Paint the Sunset by Dawn V. Cahill
NEW RELEASE!
GOLDEN STATE TRILOGY
Book III
PAINT THE SUNSET
More about Paint the Sunset:
Exploring today’s social problems, Paint the Sunset tells the story of believers navigating a new world of drug addiction and homelessness in the finale to Dawn V. Cahill’s Hot Topic fiction series.
Newlyweds Jon and Meg Paulson are enjoying the good life in beautiful Marin County, California. Jon runs a successful business, and Meg eagerly anticipates the birth of her first grandchild. But their contentment is shattered when Jon discovers his shop ransacked, and the culprits on the run. With the rampant drug culture enslaving new victims every day, even their own children succumb to addiction. Will Jon and Meg lose everything they hold dear, or does God have other plans?
Meanwhile, an investigative reporter goes undercover to a local homeless camp, and a devastated young woman, Myla, is fleeing from the law and from her own demons. Will the reporter uncover the corruption responsible for so many ruined lives? Will Myla’s tragic past catch up to her, or will she find hope for a new future?
WHY I WROTE PAINT THE SUNSET
A few months ago, I watched an appalling YouTube documentary on homelessness in a certain US west coast city. The hosts filmed block after block of shanty-like structures, ragged tents, trash, and graffiti, and compared it to Haiti. They blamed several factors: rampant drug use, lack of law enforcement, indifference by city policy makers, high rents.
In the scenic west coast city where I live, I have seen in person the tragic after-effects of the opioid crisis, chronic narcotic addiction, and out-of-control housing costs. In my city, it might not appear as bad as what I saw in the video, but it sure appears to be headed that way. With all the blue tents blocking sidewalks (the tents and tarps are given out by the county, I’ve learned), the piles of trash, the ugly graffiti and broken-down RVs, my city has become unrecognizable. Crime has soared, and people are concerned.
But why? Why didn’t we see this scene ten, fifteen years ago? What has happened to our nation?
If you live in a major US metropolitan area, you have likely been affected by the homeless crisis which has exploded in the past ten or so years, especially in the states of California, Florida, and New York. In this story, I aimed to humanize the problem by setting part of the story in a homeless camp. In my own experience with a homeless outreach ministry, the houseless folks I chatted with one-on-one proved to be real people like you and me who had either gotten caught up in addiction, or some other misfortune had victimized them. But so many others have been hardened from years of substance abuse. These are some of the ones either doing the victimizing, or they are capitalizing off the addicts.
I also found, as illustrated in Paint the Sunset, numerous reasons why people end up on the street. But too many times public policies try to solve the problem with a singular focus instead of getting to the root cause or emphasizing prevention. Perhaps it takes too much individual investment and time? Yet I am thankful for the many non-profit organizations and ministries who do take time to tailor individual solutions. In my opinion, however, there just aren’t enough of them. As the fictional county official in Paint the Sunset said, “The problem is exploding faster than we can solve it.”
This is not merely a liberal or conservative problem. Blaming the other side won’t solve anything, yet too often I see pointing fingers on social media. In my opinion, we can only solve the problem through practical, sacrificial means, and by being willing to invest time and resources into individual lives.
As the books in my Hot Topic Fiction series demonstrate, it’s clear there are no pat or easy answers to complex social problems. But individual believers can do a lot. Together, we can be the hands and feet of Jesus.
About the Author
Dawn V. Cahill, an indie author from the land of microbrews and coffee snobs, published her first book, When Lyric Met Limerick, in 2015. She published her first full-length novel, Sapphire Secrets, in January of 2016. “The characters in my stories face situations which would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago. We live in a vastly different world than our parents did, and that’s the world I write about.”
Seeing an unfilled niche in the Christian market for edgier fiction, Ms. Cahill came up with the concept of Hot Topic Fiction (HTF) at an intensive four-day writers conference. HTF isn’t afraid to explore the question, how does God want us Christians to live out our faith in this not-so-brave new world? Without insulting the reader by offering pat or easy answers—because there aren’t any—HTF tells stories of ordinary Christians following hard after Christ in a world of terror and violence, of upside-down morality, of hostility to Judeo-Christian values.
She has written six novels, several newspaper articles, and more limericks than she can count. Email her at dawn@dawnvcahill.com, or find her on Facebook, Twitter, and her website. She is a member of Oregon Christian Writers (OCW) and American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW).
Thank you, Julie, for helping get the word out!
Dawn, You are most welcome. Congrats on your release!