Best-Selling Author Makes Trek to

 Scotland

Nashville, TN — Christian author Christine Schaub crosses the pond Thanksgiving week to research Scotland’s George Matheson and his hymn “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” Matheson and his famous hymn are the subject of Schaub’s third book in her successful Music of the Heart series through Bethany House/Baker Books. 

As each book is a “fauxography”—part biography, part fiction—Schaub travels to the hymnwriters’ locales to gather details on their lives, as well as specific settings, social rules, language, and culture. “Historical readers demand accuracy,” said Schaub, “and I don’t want to disappoint them. I need to walk where my characters walked…see what they saw.” 

This is the novelist’s second research trip to Europe. In Spring 2005, Schaub traveled to London and Chatham, Kent to gather information about John Newton and Mary Catlett for The Longing Season—Book #2 in the series and the two-year odyssey behind Newton and his iconic hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The Longing Season released July 2006 to critical acclaim. Finding Anna debuted the series in October 2005. 

Schaub will spend the bulk of her time in Glasgow at the university library, but will make stops at Edinburgh’s Royal Museum, Leeds’ Thackray Medical Museum, and the seaside town of Innellan—where Matheson wrote his iconic hymn in 1882. 

“Great Britain is a treasure house of history,” Schaub explains. “Even small-town libraries have superb collections of old maps, diaries, and newspapers—critical information to keep my characters and settings authentic.” 

Schaub’s bestselling Music of the Heart series features historical tellings of the stories behind our most famous hymns, including “It Is Well With My Soul” and “Amazing Grace.” The series, endorsed by Library Journal, Church Libraries, CCM Magazine, Infuze Magazine, Foreword Magazine and myriad online publications, was translated into Dutch and German, and went hardcover with Crossings Book Club/Bookspan. The Longing Season may also have a tie-in with Walden Media’s March 2007 theatrical release, “Amazing Grace”—the story behind William Wilberforce and his fight against commercial slavery, featuring John Newton in about twenty minutes of footage. 

Christine Schaub is an accomplished writer, speaker, actor and pianist. The hymn-story series began as dramas for church services and conferences, then expanded to teleplays before becoming novels. For more information on the author, visit www.christineschaub.com.

###