A Poppy in Remembrance is a coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of World War I.
Here’s a short description:
Spanning three countries and the four years of World War I, this is the epic story of an American woman struggling to become a journalist in a man’s world. As she searches for where she belongs—spiritually, professionally and emotionally—Claire Meacham discovers God and love through her relationships with Oswald and Biddy Chambers, an earnest YMCA worker, and a dashing New Zealand soldier, all the while seeking that elusive byline.
And a more detailed one:
American Claire Meacham, 20, works as a stenographer in London for her journalist father, Jock Meacham, at the start of World War I.
She’s trying to figure out how to convince her parents she should be a journalist instead of a history teacher when the war diverts her path in unexpected ways.
She meets Rev. Oswald Chambers at his Bible Training College and over Jock’s objections, Claire is drawn into life at the BTC, where she meets her God. Jock’s job takes the family to Cairo at the same time the Chambers family moves there to work at a YMCA encampment.
Claire finds her loyalties divided between a YMCA worker and a New Zealand soldier, while her reporter duties increase.
Her hostile father demands she choose between her family and her faith–a choice Claire has no desire to make.
As the war grinds on and death stalks loved ones, Claire encounters many experiences which try her soul, her emotions and her job.
You’ll have to read the entire book to find out what happens in Paris on November 11, 1918.
Launch date:
A Poppy in Remembrance will launch via Amazon in November 2018, just in time to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I.
Pre-sales will go up soon.
Why write about World War I?
In 2013, an editor called my agent looking for someone to write an inspirational novel that began the day WWI began and ended the day WWI ended.
While discussing the idea, I suggested the Oswald Chambers story could provide a backdrop for an inspirational story set during the war.
He basically led a revival among ANZAC troops in Egypt.
My agent asked, “Can you write it?”
There’s only one answer to such a question from your agent. “Sure.”
That set me off researching and writing about World War I ever since.
You can read the full story here.
A surprising result of the research
I’ve written more than 50 blog posts about World War I as a result, and more than 100 posts about Oswald and Biddy Chambers.
The biography I wrote, Mrs. Oswald Chambers, was the direct result of the research I did while writing the book.
Through my blog posts, I tell the stories behind the writing and include scenes from the novel.
Among them are:
The significance of poppies and WWI.
The question of cowardice and being awarded a white feather
The challenges of researching Egypt
Oswald, Biddy, and Kathleen Chambers
Oswald, Biddy, and Kathleen are “marquee characters” in A Poppy in Romance. That means they’re real-life people who appear in a novel as themselves.
The most widely read blog posts on this website are about Oswald, Biddy, and Kathleen Chambers. I wrote them because of the research I did for this book.
One answers the perennial question–which is closely examined in the novel, A Poppy in Remembrance: “Why did God allow Oswald Chambers to Die so Young?”
Another describes the life of a toddler in a World War I army camp: Kathleen Chambers: Little Girl in a WWI Camp.
One early reader, a missionary in Papua New Guinea wrote about the effect of A Poppy in Remembrance, to her:
“I spent yesterday reading and finished A Poppy in Remembrance.
“Michelle, I am deeply moved. Oswald and Biddy came alive. In this book, you showed us OC’s legacy. How their simple ministry bore fruit.
“This book truly is the companion book to Mrs. Oswald Chambers in many ways. So much grief, yet there is always hope.”
Another reader described the novel as, “answering the question: what would it have been like to study under Oswald Chambers?”
But it’s also about a woman’s role in journalism in the early 20th century.
Claire Meacham wants to be a foreign correspondent like her father–but how can she break into such a male-dominated position?
One newspaper reporter read the opening and said, “It brought back to me all the wonderful things about journalism in the past.”
Trained as a newspaper reporter in college, I remembered my early years–and mistakes–when like Claire I was trying to figure out just who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.
Claire reflects on the example set by her heroine, reporter Nellie Bly, and reacts with horror when she visits the site of the first Zeppelin attack on British soil.
She envies Mary Roberts Rhinehart’s trip to the front and fumes she can’t go, too.
And there’s love, too.
“Will I always be torn like this, between what a man expects of me and what I want?” Claire asks.
She wonders at the hallmarks of a good marriage.
Biddy Chambers sets her to examining Ephesians.
Claire realizes what she wants is a marriage of love and respect like that of her parents. Is that the type of relationship in which she finds herself?
And, finally, how do you choose to marry or not when the stakes are so high?
Coming in November
It will be available in November. Keep watching this site and reading the blog posts that relate to the story.
Some of us cry everytime we get to the end!
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Interested in Oswald and Biddy Chambers? In 2017, I told the stories about the amazing ways God led me through the writing of two books about them, in my newsletter.
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