October 10th: The Glenbrooke Series

Robin Jones Gunn started her career as a writer of children's and teen's books; then in 1995 she began writing novels for the adult market in what was then a fairly new genre: contemporary Christian fiction. No wagons or bonnets or Amish to be found!

I loved these books as a young adult.  The main characters were around my age, struggling with faith as I sometimes did.
Robin's characters dealt with integrating their faith into their lives, not in the past when times were simpler, but in the constantly-changing 90s, when technology was advancing even more quickly than anyone could imagine.

One of the other fun things about this series was in addition to its easy style and interwoven faith: Robin Jones Gunn integrated her characters throughout the series. Minor characters suddenly appeared in the next book, or two books later. It was so fun! She was the first author I had read who did this. I missed Robin's teen series because I was already in college when they came out, but I understand now that she integrated some of those characters from her Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen series into the Glenbrooke series.

I even got my first publication credit as a direct result of a letter I wrote to the author (yes, friends, a letter--this was a year before we went online at our house)--they published part of my letter in the Crossings Book Club newsletter. This also opened a door for me as a book reviewer with Multnomah Publishers. This was again back before the Internet was widely used, so my reviews were mailed in on paper. I have now been reviewing books for Christian publishers for 18 years!

My final tribute to this series is this: I named one of my daughters after a main character in one of these books.

Fun update: Oh my goodness, let me have a fangirl moment...ROBIN JONES GUNN TWEETED TO ME!!!!!

To read more of this #31DaysofBooks series, visit the introduction post.