Preorder News + Interview: Grace A. Johnson, Author of Bound and Determined
Today beings the preorders for Bound and Determined! If you haven’t heard about this historical epic by Grace Johnson, let me just share the blurb with you. 
Port Royal, Jamaica
1686
A wicked twist of fate—or perhaps the hand of God—has landed Captain Rina Bennet in the most precarious situation yet. When her husband and the father of her twin boys leaves at the behest of a family friend, she is left to take charge of the ship she has not sailed on in two years, alongside her two toddlers. She finds herself between a rock and a hard place when her first voyage drastically turns into a rescue mission, leaving her to the ghosts of her old life.
Daisy Sharow has risked it all by escaping from her owner’s tavern in search of her sister. Following God’s direction, she seeks out the only person she trusts to help her: Keaton Clarke. When Daisy stows away aboard the Rina, quartermaster Keaton is faced with a ghost from his past and a decision neither he nor Rina are prepared to make.
Rina has to make a judgment call when the ghosts come knocking, a call that could mean either life or death—for both an innocent girl and herself. Can Daisy, Keaton, and Rina band together to save Daisy’s sister…or is the risk too great?
Doesn’t that just sound riveting? So much intrigue! And if you preorder the book, you get all kinds of goodies. Check out the info below!
Preorder Perks!Start date: September 19th, 2022
End date: November 17th, 2022
Preorder price: $2.99
Availability: Kindle ebook on Amazon
Preorder goodies:
Character art of Daisy, the heroineA flash fiction piece sure to make you tear upSeveral bonus scenes for the extended endingA printable recipe cardAn excerpt of the first few chaptersPrintable bookmarksCharacter aesthetics + access to the Pinterest boardsAn exclusive instrumental soundtrack + access to the chaotic Spotify playlistDownloadable desktop/phone wallpapersAND a free entry into my EPIC giveaway, coming soon! (Giveaway will be available only in the US.)Eligibility: Readers who have preordered a Kindle copy of Bound and Determined through Amazon, and who have submitted their proof of purchase through the preorder receipt form. No age limit. Available for US and international readers.
Form link: https://forms.gle/sU4vPsFhDX8RtGNHA
All readers who submit their proof of purchase of a BAD preorder will receive the goodies above in a digital prize package in their inbox! Naturally, they must share their email address to receive their prize, and other than that, their purchase receipt, and their name, no other information is required!
And now, I have the great honor of interviewing the author herself. This is actually part one of the interview, so stay tuned for the release of Bound and Determined for the second half.
VH: Hi, Grace, and welcome back to the blog! I am so excited to have you on today, because that means Bound and Determined is now available for preorder!!
GJ: I am SO excited to be here, Vanessa! I know you’ve got some great (*coughs* and spoilery) questions for me, and I can’t wait to get into them!
And YES! After three years since the release of Prisoner at Heart (book two) in October of 2019, I am FINALLY releasing Bound and Determined, and I am just beyond amazed at how long—I mean, how far this story has come!
I’m actually running the funnest (it’s totally a word) preorder campaign (for the first time) for BAD, which means anyone who preorders HERE will receive an epic (at least I think so) prize pack that includes character art, a printable recipe card featuring Rina’s favorite drink (and don’t worry, it’s nonalcoholic *winks*), an extended ending, and more!
VH:Starting off, did you know what direction Bound and Determined would take when you first started writing it? What initially inspired the main premise?
GJ: Well, this is a long story, so I’ll try and summarize it as much as I can, but we have to go back to the original Seven Seas series to get the full experience. When I outlined my first pirate series (which didn’t have a name, of course), I had given Xavier a sister. Naturally, that sister needed a story, so I invented a character named Keaton Clarke to be her love interest!
Fast forward to my revised version of this series, beginning with Held Captive as we all know it now, and Keaton had solidified his place in my storyworld, although Xavier’s sister had been discarded. When HC released and it came time to brainstorm the next two books in the series, I asked my dentist at the time (who is also a writer) if he had any ideas or suggestions.
