Of Giveaways & Change
May 04, 2026 11:01 am
This email will be a little different, because I just sent off a newsletter a little while ago and don’t have much new stuff to put in the categories, but I had to send this new one out right now due to the contents of this letter. There’s a lot of exciting things to talk of today, and I think the change will be fun for us all.
I’ve been thinking of change a lot lately... The topic of marriage has come up in my conversations with a friend, and we were discussing the various things we were scared about or worried over or sad to potentially lose. It reminded me of something I’d just read in a story I “beta-ed” for my friend Kate, concerning Jane Eyre. A character called Jane someone whose life “changes so many times and she has to learn to be okay through it.”
You might know JE is one of my favourite books ever... but honestly, I’d never considered how often Jane’s life changes. Yet over and over again she has to learn to not just survive but thrive—to let go of what cannot be anymore, to find the good in her new season, and to seek the grace she needs to bear the bad.
I found that sentiment really comforting just now. With summer coming up on us, I’d like become someone who learns to be okay with her life changing... even if it’s changing many times. And in the meantime, I want to take time to enjoy what I have, because someday, I’ll wish for it again—and nostalgia has a way of making you forget the inconveniences that bugged you so much in the moment.
With love,
Katja
|| A Freebie ||
It's not exactly a freebie, but I’ve teamed up with two lovely authors to do my first giveaway!!! *cue all the confetti* The prize is a SIGNED paperback copy of two Christian Fiction books handling adoption and foster care: Tears into Thy Bottle by Kellyn Roth and Birds on a Wire by Katie Powner. My reviews are linked in the titles if you wanna look them up (they both contain some more mature topics and I’d recommend them for ages 16-18+, depending on the person, but they’re both “clean” Christian fiction). You can enter the giveaway here and it’s open until May 10th. This giveaway is open to the continental U.S. only; but fellow internationals, you are not forgotten! Scroll on 😉
Eighteen-year-old Bri Marshall is determined to do whatever it takes to get her newborn son back after he's taken by CPS. But the chances of reunification with Providence are slim. Her drug-addicted boyfriend is the only reason she has a roof over her head. With no job, no car, and no family support, she's at rock bottom, hanging on to hope by a thread.
Laura Gambler, on the brink of turning forty, is managing new challenges with her own children when she's asked to take in Providence. She never could have imagined the chain of events her agreement to foster the baby would set in motion—or the carefully buried pain from her past it would drag back to the surface.
Both women wrestle with doubts about the future and their ability to parent Providence, even as their love for him grows stronger every day. As their lives become irrevocably intertwined, they face an impossible question: Who is the best mother for Providence?
~ // ~
That I may walk before God in the light of the living ...
Returning home after a visit to her sister, Alice Strauss is caught off guard when her husband, Peter, raises a subject long buried beneath years of grief: adoption. For Peter, it feels like a hopeful next step, but for Alice, the idea awakens old fears—deeply tied to her own complex past and the fragile peace she’s only just begun to reclaim.
With contentment finally within reach and their life settling into a welcome rhythm, Alice worries she may do more harm than good as a mother. As sorrow and betrayal strike close to home—shattering friendships, fracturing families, and bringing unexpected losses—Alice and Peter must once again cling to each other and to the faith that sustained them through their darkest days.
This novel is the seventh book in The Chronicles of Alice & Ivy, a Victorian family saga with strong Christian themes.
|| News ||
// I’ve included the link in the automated welcome email now (can’t believe I didn't think of it before) but for y’all who’ve just signed up after hearing there was a giveaway coming, I have a dropbox folder containing free copies of most of my stories, and some free wallpaper & bookmarks as well. Let me know if it doesn’t work :)
// Don’t forget: the LBFJ Story Contest is back!! After a great first trial in Quarter 1, I decided to host the contest again for a second quarter. Please do read the rules as we have some new ones. 😉 Also, the story of the first winner for Q1 has been posted: “Tomorrow, or, the Bookseller of Killbourne” (the next one is coming on the 11th).
|| A Film Spotlight ||
|| A Poll ||
I told you last month we’d have a big poll, and here we are. I’ve collected all my questions about the newsletter in one place, and you can answer them all here. Once you have, just shoot me a reply to tell me that you’ve filled out the poll and I’ll email you back a brand-new story, never seen before (except by a few betas and a contest judge, lol).
|| A Series Spotlight ||
If you’re an Emma M. Lion fan (🙋🏻♀️) and you need something while awaiting book 9, let me introduce you to Edith Worms. It’s just as binge-able, and similar in style... except it has dragons 😉 They’re some of the most deep, beautiful, vibrant books I’ve ever read. It’s such a sweet, honest, comforting series, mixing the good things of life like cake, supportive family, beautiful nature, good books, and yes, dragons, and the difficult things like racism + anti-semitism, toxic/dysfunctional relationships, historical evils, and personal struggles. I can’t praise or recommend them too highly. It was my favourite series of 2024, and I cannot wait to reread it.
You can find all my reviews here: Wormwood Abbey ~ Drake Hall ~ Castle of the Winds ~ City of Serpents ~ Valley of Dragons ~ Janushek in Love (#5.5, not pictured).
|| A Thought ||
In my March wrap-up post I mentioned how lately, I’ve been grappling with the realization that home will never again be close to or hold all the people I love. And in the introduction I was sharing how I’ve come to realize that every season of our lives with contain both sunshine and shadow... and wherever I go, I’ll never “belong” or fit in 100%. Naturally, these topics have accidentally bled into my writing. Today I’ll share with you an (utterly unedited!) snippet from my current WIP, book 3 in the Song of Seasons series.
“Do you miss Canada?” she asked wistfully, as the train began to move.
“Of course I do,” said Rupert, his own face growing a little sad. “I think—well, I hope, someday, to return. England is a good place—but I miss my people, and I want to settle down among them. I want my children to know their heritage.”
“It’s hardly ours,” Myriam argued. “We’re more English than we are Québécois.”
“Quoi?” he exclaimed in extreme disbelief.
“I mean, our father was English. Our mother was French. We don’t have a drop of Canadian blood in us, let alone Québécois heritage.”
“We weren’t raised English, nor were we raised French—”
“We weren’t raised any way, really.”
“—but we were raised among the Québécois. We certainly learned far more from them than we ever did from our parents. It’s where we fit in—it’s where we feel comfortable, where we belong, where we are welcomed. That is the meaning of home. That is our people.”
Myriam fell silent. She had spent her life confined to the limits of their home, only going to church or on long walks alone. Everywhere else she had been accompanied by a member of the family. Apart from Mamie, her nurse, she had never grown very familiar with anyone else around. She did not belong anywhere, really. She was not particularly welcome anywhere. She did not have a home that she longed to return to. As much as she missed Canada, it was with a nostalgic love—a love that really longed for the past, for the childhood that despite its pain seemed so golden and fair by reason of the powerful, pleasant memories she cultivated, resolutely shorn of any unhappiness.
Until recently, she would have said that yes, she would like to see her native shores again—but no, she did not want to leave here, with the new groove she’d fallen into. Yet now, with the children gone, the comfortable familiarity of her life had been ended. In two months, when she and Rupert returned to London, they would have to create a new rhythm, dig a new rut.
If she returned to Québec now, would she fit in worse than before? She was not Québécoise, of that she was sure. But neither was she English, and she was certainly not French.
Was there nowhere she could belong?
Would she ever find the home Rupert described?
{The Clouds Ye So Much Dread ©️copyright Katja H. Labonté, 2026}