Author Interview with Christine Sunderland

Today we're talking with Christine Sunderland, author of Hana-lani


FQ: You obviously know and love Hawaii. What is your connection with Maui?


I have had the opportunity to visit Hana, Maui and other locations in Hawaii many times over the last twenty years, and have been impressed with the welcoming spirit of the people, their sense of family, history, and faith I have found there.


FQ: Nani-lei is such a warm and inspiring character. Is she based on someone you are lucky enough to know?


Nani-lei is a blend of many elderly women I have been so very fortunate to know, primarily, I would add, in my church life. These women have given me so much and I continue to learn from these generations that go before me.

Flying to Hana

FQ: Meredith's experience at Hana-lani causes her to think about what truly matters in life. What is at the top of your list?


I would say family, faith, church, and making every day count, searching for what is true and not merely fashionable or politically correct.


FQ: Meredith's story is too familiar these days. In what ways can all of us be like Nani-lei and her family, bringing hope to those who, like Meredith, are alone?


I think we can all slow down and take the time to listen to and love one another. We begin with our family members – husband, wife, children. Then we consider friends and those who cross our path day to day. Every person is worthy of respect and love, and the gift of time, of paying attention, is probably the greatest gift to those alone. Of course giving one's time means sacrificing one's own time, being a little less selfish, a little more self-less.

Hana Bay

FQ: Henry and Maria's project, A History of Ethics, seems to be a topic you have thought much about. Is this a side project of yours?

Wananalua Congregational Church

I have long been concerned about how we decide what is right and wrong. With the demise of the Judeo-Christian ethical influence in the public square, our culture has been hard pressed to determine what authorities to use to decide right and wrong. Abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, cloning, the definition of marriage, are questions of serious moral impact for many of us, as well as the boundaries of free speech and the parameters of artistic expression.

Fagan's Cross, Hana

FQ: Do you share Henry's love of poetry? Which poets, along with T.S. Eliot, do you admire?


I love the poetic more than poetry itself – the phrase or metaphor that catches some otherwise indescribable truth about our humanity. I admire greatly Gerald Manley Hopkins, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Browning, among others. The Psalms are wonderful expressions of man's yearnings and angst as well as joyful and thankful moments. Poetry helps express who we are, gives us voice. My sister Barbara Budrovich is developing into a fine poet, catching unique family moments we experience as women and mothers.


FQ: Without giving away the ending of the book, I will say that it was not the “happily ever after” ending I was expecting. Did you know as you were writing the novel that it would end this way?

Hasegawa General Store, Hana

I knew it would have to end with a degree of realism, since I didn't want to write a "romance." I wasn't sure about the specifics, but the ending became clear as the characters became more real, and I soon knew what they would do, even what they needed to do, to reflect the themes of the novel. So I wanted the ending to be both challenging and yet hopeful.

To learn more about Hana-lani please visit our website and read the review at: Feathered Quill Book Reviews.

Friday Finds

Friday Finds is hosted

by Should Be Reading

All Eyes: A Memoir of Deafness In Bainy Cyrus's All Eyes, she tells about her life growing up in both the deaf and the hearing world. Bainy first attended Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, MA, where she learned to speak and struggled with language development. It was typical for a deaf child to cope with delayed English language in the 1960s and 1970s. After seven years at Clarke, Bainy began to face difficulties in regular school but eventually overcame obstacles in the hearing world, at times with humor. She also relates the importance of her lifelong friendships with two girls Cheryl and Diane she met at Clarke, and how the different paths that they took influenced her as an adult.


Paradise Lost The highly anticipated sequel to This Side of Paradise-which Kirkus heralds as an "an entertaining, suspenseful thriller"-Paradise Lost delivers the same chilling scenarios and head-scratching secrets that fans expect from author Steven L. Layne. After a summer break, former wallflower Chase Maxfield returns to school with a new found confidence to match his sudden, yet classic, good looks. But Jack Barrett suspects something sinister is behind Chase's unexpected transformation, and his skepticism only grows as other eerie events occur. When Jack's grandmother is mysteriously poisoned, his brother disappears, and his girlfriend soon develops an interest in someone else, Jack becomes even more determined to discover the truth. Packed with action and off-the-wall incidents, this fast-paced novel invites readers on an adventure that builds momentum until the very last page.


Nocturne When Nicole Whitcomb's car runs off a Colorado mountain road during a blinding snowstorm, she is saved from death by a handsome, fascinating, and enigmatic stranger.
Snowbound with him for days in his beautiful home high in the Rockies, she finds herself powerfully attracted to him. But there are things about him that mystify her, filling her with apprehension.


