Lorena McCourtney

When Lorena McCourtney came to my attention as an author who would be appreciated by cozy readers, I went to her website and the first thing that jumped out at me was that she is a “Christian writer.” I’ve always been somewhat puzzled by the term. Is any writer of the Christian faith a Christian writer? If a book is about characters who are Christian and proclaim their faith, is the author a Christian writer? Was G.K. Chesterton a Christian writer? Those are bigger questions than I feel competent to explore in the Cozy Library. I turned to a college friend to review Lorena’s latest book, On the Run. Ceil reads both Christian and secular fiction and is a librarian and veteran reviewer. (You can click on “See review” below to read Ceil’s first review for the Cozy Library.) Lorena is a prolific writer of both Christian and secular fiction, romance and mystery/suspense, short stories and novels. I found an interview with Lorena on-line and in it she said she doesn’t believe Christian fiction needs to be preachy or dull … and based on the reviews I have read, her books are neither.

Books

Ivy Malone Mysteries

Julesburg Mysteries

Author Profile:

My husband Jim and I live on rural acreage in southern Oregon. It’s a great place. Lots of deer, wild turkeys, squirrels and occasionally more smelly visitors (skunks.) We do some traveling in our motorhome, but more often we just like to go over to the Oregon coast, which is a favorite setting for my writing. I enjoy reading, hiking and beachcombing. My husband is occasionally appalled by what I drag home from the beach, everything from an oversized chunk of driftwood to an unidentifiable tooth. But, fortunately, good-natured about it. (He’s the one carrying those chunks of driftwood.)

I have one son and a granddaughter. Jim has two daughters and three grandchildren. Our family is fairly well scattered, so we do not see them as often as we’d like.

I started writing in the fifth grade. All my stories were about horses. This love of horses carried me through a degree in agriculture from Washington State University. My first job out of college, however, was with a big meat-packing company in the Midwest, where I quickly discovered that writing about hogs and sausage making was not my life’s calling.

Marriage and motherhood intervened, and by the time I got back to writing, I knew fiction was what I wanted to write. I started out doing short stories for children and teenagers, mostly for Sunday-School publications. Then, primarily because of financial pressures, I wrote women’s short stories and romance novels, all the time promising the Lord I would get back to Christian writing. Finally, after 24 published romance novels, the Lord made plain that it was time to make good on that promise. I switched exclusively to Christian fiction. The first 6 of these books were with the Palisades line of Christian romance, but with my 7th book of Christian fiction, WHIRLPOOL, I turned to a stronger emphasis on mystery.

Author profile and photo from author’s website. Used with permission 

Author Website: http://www.lorenamccourtney.com/