I know, classic Nancy Drew is not Christian fiction, but it is wholesome reading. I found one of the Nancy Drew novels on my bulging shelf of books. I believe I purchased this book back in the days when I toyed with the idea of writing a young adult book, and I even thought about writing a Nancy Drew novel. Needless to say, I never wrote the Nancy Drew title. Last I checked, years ago, the publisher paid for Nancy Drew novels as work-for-hire. I’m not sure if that’s still the case, though.

As I read the book, I found it unbelievable. Does Nancy have nine lives?!! How can somebody almost kill you three times in the book, and it barely rattles her demeanor?? Whenever her life was threatened, it just encouraged her to dig deeper to find the truth so that she could solve the mystery!

I recalled that these were traits that Ms. Drew has always had. I used to read the Nancy Drew novels when I was ten or eleven, maybe? I loved them. The element of danger throughout the story, and then Nancy always managed to solve a mystery to save the day! I even read the Nancy Drew Scrapbook by the late Karen Plunkett-Powell a few years ago. The history of Nancy Drew was certainly interesting. The sleuth is over seventy-five years old, and as far as I can tell, they’re still publishing Nancy Drew titles.

As far as Christian fiction goes with regards to young, female sleuths, the only young adult Christian series I’m familiar with is the Juli Scott series by Colleen Reece. This series was published by Barbour Publishing and when I checked on Amazon.com, I noticed a lot of the Juli Scott titles had been re-released as hardcover Thorndike Press titles. I read a number of these years ago when I was into the whole YA genre. I’d still like to publish a YA series, someday, but right now, I don’t have the time to devote to developing one since I’m busy at work with my Christian romances!

Cecelia Dowdy