Books

NEW RELEASE

By the Rivers of Brooklyn

Breakwater Books, 2009

In the 1920s (just like today) young people left Newfoundland to look for new opportunities and new lives.  Thousands of them ended up in Brooklyn, New York. This novel tells the story of Rose, Bert, and Jim Evans, who, along with Bert’s fiancee Ethel, all move to Brooklyn in 1924 — and their sister Annie, who stays behind in St. John’s.  When tragedy strikes, Ethel makes a desperate choice whose consequences will affect the Evans family for years to come.  Sprawling over three generations and three countries, this epic saga (I’ve always wanted to say that!) is fiction, but was inspired by earlier generations of my own family who, like the Evanses, went to live in Brooklyn.  I think you’ll like it!

By the Rivers of Brooklyn has its very own website where you can find out all sorts of behind-the-scenes info about the book and keep up on readings, signings, and other news.  Reviews and interviews are posted here. You can order the book online from indigo.ca or directly from the publisher.

 

 Daughters of Grace

Review and Herald, 2009

This book, gorgeously illustrated by Robert Hunt, is a collection of the articles I’ve written about women of the Bible for Women of Spirit magazine over the last few years. Each one explores the story of one woman and the relevance it might have for our lives today.  This will be a beautiful gift book. Order it through amazon.com or through the Adventist Book Center’s online store. 
 

 

Older Books

The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson

Penguin Books Canada, 2006

This novel is the result of my 20-year-old fascination with Esther Johnson, close friend (and possibly the secret wife?) of Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift of Gulliver’s Travels fame.   

“In this poised and polished novel…, Trudy Morgan-Cole evokes the social milieu of early-18th century England….Esther Johnson comes vividly to life through Morgan-Cole’s imagined journal entries and poetry. As Esther’s life ebbs, she ponders her choices and weighs the sacrifices they have entailed -an accounting that is as resonant today as it was 300 years ago.” (Quill and Quire)

Buy The Violent Friendship… from amazon.ca or indigo.ca . Not sure yet? Read the first chapter.

Deborah and Barak: If God Be With Us

Review and Herald, 2006

This is my second Biblical novel.  It tells the story of the prophetess Deborah and the liberator Barak, building fiction from the bare bones of the story in Judges 4 and 5. I was curious about how a woman could have risen to a position of such respect in a patriarchal, Bronze Age society.  Also, I wondered about Barak — why did he trust Deborah and rely on her so much? Did he know her before she sent him a message from God? I ended up writing the story from both their points of view — it’s always a challenge to get into the heads of characters so remote from our own time and culture, but I thoroughly enjoyed both Deborah and Barak.  I hope you do too!

Buy Deborah and Barak at amazon.com or adventistbookcenter.com .

Esther: A Story of Courage

Review and Herald, 2003

My retelling of the often-retold story of Queen Esther — a novel that attempts to explore the questions left unanswered in the Bible story. I started by wondering about her marriage.  What would it be like to be one woman among many in a harem? What kind of a relationship could you have with a man who had so many other women competing for his attention. The gaps in the Bible story caught my curiosity — especially the five-year gap between the time Esther is crowned as queen, the most favoured of all the maidens, and the time when Mordecai appeals to her for help and she tells him the king hasn’t even summoned her in a month. What happened? Did she fall from favour? Did he get bored? And what happened after she saved the Jewish nation?

To find out my imaginative answers to those questions, you can buy Esther at amazon.com or adventistbookcenter.com

Besides my novels, I’ve written two books that were used as yearly devotional books in the SDA church — Connecting, for college-age young adults, published in 2003, and God’s Positioning System, for high-school youth, published in 2006.

Several of my earlier books, published by Review and Herald in the mid-1980s-1990s, have since gone out of print.  These include my first novel All My Love, Kate, about a teenager’s quest for God, and the sequel Roommates.  I also wrote a five-book series of young adult novels about life at an Adventist boarding academy, the Best Friends series (Who is Alex Best?; Whatcha Doin’ Alex; Facing the Music; Jackie, Get a Life! and Who Loves Alex Best?).  My very favourite of my “early works” is The Man from Lancer Avenue, a retelling of the story of Jesus in modern setting, which I would love to rewrite and see re-released someday.  All these books are published under the name “Trudy J. Morgan” and are readily available secondhand from sites such as abebooks.com . 

Daughters of Grace: Experiencing God through Their Stories