Celebrate Lit Blog Tour: Faces of Courage by Susan K. Beatty

July 04, 2021

Book: Faces of Courage

Author: Susan K. Beatty

Genre: Christian Woman’s Fiction

Release date: May 11, 2021

Fear strangles even the faithful sometimes.

Despite every attempt to be brave, fear has defined Olivia Stanford’s life: with each new foster home, when her adopted parents died leaving her all alone again, trusting and marrying her husband, Frank, and coping with his football injuries and career loss.

Without faith, fear only grows in the face of adversity.

When Frank becomes abusive, Olivia enters a terror-filled life in her upscale Southern California home. Common sense demands she dig deep for the courage to confront him–to demand change. Fear and confusion push back.

And just as courage finally blooms within her comes the terrifying diagnosis: breast cancer.

Some say courage is found at the intersection of faith and grit. How will Olivia manage to summon either in the midst of this new battle?

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Women's Christian Fiction is a favorite genre of mine. Faces of Courage by Susan K. Beatty is a book that falls into that genre. Susan K. Beatty is a new to me author, so I was excited to read this book. The synopsis also is very strong and it drew me in also.

Olivia Stanford has had a difficult life. She was part of the foster system before being adopted. Her adopted parents passed away, leaving her alone and scared. She found a man, Frank, and fell in love and married. Frank has lost his job and his old football injuries are giving him issues. Frank becomes abusive to Olivia. Olivia, who has had a life filled with fear, now the fear is ravaging and she would like to have a life with no fear. She begins to muster up the courage to stand up to Frank, then comes the news that she has Breast Cancer. Will Olivia be able to overcome her fear of Frank and stand up to him? Will Olivia be a Breast Cancer Survivor?

"I'm not crying your crying" says me! WOW, this book really tugs at the readers heart. The author does a GREAT job with the 2 sensitive topics of Breast Cancer and Spouse Abuse. The writing style is very good. Olivia thought she had no support, especially in the wake of being abused, but she finds support. Her greatest support is her faith in God during her trials. I cried and also had smiles throughout this book. GREAT BOOK!

”Courage: The intersection of faith and Grit”

Susan K. Beatty is passionate about finding courage through faith and grit, particularly through the trials of breast cancer. Her daughter is a metastatic breast cancer “thriver” and has been an inspiration for her writing. Susan retired from a full-time job in 2017 and is now pursuing a novel-writing career. Her first novel, “Faces of Courage,” is in revision. Susan is the author of “An Introduction to Home Education” (AKA “California Homeschool Manual”), was the assistant director of the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference and is the president of her local ACFW-OC Chapter. She is a professional writer/journalist. Susan is proof you can begin a fiction writing career after age seventy.

More from Susan

The words “You have breast cancer” can drop you to your knees. What’s worse is when those words are spoken to your thirty-one-year-old daughter. And worse yet when they are spoken to her more than once. My daughter Melanie has had three bouts with breast cancer, the second time classified her with stage IV metastatic breast cancer of which there is no cure. Over an eleven-year period, Melanie has undergone twelve surgeries, one removing two-thirds of her sternum to be replaced by a donor bone with titanium clamps.

Melanie’s courage during these battles inspired me to write about courage at the intersection of faith and grit. True-to-life stories follow characters through cancer and other issues confronting women today.

In Faces of Courage, I wanted to tell a story like Melanie’s but not exactly Melanie’s, a story nevertheless filled with growing courage. Melanie’s journey doesn’t include an abusive husband (Praise God!), but our terrorized heroine Olivia suffers from her husband’s mistreatment, confused by her misunderstanding of how God views her, and challenged by her lack of strong faith. Just as her courage matures and strengthen through these problems, she’s thrown by those knee-buckling words, “You have breast cancer.”

It is necessarily a gritty look at domestic abuse and the realities of dealing with cancer and its various treatments. I wanted to show Olivia’s growth as a wife, how she experienced the cancer, and how, with the help of faith and grit, her courage flourished.

In many ways, this novel is a tribute to women who fight these battles with bravery, even if that valor takes time to develop. I pray the reader, by witnessing another’s journey, is strengthened in her own battles.