Snuggled in front of the fire. Sipping hot chocolate. Is it just me or do Hallmark Christmas movies stir up the holiday romance in all our hearts? Maybe, like me, you want a little holiday romance under your Christmas tree with all the other packages.

With six romance novels, not counting her other nine books, Catherine Ulrich Brakefield qualifies as a romance expert. Of course, her own love story reads like an epic novel with a swept-off-her-feet beginning!

Two Great Conversations with Catherine

Romance Writer With a Swept Off Her Feet Story! with Catherine Ulrich Brakefield

Holiday Romance under Your Tree? Catherine Ulrich Brakefield Shares Her Wisdom

Holiday Romance in Hawaii

Finally settled in her seat, she glanced up as the handsome sailor, Edward Brakefield, sat next to her on the plane. Polite but firm, she tried to ignore him to watch the movie. On holiday with her sister and a dear friend, she daydreamed of sandy beaches. Naturally, romance never climbed to her top ten things to do in Hawaii. 

Little did she know, Ed’s naval intelligence skill set played full force to his advantage. Even before she knew he existed, he spotted Catherine and negotiated pre-flight with the boarding agent for the seat next to hers.

As they chatted, he asked how he could find her once they arrived. She shrugged her shoulder. With proper manners, she refused to give him any information on the plane. Once they arrived, the girls further sabotaged his efforts accidentally.

A God Thing!

“I wanted this hotel that was hundred years old,” says Catherine, laughing about how her devotion to history led her to make a big mistake when booking the reservation. “But, no air conditioning! You know me, history, history.” (For more on raising history-loving kids, click here.)

Since the hot weather forced the young women to change hotels, they unpacked in the new accommodations. When they returned to the lobby, Ed was waiting for her. She was amazed.

“Wow! How did you find me?”

He told her it was a God-thing. Amazingly, he happened to see her turn the corner with her suitcase. For the next week, he spent every waking hour trying to be in her company. Undeterred, he even lined up blind dates for her two travel companions. 

Only a week later, on the last night of her trip, he proposed! Bewildered, she laughed!

“You’re kidding, right?”

Romantically Inclined

Over forty years later, she still prizes a couple of suitcases full of love letters she and her husband wrote back and forth in the months that followed. Today, real life still informs her writing.

“My novels don’t have the normal feel-good romance you see in most novels. It’s a tug of war romance; a true romance,” she says, adding, “It’s hard out there to know the truth about a man! We need to know what to look for, the signs.”

Thinking about the intersection of perseverance, fun, and romance, Catherine has some great insight about how to create your best life, including how to stir up holiday romance in your marriage. 

Writing about Romance or Anything Else

Particularly for those wanting to write, Catherine offers this terrific advice. Whatever God is calling you to do—whether it’s writing or sparking up romance in your home or any purpose God gives you—be true to your calling. (For how to foster a love of writing in your gifted child, click here.)

#1 Be true to your calling.

“A lot of times, we know what we want to do. But we have to listen to the Holy Spirit to tell us what he wants us to do. Because he really does know best,” she says.

#2 Listen to the word of God. 

“In the end it’s going to be what he wants, not what we want. To tell you the truth, it happens every time with me,” she laughs, “I know what I want, but it’s not always what God wants.” 

#3  Sometimes time is delayed. 

“We just have to wait on the Lord and trust him for his grace. Sometimes time is delayed, like me for twelve years.” She thinks about the twelve years when her grandmother lived with her family as a treasure. During those years her commitments kept her from writing, even as she grew from the challenges they faced together. (For encouragement in the wait, click here.)

“It helped me to understand people more and life’s hardships better. That’s the most important part, I think.” Looking back, the hardships prepared her to create the characters she now writes into her stories. (For wisdom and help with your aging parent, click here.)

Recognizing the Calling and Commitment

“I love to read; I would just consume books,” Catherine laughs. “But I never thought I’d be a writer. I didn’t think I’d be good enough to do that.”

Commitment came up a lot as I interviewed Catherine; a recurring theme in her life and her writing. For Catherine, God’s plans included writing, but first she had a commitment to make to him. 

“I got a wake up call from my heavenly Father one day. Really, I was a church-going girl.” A Catholic, Catherine loved everything associated with church. “I went to catechism, everything you can think of. And I was even a catechism teacher,” she says, explaining how much she loved the spiritual aspects of life. In spite of her enthusiasm, God was calling her to make a different kind of commitment to him. 

“One day I was listening to Billy Graham and he was doing a television sermon. I just went down on my knees and I said, ‘Well, I haven’t done this yet. Okay, Lord, I’m asking you into my heart.’ I’d done everything else.”

A Winning Writer

Soon after, she competed and won an invitation to a Billy Graham writing conference. Pregnant with her first child, she began to write. Two months after her daughter’s birth, her grandmother needed a place to live. (For more on how grandparents can influence the next generation, click here.)

“The crazy thing is this. I think this is how the Lord works,” she says about the surprising ways life often unfolds. Catherine and Ed felt the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit to invite her grandmother to come live with them. Ed was enthusiastic.

“He was all for it. She was a southerner and he was a southerner. I thought it would be a couple of months. It was twelve years.” Her writing took a detour.

“For twelve years, I was enrolled in God’s School of Christian Learning,” she laughs. (Okay, I LOVED this phrase and plan to totally adopt the GSCL for my family!)

Under My Christmas Tree

I read her first book in the Destiny Series for our interview, but I ordered the other three for my own little Christmas present to myself! (To find Catherine’s books, click here.) Her books surprised me page after page. If you read a ton, you know the disappointment of predictable plots or characters! 