A couple of them I was already planning on using (*coughs* for the spin-off series), but one in particular caught my eye: have something cause Rina to reconsider piracy.
And Bound and Determined was born! At the time, it looked nothing like it does now.
My heroine was Keaton’s childhood friend in search of her sister, yes…but she was also a pirate and an enemy of Rina.
It must have been when I was in the early stages of Prisoner at Heart that I scrapped this idea and went through a long, arduous, chaotic process of redeveloping Bound and Determined and replacing my pirate heroine with one entirely different: Daisy Sharow.
When I finally started writing BAD, I thought I had a pretty good idea of where the story would go. After all, I had all my plot points down pat and knew I had a strong premise.
But after Keaton, Daisy, and Xavier all gave me HUGE fits, I had to do some reevaluating, and most of that was done as I wrote. In the end, the themes and messages and the romance especially ended up entirely different (aka, a chaotic mess).
So even though, yes, I knew a lot of things about the story and I knew the direction the plot was going in, as I wrote, I discovered so much more about the characters and the story itself than I’d ever even come close to during the outlining stage!
VH: In Bound and Determined , we see Rina as a far different person in a far different role than she was in the first book in the series, Held Captive . How has Rina changed, and how has she stayed the same? Which Rina is easier for you to write?
GJ: Gosh, I love this question. Mainly because I love Rina to pieces and will talk about her all day…but also because this is just such an insightful question. Rina’s arc not only over this series, but over every single book she is in (yes, the spin-off series), is really the main element. Rina is like the Tony Stark or Jack Sparrow of the series, so naturally every book is about her. Not even the romance—you could honestly say it’s a subplot.
But I digress.
In BAD, Rina is probably the most fun she has ever been. She’s this strange combination of young mother, fierce pirate, and meddling old lady—and working with each aspect of her character, weaving them all together, has been pure fun. I think Rina is more herself in BAD than she has ever been, because I am finally getting a real hold on her character. I think I’m finally able to do her justice. And because of that, I’m highlighting some aspects of her that really allude to the old Rina. Her tendency to get whatever she wants whenever she wants. Her fear of failure. Her meddling and sometimes manipulative nature.
But I’m also showcasing how much she’s changed. She has become so dependent—in a good way—on God, her husband, her friends and family. And that has served to really break down her defenses and make her more vulnerable. (That also makes getting reacclimated to being a captain a lot more difficult, but that’s the fun part.) And she’s always had a maternal instinct and a motherly way about her, but that’s really magnified in BAD (and will be further in Book 4), as she’s caring for her boys…both the little ones (her sons) and the big ones (*coughs* Keaton and Julius).
To answer your other question, Rina has always been easy to write. I’ve never struggled with her or her voice at all, because she is (1) so ingrained in me and (2) the first character I’ve ever gotten to know so well. But I didn’t do her justice in HC, so I feel like she’s being written better now…which is making me SO excited to rewrite HC in the future and really explore the old Rina.
VH: In BAD , we get to see Xavier back as an MC. (Yay!) Was it difficult to write his POV again after not writing him for a bit?
GJ: OH MY GOSH YES. Like Rina, I didn’t do Xavier justice in Held Captive. He practically had two personalities—caring Christian and flirtatious rogue—and I, for the life of me, have no idea why I didn’t get a handle on his character and write him consistently.
So returning to his POV in BAD was like writing him for the first time…except I couldn’t revamp his personality or redo his voice because I’d already established him in HC. So it was such a struggle between wanting to improve and wanting to remain consistent.
I also genuinely dislike his character, so there’s that. I plan on changing him a lot in my rewrite of HC—not by robbing him of the qualities that have made readers love him so, but by expounding upon them, exploring them, and fully developing them!
VH: Daisy and Keaton have a pretty tumultuous relationship. What was the hardest part about writing them, and what is your favorite thing about them as a couple?
GJ: HA! Tumultuous is a ginormous understatement—even I know that. Now, if you had asked me this about three or four months ago, I probably could’ve given you a decent answer. But I’m in that stage now, about five months after finishing BAD, where I absolutely hate them, their relationship, how I wrote them…all of it. And I’m second-guessing everything, but I know I have to push through. (Plus I can always change what I need to when I release my revised version this series.)
