Dreams In The Distance

By Nan Rinella

Description:

Dreams in the Distance, Book I of THE CHOICE series: What voices influence your choices?

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had?
The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis

Faced with your greatest choices, how do you know which one is right?

It is 1952 Britain. The war is over, but not the personal battles for beautiful Lily Whitely; brilliant Phila Claiborne; her brother, the blueblood Hugh Claiborne; the brave Ollie Ogilvie; and the beguiling Dan McCauley.

• Lily desires a future and fame in the world of fashion.
• Phila revels in studying at university with her literary heroes, but longs to find her Prince Charming.
• Hugh’s deepest desire is to find the glory and honor he never realized during the war.
• Ollie confronts his wartime demons, proceeding a new life path hoping to find happiness.
• Dan, grounded from flying, seeks solace in humanism and the love of a woman.

But they have an enemy more insidious than they ever could have imagined, one bent on destroying their dreams – and their souls.

They find themselves tangled in a web of personal crises and deception, throughout London and Oxford, where they encounter angels, dark whispers, and choices that will change their lives forever.

Infused with the influences (and appearances) of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Nan Rinella has crafted a powerful tale about the decisions we make (and where those decisions take us) that will delight readers far beyond their expectations.

Book Takeaway:

"I hear vile voices like these characters do. I thought they were my own repugnant thoughts. I'm a horrible person. You mean they are part of the enemy's strategy? How can I combat them? I will join the discussion on your website to learn more."

Why the author wrote this book:

After the final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia the questioned remained ... "Whatever happened to Susan?" No longer a friend of Narnia, would she eventually find her way to Aslan's country? What might have happened to a 21-year-old girl who also lost her family in the actual 1952 London railway crash? Would Bitterness & Blame steal her faith forever or would it take a lifetime to be reconciled to the Lord? What voices would influence her choices, and her fellows along the journey.

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”
Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis