Meet Angela Benson, author of Sins of the Father

Angela, tell us about yourself.

I’m an author with a full-time job as a university professor. I liked school so much that I went long enough to get five degrees, including a doctorate in instructional technology from the University of Georgia in 2001.

Kensington Books published my first novel, Bands of Gold, back in 1994 during the launch year of Arabesque Books, their ground-breaking line of romances featuring African-Ameircan heroes and heroines. In total, I published five romance novels and one romance novella with Arabeseque during the 1994-1997 timeframe. BET Books (now Harlequin Books) released a collection of three of those early books (Bands of Gold, For All Time and Between the Lines) in April 2006. I also published two novels with Silhouette Books which were recently re-issued.

My first Christian fiction titles were Christian romances. Awakening Mercy (Tyndale House Publishers) hit bookshelves in 2000. It was a finalist for both the RITA Award for Excellence in Romance Fiction and the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian Fiction. Abiding Hope (Tyndale), winner of the EMMA Award for Excellence in Romance Fiction, followed in 2001. My third Christian fiction title and tenth book overall, The Amen Sisters (Walk Worthy Press, 2005), which was an Essence bestseller, marked my entry into what is considered mainsteam Christian fiction.

In my eleventh and twelfth books, Up Pops the Devil (Avon, 2008) and Sins of the Father (Avon, 2009), I refine my Christian fiction a bit into what I characterize as inspirational family drama.  In inspirational family drama, the main characters are related, the story problem threatens to break the family bonds in some way, and one or more characters deal with a faith issue.

What type of jobs or careers have you worked in the past?

I’m on my third career.  My first, and longest, career was as a systems engineer in the telecommunications industry. The last project I worked on was the Caller ID service.  Then I spent three years as a full-time writer and part-time student.  My current, and last, career is as a university professor.  I teach and conduct research in instructional technology.

Who are your favorite authors?

I refuse to answer this one. I have too many author friends that I read and enjoy.  Every time I make a list, I leave somebody out.

What are your favorite books?

I’m going to be safe here and stick with non-fiction books.

When did you begin to realize you wanted to write?

I started writing when I was in fifth grade.  At the time, I had no idea that writing was a career option.  I just wrote for my class.  It wasn’t until twenty years later that I began to explore writing as a career.

Tell us about your journey to publication.

I sold the first book that I wrote. I started writing it in 92, sold it in 93 and it was published in 94. That’s not bad for writers.

But a lot happened between the time I started writing and the time I sold my book. The first, and I think the most important, is that I joined Romance Writers of America, the national chapter and the local chapter. The support and information that I received from this group has been invaluable.

Secondly, I joined a critique group of new writers like myself. We met at the local RWA meeting. When we started meeting we knew next to nothing about writing, but we learned together. Five people participated in the critique group and three of us are now published.

Thirdly, I set goals and kept them. My first goal was to write a synopsis and three chapters so I could enter a contest. I accomplished that goal. My next goal was to finish the book in order to enter another contest. I accomplished that one was well. Using contests as milestones help me set and manage my goals. In addition, the critiques from contest judges helped me hone my writing skills.

Lastly, I learned to accept rejection. All writers want their work to be loved and adored by all. I do too, but that’s not a realistic expectation. Your writing is not going to resonant with every reader.

That’s a fact of life. Think about John Grisham and Danielle Steele. Not everybody thinks their work is wonderful, yet they have magnificent careers-careers that we’d all like to have. As a beginning writer, you have to be prepared for rejection. You can’t let one rejection or ten rejections get you so down that you become discouraged and quit writing. You have to hang in there until you sell. And even after you sell, rejection is still a part of the writer’s life.

Are you a full-time writer? If so, describe your day?

No.  In addition to writing, I’m a university professor.

About the Book

Successful media mogul Abraham Martin has great wealth, an elegant wife, Saralyn, and a rebellious son, Isaac. He also has a secret: a second family that no one knows about. Now, after thirty years—driven by the urging of his long dormant conscience—Abraham is determined to do the right thing by finally bringing his illegitimate children into the light…and into the family fold.

But beautiful, manipulative Saralyn will never accept the proof of her husband’s indiscretions. Isaac the heir, shaken by his father’s revelations, will fight mercilessly when his world is threatened, and may lose everything that matters as a result. And while Abraham’s forgotten daughter Deborah is open to the undreamed-of possibilities suddenly awaiting her, son Michael cannot forgive the man who cruelly abandoned them to near poverty. And he’s driven by only one desire: revenge!

Angela Benson’s Sins of the Father is a powerful story of a house bitterly divided—a rich, multilayered family saga of betrayal and redemption, rage and compassion, faith, forgiveness, and ultimately, of love.

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For more information about Angela, visit her at .