Depression Cookies Abby needs some magic in her life, along with a white knight, respectful children, and an exciting career plan. Instead she is drowning in unfulfilled expectations, disappointments, and unmet needs. What she doesn't expect is to find the true essence of magic in the strength, friendship, power, and energy of the female spirit found in her mother and her mother's zany group of friends. Krista cannot believe it's happening again. Her father waltzes in and announces another move. And what does her mother do? Nothing. Don't they realize she's almost thirteen, and this could mean the end of her life? In the midst of teenage melodrama, she is determined to survive a new school, defeat the annoyances of two scene-stealing sisters, and deal with out-of-touch parents. Yet she quickly realizes the double-edged sword of growing up. Depression Cookies Two distinct voices, two stories interwoven within the walls of family and love.


Hana-Lani Only opening their hearts will keep them from plunging into the dark abyss. Old Nani-lei lives in Hana-lani, her family home in rural Hawaii. She looks after her grandson Henry, 52, and his daughter Lucy, 6, who have returned to Maui from Berkeley after the death of Maria, Henry's wife. Henry and Maria, both professors, had been working on A History of Ethics, and now the grieving Henry struggles to finish it. City girl Meredith Campbell, 36, fast-paced, self-centered, and beautiful, believes her body will ensure her happiness. After losing her job and finding her lover unfaithful, she flies to Maui, sure he will follow...but her plane crashes near Hana-lani. As their worlds collide in a natural world both beautiful and dangerous, Henry will be forced to act on his words, and Meredith will come face-to-face with her own life choices. A poignant journey that unravels T.S. Eliot's "permanent questions"- what is goodness, truth, and love? By the author of the thought-provoking trilogy Pilgrimage, Offerings, and Inheritance.


Finding Jack After losing his young family in a tragic accident, Fletcher Carson joins the flagging war effort in Vietnam. Deeply depressed, he plans to die in the war. But during one of his early missions, Fletcher rescues a critically wounded yellow Lab whom he nurses back to health and names Jack. As Fletcher and Jack patrol and survive the forests of Vietnam, Fletcher slowly regains the will to live. At the end of the war, the U.S. Government announces that due to the cost of withdrawal, all U.S. dogs serving in the war have been declared “surplus military equipment” and will not be transported home. For the hundreds of dog handlers throughout Vietnam, whose dogs had saved countless lives, the news is greeted with shock and disbelief. For Fletcher, he knows that if he abandons Jack, then he too will be lost. Ordered to leave Jack behind, he refuses—and so begins their journey. Based on the actual existence and abandonment of canine units in Vietnam, Gareth Crocker’s Finding Jack is a novel of friendship and love under desperate circumstances that will grab your heart and won’t let go.


Between A Rock and a Hot Place: Why Fifty is Not the New Thirty A funny, fearless, no-holds-barred look at aging—hormone replacement therapy, online dating, eye lifts, and all. As she approached her fiftieth birthday, Tracey Jackson found herself bombarded—at the gym, at parties, in conversations with friends—by a catchphrase on everyone's lips. "Fifty is the new thirty" and the endless magazine articles, photos, and T-shirts proclaiming the new aphorism had apparently bloomed out of a collective sense of denial, masking the true fears of a generation unwilling to relinquish their youth.


Spinning Dylan Hunter has it made. At 29, he has great friends, a huge job, all the women he can handle, and no commitments. A public relations executive, Dylan has dashed up the ladder of success by mastering the art of the spin – bending the truth to his and his clients’ needs. But when a former lover steps back into his life with a three-year-old girl by her side (no, she’s not his), Dylan suddenly finds himself in a place he can’t spin himself out of. And when Dylan unexpectedly becomes the child’s sole guardian, he finds himself to be like a circus performer trying to keep all of his spinning plates from crashing to the ground. In what seems like a blink of the eye, Dylan Hunter’s life has changed completely…whether he’s ready for it or not.

Author Interview with Christine Sunderland

Our interview today is with Christine Sunderland, author of Inheritance



FQ: It was wonderful visiting with Madeleine and Jack again. I feel as though by having Jack’s stomach act up again at the end of this book, you might be hinting the there is more to the story. Is this really the last that readers will see of the Seymours?


Thank you! Never say never, as they say. But for the time, the Seymours are taking a holiday...but who knows about the future!


FQ: There are many elements to your books – history, religion, travelogue, drama – which parts do you enjoy writing most?


When I began writing, I was fascinated with history and religion, but as I learned to construct a story and incorporate some of our own travels, I became challenged with setting and plot, as well as character development. It's been most rewarding to interweave them all, rather like a puzzle or a painting. I enjoy dealing with the big questions of life - who are we, where are we going, is there a God, what happens when we die, why do we suffer, what is love, what is truth. There have been many answers to these questions throughout history, and I wanted to treat them in a fictional form that might resonate with readers on a different level than a nonfiction form would. At the same time I wanted to pull the reader in, so it was a challenge to do both, to not allow the history and sermons to interfere with the drama, but to contribute to the story's depth.


