New Novel Deals with Issues of Adventist Women, Science and Faith

September 12, 2016:    Ella Rydzewski has given a career to Adventist publications, serving as an editorial assistant for a number of years at both the Adventist Review and Ministry magazine, among others. She says that she always wanted to write a novel for women over 40 in the introduction to Starting Over in the Past, her new book which uses fiction to address serious issues of faith and life challenges.

It is a mystery and a romance novel, but much more than that. The central character, Catherine Weaver is a seminary professor in Washington DC and her husband is a gifted scientist. He dies unexpectedly and she finds herself suddenly a widow. She needs to care for her aged mother, so she moves back to her family’s 100-year-old house in a small town in Pennsylvania and teaches at a small Bible college.

The story becomes a trip back in time for her because this is the place where she met her husband as a young immigrant from Japan years earlier. She has to confront hidden aspects of his life and research which result in real danger. She also meets a man, a science teacher who struggles with the college’s position against evolution and presents the possibility of a new relationship.

The story deals with the realities of life’s spiritual journey, relationships and contemporary issues for educated believers. It has an Adventist sensibility about it, but it is not explicitly identified as an Adventist story.

Starting Over in the Past is available from Amazon as both an eBook and a paperback. It was published by Westbow Press.

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