Who Has Your Heart?

Who Has Your Heart? by Emily Ryan is this week's good book. A 2006 Discovery House Publishers release, it is the first book that I acquired from the author and edited all the way from manuscript pages to finished book. I found the manuscript proposal in a Christian writers' service, The Writers' Edge, where authors submit their manuscripts, and, for a small fee, they are evaluated, summarized, and included in a report that goes out to Christian publishers.

I'm always looking for manuscripts that are biblically solid but have a uniqueness about them; there are plenty of books for single women out there, but this one sounded different. Emily draws the principles that form the chapters of her book from the Old Testament Judges account of Jephthah's daughter. That caught my attention.

So after requesting the manuscript, I read through it, and because I recognized a good book, I passed it on to my managing editor and publisher. They agreed that it was a good book and recommended it to the publishing committee, which is composed of the publisher, managing editor, marketing managers, and Mart DeHaan, president of RBC Ministries. It is no small feat to convince this group to publish a book for single women by a previously unpublished author, so the day they approved the book for publication was exciting, to say the least.

Since the manuscript was my discovery, I got to call Emily and tell her that we would be offering her a contract if she was interested. Of course Emily was interested (you can read about her experience finding a publisher on www.writersedgeservice.com), as any twenty-nine-year old unpublished author would be. The next step was coming up with a title, which was probably the most difficult step in the whole process, followed by choosing a cover design. The rest was all production: editing, typesetting, proofing, and, eventually, a gorgeous published book!

So what is it about? This quote from the jacket copy sums it up: "With freshness, humor, and I've-been-there-insights, author Emily Ryan provides an 'unnamed, unmarried, and unshakeable' scriptural role model for single women. Drawing biblical principles from the example of Jephthah's daughter, whose story is told in Judges 11, the author gives single women a unique perspective. Rather than throwing their energies into finding a husband, Emily encourages single women to discover who they are in Christ, following the lead of a 'single woman who teaches us how to be godly.'"

I'm a little prejudiced, but this is a good book for single women. It doesn't offer any how-to tips on finding a husband or even how to find a date. Emily emphasizes finding meaning and satisfaction in a woman's knowing who she is in Christ--not in being married. While she acknowledges the challenges and disappointments of singleness, she explains that complete contentment comes in a solid relationship with Christ--not in marital status.