Faith and Fiction Saturday: The Other Than Romance Books

Faith and Fiction Saturday is a weekly discussion of the intersection of faith and fiction. To participate, simply leave your comments below or write a post on your blog and leave a link in the comments section.

Last week, I asked about the men and Christian fiction and this week I thought it would be interesting to talk about the different roles men and women characters play in today's Christian fiction.

I should note that in trying to pull my thoughts together on this subject that the problem comes back to so much of Christian fiction being romance. I have no problem with romance, personally I enjoy it. What concerns me about calling something Christian fiction and then having most of it be romance is the sheer number of people it ends up excluding, and the way it emphasizes certain ideas. An example of that would be that it emphasizes an incompleteness to life outside of marriage and more often than not, marriage and children.

But I don't want to seem as if I'm complaining...rather I thought it would be fun for us to brainstorm together some books that depict characters in different life stages and that don't emphasize the romantic aspects of their life.

I was trying to think of a book where the character stayed single...and the first example I thought of was Embrace Me by Lisa Samson. There are other reasons this character might remain single, but at least it's a stating place. Can you think of any others?

How about some books that center more on family conflict? Or single moms or dads? People who are retired?

I really loved the SAHM series by Meredith Efken for all of the different roles the women played.

I'm sorry to say I'm having a hard time remembering the last great male main character in Christian fiction I read!

I look forward to you refreshing my memory and suggesting great books!