Beth Moore is a popular Christian teacher, author and an all-around great a gal from Texas. She is warm, inviting and talking with her is akin to having coffee with a good friend. It is no wonder she’s beloved best-selling author and mentor for women. The wordsmith does the same in her first fictional book, the Undoing of St. Silvanus where she beautifully orchestrates her humor and enticing characters who all will hit a nerve. The story is based on Jillian Slater and her family. When Slater learned that her estranged father died, she reluctantly returns to New Orleans to rejoin her shattered family.

This is a huge change from Moore’s other books that teach people how spiritually grow. When you are a writer at heart since a child, you need to be open to growing in different areas.

“My mom was a big reader and my father ran movies theaters, so the whole concept of [storytelling] whether it was on the page or whether it was on the screen, it was huge to me.”
Giving the amount of time needed to write a fictional piece was something that never was on the radar. Most of Moore’s time is devoted to her ministry and to her Bible teachings. She brushed it off as something that she could peruse eventually. When God wants to move he usually doesn’t ask questions and He started nudging Moore to write the Undoing of Saint Silvanus. It all became thematic as no matter she couldn’t shake the idea. Then it happened, she started writing on the side and the chapters started evolving. For Moore, it was an invitation to investigate the undiscovered in fictional work. She decided it was time to sow into the unknown.

What came out of it was pretty enchanting. If she didn’t trust God to branch out we wouldn’t be introduced to characters like the cold-hearted grandmother Olivia and sweet Adella. They are all complicated people and their relationships are linked to generational curses that families pass down through the generations.

“We take on the patterns of our parents and our grandparents. It’s the anger, short tempers, leaning towards addiction and it is believed that it partially could be genetic. I can’t give the evidence for all that,” she explained. “I do know that we can see throughout time, that patterns do take place in families–and they need breaking. Jesus does that through the power of the cross.”

Jillian Slater will help readers navigate through corrupt patterns that destroy people. She also helps readers find a peace that they are not alone.

“This family has been off course. The broken relationships within it have been so messed up and so destroyed for so long that they don’t even try. It is coming into the knowledge that Christ is there in the heat of brokenness with us and in that extremely flawed home environment. He can set us free.”

The Undoing of Saint Silvanus is not only a book to entertain but to enlighten. Women will be drawn to the colorful characters and lessons that will speak to them.

This doesn’t need to end with this blog. You can join Beth’s Big Book Club live from the Big Easy for free on Jan. 20 at 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT with the delayed start for the Mountain and Pacific time zones.