FQ: The concept of time seems to be a minor theme throughout this story. For example, Maddie reflects, “Only now, when her own jewels of time seemed to be fewer and fewer in her shortening span of life, did she understand their worth. Here we are, nearly buried with this avalanche of love from heaven, and we see trickling sand, not precious stones.” I would love to hear how the issue of time resonates with you from a religious/humankind perspective.


Time is the great mystery, isn't it? We all have just so much given to us, and yet we often abuse the gift of time, take it for granted. As a Christian I believe in life after death, so in a sense I'm not limited by time, but even so earthly life is definitely circumscribed. I try and remind myself to appreciate the moment given with open eyes and heart, to not let any minute be wasted. Prayer is a great aid to this increased attention, for God helps me (ironically) to focus on the sensory world around me. Also, believing in a hereafter gives meaning to the present, for nothing is lost, whether it be suffering or joy. Everything counts.


FQ: Brother Cristoforo is an interesting character. Is he based on somebody you know? Was he more of a challenge to write about than the other characters, given his faith/background?


All of my characters are amalgams of folks I know. Cristoforo was a rewarding character to write. I've had the opportunity to know and work with many clergy over the last thirty years, and Brother Cristoforo reflects various aspects of some of them, both good and bad. I love sermons and think of them as poetic lectures (constrained by time and form), so it was fun to incorporate some of the style and content of sermons I have heard. The temptation to pride is endemic to clergy (and teachers), and I wanted to create a character who was on fire with God, but unable to control his pride. When I introduced him in Pilgrimage, he was a minor character, but I named him with the intent of possibly using him later as a Christ figure, a sacrificial lamb, but still with a human problem to solve. So in Inheritance, this was my chance to show the pitfalls of faith not tempered by humility. I also wanted to show how powerfully God can work through a simple person (often the least of us), how appearances can be deceiving, how suffering can be redeemed through love. He's Roman Catholic and I'm Anglo-Catholic, which is close, and I've spent a good deal of time in Catholic churches and monasteries in Europe, so I hope his character isn't too far flung.


FQ: Please tell us what project you are working on next!


I'm presently submitting for publication a novel set in Hawaii, called Hana-lani about a fast-paced city girl who flies to the rural village of Hana, Maui. When her plane crashes she is taken in by a local family and nursed in their home, Hana-lani. Our heroine's material world clashes with the very different world of an old grandmother, a grieving professor, and his little girl. Themes involve the meaning of love, history, and family, in our culture today. It's not an inspirational novel in a religious sense and is faster paced and more traditionally structured than the trilogy. It's a love story.
I'm working now on a mystery set in the present day, in Rome and Provence, that explores the life of Mary Magdalene and the first-century Christians.

Author interview with Christine Sunderland

Today we're excited to chat with Christine Sunderland, author of Pilgrimage.

FQ: What type of reader did you have in mind when you wrote Pilgrimage?

I believe Pilgrimage would appeal to travelers who enjoy journeys both of body and soul, those who seek to experience and understand our world, as well as our place in it.

FQ: What do you hope a reader of another faith might get out of your book?

I would hope a reader of another faith would enjoy visiting Italy (Rome, Orvieto, Milan, Lake Como, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Siena) as well as the journey through time, meeting historical figures who have so impacted Western values. Also, the central premise of Pilgrimage is a universal one – a mother's grief. Agnostic readers have commented to me that they saw Madeleine's journey of healing as a metaphor for the human condition.

FQ: Your main character accepts religious miracles, such as receiving the stigmata, with little doubt in their veracity. How do you view religious miracles?

Throughout time there have been fraudulent claims and bogus relics. Even so, I believe in miracles that have been historically documented with eyewitness accounts. An interesting present day stigmatic is Padre Pio, who died in the last few years. His stigmata are well documented.

FQ: The characters in your book hold very definite values. For example, Madeleine tries to dissuade her son from living out of wedlock with his girlfriend. Are you hoping to embark certain lessons in values to your readership?

Every author's values are present in his or her work, and I am no exception, but of course, each of us must make our own choices and respect one another's chosen path. As an author, I must tell the truth as I see it.

FQ: Your book also serves as a great travelogue. Could readers use Pilgrimage to find the churches, restaurants and hotels mentioned in the book?

All of the churches, restaurants and hotels are factual and welcoming to visitors and guests.Pilgrimage arose out of my travel journals and we often return to these beloved places in Italy.

FQ: Can you give readers a preview of what they can expect in the second book of the trilogy, Offerings?

In Offerings we travel again with Jack and Madeleine, this time through France in search of an expert surgeon to perform a lifesaving procedure. We also see France through the eyes of the agnostic Doctor DuPres. Themes involve the nature of love, the power of trust, and the question of belief. We visit Lourdes, Rocamadour, Vence, Lèrins, Lyons, Vézeley, Reims, and of course, Paris.

The third in the trilogy, Inheritance, set in England, will be released in the next six months.

To learn more about Pilgrimage please visit our website and read the review at: Feathered Quill Book Reviews.

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