Like so many readers, I’m drawn to books that challenge and linger. Stories that ask hard questions and don’t rush to answer them. Narratives that refuse to look away from the brokenness hardwired through humanity.

Lately, this has meant spending time with Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose The Brothers Karamazov I’ve been slowly working through while writing and preparing to release my own novel. Since much has been said about this masterpiece, I will simply say this: if you’re a follower of Christ, you should consider reading it. It is one of the most profound Christian novels ever written.

Reading Meaty Tomes

If you’re familiar with Dostoevsky’s work, you know he doesn’t soften his words. He doesn’t concern himself with whether a story feels comfortable or easy. Instead, he exposes the cost of rebellion against God, the innate conflict within the human soul, and the weight of sin. The Brothers Karamazov is neither sweet nor gentle. Yet it is unmistakably a book where the Gospel is woven through every spellbinding page, and where, beneath the darkness, runs a thread of hope and love so steady and undeniable it takes your breath away. Here is one quote that will always linger: “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

This same thread appears in very different ways in other books I’ve recently loved. In Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, truth does not arrive all at once. It unfolds slowly, almost painfully, as questions rise and fall away in the presence of something far greater than words: “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer.”

In another new-to-me favorite, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, the reality of the Fall collides with the persistent, unfathomable call of grace: “But I didn’t realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people.”

Learning From Classics

These are not light reads, and they might leave a reader with more questions than answers. Perhaps my background in classic literature and religious studies is to blame, but these are the stories I gravitate to, and along with Scripture, they shape the kind of books I write.

Over the past few years, my faith has grown in ways I’m still learning to put into words. It influences not only what I read, but also what I write. And I find myself returning again and again to one truth rooted at the heart of every story I tell: no one is beyond redemption.

Big Day, Big Questions

Tomorrow marks the publication of my new Christian historical novel, Of Flaw and Scorn. Set in the Viking Age, it follows two people from opposing worlds bound by one unexpected act of mercy. It is a story shaped by the same questions that have drawn me to the books lining my shelves:

What does it cost to choose what is right?
What is our response when grace arrives like a tempest?
And can anyone truly be beyond salvation?

As time passes, my reading and writing life become more intertwined. The books I read inform the questions I ask, and the books I write reflect my attempt to address them, even if the answers are neither sweet nor gentle. Because the stories that stay with us aren’t always the easiest, but the ones that lead us, steadily and persistently, toward truth.

 

Vera Bell is a Georgia Author of the Year nominee and a recipient of multiple literary awards. Her new novel, “Of Flaw and Scorn,” is her debut Christian historical romance, where fate collides with faith against the backdrop of the first Viking raid on Ireland.

Vera lives in Atlanta with her husband, two teenagers, and one fur baby.

Learn more at her BRRC Author profile page.