But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Romans 5:20
Hello, readers! Thanks for having me today!
My author tagline is “Where Grit Meets Grace.” I love stories that have a redemptive ending, even if the story takes the reader through some “grit” to get there. So when I was asked to write for Barbour Publishing’s True Colors Crime series, I truly debated how to bring the grace element into the tale of a serial killer and his heinous acts. It would take serious balance to show the darkness and depravity of the killer while still ending with grace.
My husband was actually the one to stumble across information on the serial killer I ended up writing about. As we researched various historical killers, he saw one listed as “The Nebraska Fiend” and “The Nebraska Butcher.” Of course, that triggered my Nebraska-born husband’s interest! So he read up on the killer, Stephen Dee Richards, and brought the idea of writing his story to me. At first, I wasn’t sold—mainly because his crimes were spread out across several years and his story spanned several states. It seemed like a difficult story to pare down into an 80,000-word novel.
However, there were two elements to Stephen’s story that made me “pull the trigger” on writing about him. (Sorry—bad joke! LOL) Those two elements were 1) that Stephen started his life going to church and 2) that he ended his life professing salvation in Christ. I hesitate to say anything more about the end of his life, because I would love for you to read The Scarlet Pen and judge for yourself what really happened. But he was raised by a devout Methodist mother who, before her death at Stephen’s age fifteen, made it her mission to have her son in church and Sunday School quite often. It is sad that his life derailed as it did, especially considering the crimes he committed, but the redemptive angle that I was looking for in whatever story I wrote was present in the true history of Stephen Dee Richards. I didn’t have to manufacture it.
I know for many, the story of a historic killer and his very real crimes might feel too dark and gruesome. For that very reason, I found ways to weave in Scripture and faith into the fictional characters’ stories as they interact with or pursue Stephen. The light of Christ is apparent throughout the story—not just at the beginning and the end with Stephen’s journey, but even more through the lives of Stephen’s fiancée, Emma Draycott, and the Secret Service agent, Clay Timmons, who is pursuing him for the counterfeit money he is passing. God is ever-present, and there is no darkness or evil so great that God’s light doesn’t shine even brighter!
The Scarlet Pen by Jennifer Uhlarik
Engaged to a Monster
Step into True Colors — a new series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime
In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?
Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.