What an honor and pleasure to feature author Liz Tolsma this week. I hope you enjoy learning about her as much as I did through this interview. Be sure to read to the end and enter for your chance to win an ebook version of her historical fiction Slashed Canvas. She has included an excerpt of it below.
Liz, could you first tell us how you develop your plot and characters?
I pretty much fly by the seat of my pants. I do some character development before I start writing, but I really get to know them best throughout the writing process. I know the beginning and the ending and some of what is going to happen in the middle, but the story comes together as I write. Just as the reader likes to be surprised at what happens, so do I. That’s the most fun part of writing.
I definitely agree with you about that! What is the most surprising thing you’ve discovered while writing your books?
One of the most surprising things I discovered was that I learn as much as the reader does. All of my books have a spiritual thread and a theme. The theme of one book was forgiveness. At that time, I was struggling with forgiving someone, so when I spoke about it in the book, I was really speaking to myself. I love that all of my books grow and deepen my faith.
Can you share a snippet of Slashed Canvas that isn’t a blurb or excerpt previously 
published?
The painting spoke to her. From inside its gilded frame, it whispered to her of home. Of golden fields of grain waving in the summer’s breeze, of palaces bright with blazing light amid the darkest days of deep winter, of whirls of colors encircling the onion domes of churches where bells rang in jubilation.
And now those bells tolled for the death of all she loved. The fields lay cut and fallow. The palaces echoed, dark and cold. The churches empty, their bells mourning the passing of the old way of life.
Princess Katarina Volstova sighed and shifted on the padded bench in front of the large painting displayed on the Louvre’s hallowed salle rouge wall, the red rich and deep, covering every surface of the long gallery. Gold-painted swags and medallions covered the coved ceiling, and a gold frame enclosed a massive glass skylight that shone light into the gallery.
But it wasn’t the beauty of the room that capture Katarina. Her sole focus was on the work of art in front of her. Dmitri Popov was a master. Each of his brush’s strokes across the canvas captured Russia in all its glory.
What was the inspiration for this story?
I was asked if I had any interest in writing a fairy-tale-turned-1920s-mystery, and I was intrigued. Then they started throwing out different fairy tales. As soon as they said The Lost Princess, I knew what the story was going to be.
What do you hope your readers will take away from this book?
I hope that readers don’t hate Princess Katarina in the beginning, because she is spoiled and selfish, but she does go on a journey of self-discovery and realizes that life moves forward after tragedy and that God gives us a future that can be bright despite the heartache and sorrow we’ve experienced.
Are you working on anything at the present you’d like to share?
I am currently writing a WWII time-slip novel that is set in Thessaloniki, Greece. It’s about a young woman who discovers through a DNA test that she’s Jewish. She travels to Thessaloniki to try to discover why this has been such a secret in her family. There she learns about a Jewish woman who lived through WWII and ran a newspaper. The secrets she exposes, though, threaten everything she knows.
Visit Liz’s website to learn more about her and sign up for her newsletter here. If you love historical fiction, you’ll want to listen to her podcast, as well.
Comments 2
I have shared this on fb and twitter, Jennifer.
HUGS
Enjoyed the short excerpt. Paints a vivid picture. New, just-published author myself, and I could learn some things from your style! My story, though a Christian historical fiction, is themed differently. See johnsndersonbook.com for some old-time spillage of faith that quenches the consuming fires of fear. An Inheritance Incorruptible is one of those journeys that wears the hat of fiction but has a voice speaking facts of real people living through real trials and being delivered via faith in our real God.
Now my editor is setting up this old redneck with an alien critter known as a ‘Blog’, along with other venues (that you ladies most likely use) to promote my book. I feel this is a work of encouragement; and that purpose drives me to hope many will read it and receive a boost in their spirit. If either of you do so, please leave some feedback. Thank you!