The Diamond Mine of Christian Fiction: January 2025

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Colleen Synder

Happy New Year from down here in Houston! Gay N. Lewis here, and I want to introduce you to Colleen Synder!

Colleen was born in Iowa but now lives outside Fresno in the Central Valley of California. She is divorced and lives on a "ranchette" with her 92 year mom, a sister, two ponies, and her mom's dog. She has two children and two grandchildren who live elsewhere. She has served in the US Air Force but now enjoys writing novels. She loves chocolate in any form. The darker the better. She works jigsaw puzzles and watches birds from her window. She and her mom enjoy going to the ocean to watch the waves crash against the rocks.

I asked her how she came to faith. Here's her reply.

I came to faith as an adult. I knew nothing of the Lord or God. My family background was New Age in the 1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lots of “God as I understand Him” and “You are your own God” and all of it was confusing. And scary. I was taught, “You are totally responsible for everything that happens in the world.” If there was a famine in Africa, it was my fault because I created it that way. It’s a heavy, heavy thing to be told you are your own God. New Year’s Eve 1974. I was in my apartment, alone, and totally lost. I was scared, hurting, with nothing to live for. I hit my knees and cried out to “God, if there is a God, take my life and do something with it. Or I’ll take my own life. I can’t go on like this.” There came a feeling of peace I’d never known, and a sense of a Voice saying, “You can go on. It’s going to be okay.” Not an audible Voice, but a sense in my soul. I got up with the determination to live. To do the things I’d always wanted to do. I rode an elephant. I went up in a hot air balloon. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane (twice. BIG mistake, that one!) I joined the US Air Force. The first Sunday we were there they marched us to chapel. It was a contemporary chapel service, and for the first time, I really heard the message of the Gospel and met Christ. I pledged my life to Him at that moment and have been following Him ever since. Sometimes closer than others, but always knowing He is the reason I’m alive and living.

When did you decided to write?

I began story telling before I could read or write. I would gather my stuffed animals at my feet and tell them stories. My mom read Winnie the Pooh to us with a stuffed bear on her knee. I knew then I wanted to tell stories. My first “official” books were published in 1990-1992. “Journey to Amanah: The Beginning” is a Christian Allegorical Fantasy about my children coming to faith in Christ. What was then Broadman Press, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, read it, liked it, and published it and the sequel, “Return to Tebel-Ayr.” I didn’t write again until 2020, and my first book published that year was “Verdict at the River’s Edge” a contemporary Christian Suspense/mystery. It was the first in the Collin Walker Series, with a total of 7 books in the series.

Are you self-published? If not, how did you find publishers?

I am published through Winged Publication, a “small house” owned by Cynthia Hickey. I met Cynthia at an online conference, where I signed up for 15 minutes with an editor/publisher. My first choice was unavailable. So was my second. And my third. I said, “Okay, who IS available?” Cynthia Hickey. Fine, I’ll talk to her. I emailed her my “One Sheet” with my information. She liked the presentation and said to send her the first chapter (right then.) I sent it to her. She looked it over, read it, then said, “I’ll publish the whole series.” God moves. Never doubt His timing.

How do you come up with so many twists and turns?

I try to imagine all the obstacles that my character can encounter, and then how she (or he in the new series) will get out of them. Sometimes I have to go back and start over, having got my character in someplace I can’t get them out of! It’s always a challenge to not repeat a danger or situation. Especially after so many books.

Tell us about your latest book. Be sure to include links.

The last book I wrote was part of my “Knights of the Octagon” series…a Contemporary Christian Mystery/Suspense. (“Octagon, because no one had a round table, and Knights of the Oval sounded weird.”) It’s a Christmas Romance, “The Christmas Stalker.” Someone is stalking Chay Waylon. They’re sending her emails from her own computer. The one she never leaves unattended during the day. Yet the emails continue to pop up as she’s working. Then someone hacks the company computer system, and suspicion falls on Chay. She has to solve the mysteries…but are they connected? Who is threatening her? And why? Then an old flame comes back into the picture. Is he part of the problem? Or is he the solution she’s been waiting for?