Is it wrong that I’m going to publish something I have no confidence in and don’t want anyone to read?
Yes.
Am I gonna do anything about it?
…no.
(Why do I remind myself of Rina right now?)
It does help that my AMAZING betas—like the lovely Vanessa—have been so encouraging and have shown me time and time again that BAD doesn’t stink…but I am such a perfectionist, you guys. Everything stinks to me.
ANYWAY. Back to the topic at hand.
I breezed through writing K&D’s relationship (shoot, they need a ship name…) very easily and quickly. #wingedit Mainly because they only have a handful of scenes together, and because they really aren’t the focus of the story. I mean, they are…but they also aren’t. It’s a weird thing I’ve got going on.
So there was no difficulty in the process of writing them. However, I hate it all now.
As for my favorite part…in this stage, it’s probably the hard topics I address in their relationship. Purity, lust, love, faith, all of it. Like, Elliot and Crimson and Rina and Xavier’s relationships were just these sweet, simple romances.
Keaton and Daisy’s isn’t. If anything, it’s an example of how not to do things…but it’s also an example of how God can and will bring good out of our mistakes, our pasts, and our doubts. His plan for us, after all, is not to harm us, but to give us a hope and a future.
So getting to write a relationship that literally breaks ALL the rules (well, except one) of a storybook-style inspirational romance was not only an interesting experience, it was something I needed to do and something others need to read, I think. *shrugs* Y’all judge for yourselves.
VH: How did you approach the very hard but real topics in this book? Why do you think these things should be addressed in Christian fiction?
GJ: I didn’t think about them. That’s how. I knew if I did, I’d doubt myself, doubt God…I’d overthink them and stress about it…I’d get caught up in what he says and what she did and how I should’ve written things.
I just let my characters and God lead the way—and they led me to write about purity and lust, sin and forgiveness, grace and redemption, deliverance and salvation. Sure, I may not have done everything right or by the book, but this isn’t a story about perfection or a how-to book on living life. It’s my characters’ story—and in that respect, it’s reality. At least a fragment of it.
And even though it may seem amateurish to handle topics like sexuality without any research, I feel like it’s purer this way. The only thing that influenced my portrayals is first and foremost God and His Word, and in a small way, my personal experience. (No, I haven’t been through anything like Daisy…but I know what it’s like to feel guilty and hopeless.)
So I studied His Word and just prayed and asked Him over and over to help me, to spreak through me, and that was it. There was still a lot of doubt involved, but there was also a lot of discernment, I guess, because I always went back to what does God say? What does the Bible say? How would Jesus see this? instead of what does the world say? What did other writers do? How would people see this?
And my purpose in writing these things is not to answer questions or solve problems. In fact, quite the opposite. My intention was to create questions. To invoke curiosity and a desire to search out the Word and to seek God’s voice on all these topics.
Hopefully that made sense…maybe. I don’t feel like I ever do. (Y’all should try living in my head if y’all think my writing is rambly.)
And, yes, they definitely should! If Christians—especially writers—won’t stand up for God’s truth (which is Truth) and won’t be actively addressing these topics…worse, if Christians won’t work to reform the society we live in by living in a way that honors God…then who’s doing the influencing? Who’s shaping minds? Who’s putting out their opinions and “truths”? Who’s speaking out?
Satan.
Fortunately, I know of many authors—like Julie Lessman, Tammy L. Gray, and Francine Rivers (controversy aside)—who have heeded the call to be truthful and bold about purity and sexuality, alcoholism, idolatry, etc., and faithfully write about tough real-life struggles from a biblical perspective!
That said, there are still readers who would prefer to have their worldview formed by secular fiction, and readers who think Christian authors who do address these topics are being preachy or too real (which is an oxymoron).
Which is why I look forward to the day where faith-based, God-honoring, moralitisic literature influences the culture, instead of the other way around.
