Rebekah is a dear friend of mine in South America. We actually met over a year in a teen writer’s group on Facebook, when she asked for someone “who knows stuff about snow” to beta read a project for her. Wellll, if there’s something I know about… it’s snow. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Her newest story, Iron Core, had me in tears. I’m here to share the misery enchant you with this wonderfully heartbreaking story. I fell in love with Lunetta’s story and I’m dying for more, whenever Miss DeVall decides to stop torturing me and let me have it. (In her defense, I do think she has to finish writing it first.)
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| See this pretty cover? Hehe |
{Iron Core Blurb}
Everything will be okay.
Deep in Brancaleone, a prison carved from the mountainside, eighteen-year-old Lunetta plans her escape. Raised behind iron bars, all she wants is freedom – and to take her mother with her.
Deep in Brancaleone, a prison carved from the mountainside, eighteen-year-old Lunetta plans her escape. Raised behind iron bars, all she wants is freedom – and to take her mother with her.
{Author Bio}
Rebekah DeVall prides herself on being the girl who wrote 200,000 words in 21 days. She’s a Christian author with a penchant for killing characters and a love for writing real female protagonists described as “the example of a Christian hero that young readers need to see”.
{Contact Rebekah}
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
Blog: http://www.rebekahdevall.
{Author Interview}
You’re a missionary kid, stationed overseas. Did that contribute to the emotions and the overall story of Iron Core?
Yep, I’m a missionary kid, way deep down in South America. While Iron Core wasn’t a “missionary story” per se, some of Lunetta’s emotions and feelings definitely came from my missionary-kid heart.
Lunetta struggles with feelings of loneliness and missing her family. She has to experience the world entirely from scratch, without any previous knowledge. That’s kind of what we missionary kids go through during furloughs (which is coming up close for my family!) I mean, what exactly are dimes and quarters? I’ve been working with South American money for all my life. How am I supposed to dress? I don’t know. I haven’t been in an American church since I was thirteen, and we all know how fashion-savvy thirteen-year-olds are.
So, long story short, there’s a whole lot more of me in Lunetta than I expected when I sat down to write this story.
You write deep, hard stories. Why? (Do you think it’s possible for you to write fluff?)
I write deep, hard stories because we live in a deep, hard world.
To be honest, I’ve never been the kind of girl who was satisfied with sweet romances and children’s fiction. I grew up on War and Peace, Shakespeare, Anne of Green Gables (wow that list looks strange), Little House on the Prairie.
I grew up in a house where one night, the living room would hold my dad and a couple there for marriage counseling. The next day, a young woman pregnant out of wedlock. The next day, we would pack up and travel three or four hours to a church, to meet with people who walked miles and waded through rivers just to hear God’s Word.
There’s so much going on in this world, and I feel like standard Christian fiction brushes no more than the surface.
Is it possible for me to write fluff? I think so. I mean, all things are possible. I’ll let you know the day that happens. 😉
What’s it like, being a writer in a missionary family? What are a couple challenges you face every day?
I don’t think I have many challenges that other writers in big families don’t. There’s always the issue of scheduling – when there’s a weekend trip, two basketball games, piano classes, Bible Institute lessons, English class, six kids in homeschool – there’s always a lot going on.
One of the challenges I’ve faced is the fact that I’m generally an antisocial person. I’m happiest when I’m at my desk with my headphones in, my music playing, and fingers tapping across the keyboard. But as a missionary family, we’re here to serve people. So it’s always a struggle – to write or socialize?
What do you do in addition to writing and making me cry a lot?
Oh, man, you have asked the million dollar question.
I have seven little siblings. Not a day goes by that I don’t:
- Drive someone somewhere
- Tie some little person’s shoelaces
- Fix their hair
- Break up a squabble
- An infinity of other things
I’m also a part-time Bible Institute student, which is where I find a lot of inspiration for my stories.
On top of that, I have a part-time job in a cheese factory. Want gruesome details about how Gouda cheese is made? I’m your girl.
Add that to writing (and making poor Annie cry), and I’m busy enough.
How many stories do you have up your sleeves?
Good thing I’m wearing two layers of sleeves!
On the “to-be-published-this-year”, there are at least eight, if I’m not forgetting any.
Now, on my “plot-bunny-will-be-published-someday” list? Thousands.
{My review}
5 stars
She did it again. Rebekah DeVall did it again. Iron Core has more of the gripping emotion I’ve come to love in her writing, wrapped in a fresh story and bright new characters. Iron Core is intense, for all the brevity of the story. She seems to make one sentence do the work of two. Lunetta is a dear who needs to be loved and taken care of, but she doesn’t seem to allow for that. Persa… Carlotta… ZANE, who I definitely don’t have a tiny crush on. I love the characters. They’re tangible and I can feel the threads of their own histories that make them into the individuals they are, even in such a short little book.
Recommend for teens 14+