a fuller, healthier indoor jungle, so do I expect this digital pruning to produce a better balance for me, my mental health, and even my brand as an author and creator.

Have you ever thought about decluttering your digital footprint—or actually done it? Did you regret doing it, or regret leaving it so long? What were your experiences? Let me know in the comments!

Blog Post: Prune and Grow.