Catherine manages to weave in unexpected, human aspects to each character. Her characters are surrounded by historic moments, but they don’t follow a stereotype of how they should feel about the circumstances happening all around them. Plus, she weaves in terrific research about the era.

Ah! What a joy to learn the easy way, with a romance novel in my lap and my smart phone in my hand! In fact, Catherine’s writing challenges me to study up to double check details I missed in history class as a kid.

Spark Romance at Home

When I asked Catherine about sparking up romance in our own marriages, she started with a story about a cross. She described walking through the woods near Gettysburg while traveling with her dad, a veteran.

“I came across a Celtic cross dedicated to the Irish Brigade. Oh, my goodness these people came over from Ireland and fought for the Union, too. My mother was from the South, My dad was from the North.”

Inspired by the memorial hidden in the woods, Catherine included the research she discovered in her book, Swept into Destiny. 

Christian Values Worth Fighting For

“They (the Irish immigrants) did such a beautiful thing in their dedication to America, in their fight.” When the fighting was over, the country mourned. Survivors erected memorials.

“But look what they did. They didn’t put a man on a horse, they didn’t put a person. Instead, they put a cross of Jesus because to them that was the essence of their faith.”

“Immigrants came over because they embraced the American dream. They embraced the Christian values; they didn’t want to change them.” Instead, they wanted to embrace and uphold them. “And fight for them.” (For more on securing our religious liberty, click here.)

Christian values are an underpinning of American values, according to Catherine. In fact, Christian values are what makes this country so successful, she says, and “our families, too.”

Christian, Romance, and Commitment

Combining the two words, Christian and romance, may seem unexpected to some, but not to Catherine.

“I felt like the most important ingredient to spark romance in marriage is commitment. Commitment to first follow God’s word. Second, commitment to one another. The respect we give to each other and the honesty.” For wisdom on the intersection of faith, commitment, and true love, Catherine quotes a character in one of her books. 

“Life’s biggest decisions are made when youth is too young to know love. How does youth know when love is forever. Or is it commitment one to another that binds the heart when romanticism is replaced by reality,” explains Aunt Louis, in Destiny’s Whirlwind.

“We’re all gonna come down out of the stars. After the wedding,” laughs Catherine.

Building Relationships in Historical Circumstances

“All through my books you’re going to see how the McConnell women do. They’re not perfect, neither are their spouses. They’re going to be moving through their problems and getting through to the true love—the unconditional love—that everybody wants.”

Of course, learning to live in the historical circumstances of the moment and build relationships is key to commitment and long term relationships, a concept permeating Catherine’s books.

“The word endurance is used throughout the Bible. God repeatedly reminds us to be patient and to endure,” she says. “I spent twelve years learning the hard truth that my grandmother gave me far more than I gave my grandmother. That lesson of faith and perseverance has helped my through life’s trials.”

May we pray together?

Dear Father, Life has a way of teaching us hard truths about endurance and commitment. Thank you for your example of unfailing, unconditional love. Your grace strengthens us for the day’s challenges. Give us hearts to love each other in a world full of rejection and bitterness. Help our hearts forgive each other. Draw us close to you, O good Father, as we spend time with family over the holidays. 

Please, strengthen us to see the delight you have in those we love. Give us hearts to cherish our loved ones, especially a spouse. Help us create romantic moments filled with tenderness and thanksgiving. Thank you, O Lord, for blessing us with your divine presence. We are grateful for the gift of your Son. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

We LOVE to hear from you!

What’s your favorite romantic way to spark holiday romance? Who’s your favorite book character ever created and why? Which books are on your Christmas giving list this year?

For Christmas Giving: Books! Yay!!

Since I promised to share, here are some of my favorite books for Christmas giving. With delight, I sincerely hope this makes your shopping easier! (Nobody pays me for recommendations, these are just some of the ones under my tree this year.)

For Kids: 

Want to share the marvel of God’s creation with your grands? Dinosaur Devotions made it into my grandkiddos’ stockings. Filled with dinosaur facts and fun pictures, older kids will love it for independent study. Written with her dinosaur-loving daughter in mind, Michelle Medlock Adams calls this book “a project of the heart.” To add our interview with Michelle to any of your gift books, click here.

For History Lovers and Men Who Love Battle Stories:

Now don’t miss Danny Sessums’s new 2-volume set of fabulous first-source A Force to Be Reckoned With. Also, Dann’s books make a great gift for research-loving writers. With a few clicks you can download Danny’s own personal stories and wisdom on Fireside Talk Radio to include in your gift to a history-loving friend!

For Gals:

For an inspiring devotion, Michelle and Bethany’s book, Platinum Faith: Live Brilliant, Be Resilient, & Know Your Worth. Happily for me, Michelle and I connected through our mutual friends at Elk Lake Publishing. (For more positive insight from other Elk Lake authors, click here.)

Also, remember to look for historic novels from Sandra Melville Hart. For more, click here to find the interview we did together or her mom’s pumpkin pie recipe. As a personal touch to your gift, you can download our interview and include it with any of her entertaining historical fiction.

Of course, several of my kids are getting prayerwalking Janet McHenry’s books this year. If you order through her website, they arrived signed by the author. Be sure and tell her I sent you in the comment block! For her Fireside Talk Radio interview, click here.

For more about Catherine’s hallmark-friendly romance books or to discover more fiction and nonfiction from our friends at CrossRiver Media, click here.

I’m wishing you a cuddly Christmas with those you love and a good book!

Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.