This “Story behind the story” is a bit different – because CJ has a whole page on how her novel, Thicker than Blood, came to be! And this is the “Thicker than Blood” that won the prestigious Jerry B Jenkins Operation First Novel contest!

I’ve also reviewed “Thicker than Blood” and highly recommend it!

Here’s a snip from her website:

Thicker than Blood was born on May 1st, 1995 as a story called The City Girl and the Country Girl. I was fifteen-years-old, and I still remember the excitement I felt at starting a new story. Here’s my journal entry from May 3rd, 1995:

…Let me read to you the little Prologue I wrote for [The City Girl and the Country Girl]. Christy Thomas looks like she’s got it all. A steady income, and a job that just allowed her to sell one of the biggest houses in town. But inside she’s hurting, really hurting in her heart. One night she can’t take anymore so she cries “God if you’re really out there, help me!” Can her sister who she hasn’t seen for 9 years be the answer? Find out in The City Girl and the Country Girl…

Years later I realized I needed a more marketable title, and my mom actually came up with the title Thicker than Blood.

Where did this story idea come from? My twin sister Tracy and our best friend Erica would often play imaginary games as kids and pretend we were different characters. Basically we role-played them and made up stories to act out. One of our characters was a woman named Christy who had a sister named May living on a farm. Sometimes Christy would go to visit May on the farm. I guess those characters were real to me because I just thought one day it would be fun to write their story. And then I asked myself, “What if May shared Jesus with Christy?”

Click here to continue reading about the journey from concept to publication!