General News
24 November, 2025
Book series more than a silver lining
WINNING an award for writing was not a goal for Nhill-based author, Karen Rowe, when she started her journey as an author over 10 years ago, but as of last month, that’s exactly where she is now, taking out Silver for a book series in the national ABLE Golden Book Awards last month in Melbourne.
The five-book series called – now even more appropriately – ‘Casts of Silver’ centres around church youth group leaders facing challenges and the consequences of individuals’ actions, the narratives navigating a course to inform how faith and God plug into modern problems.
She encountered her own ‘modern’ problem in the course of writing the first book, too, with a major computer failure at one point leading to her contemplating an author’s worst nightmare.
“My hard drive sort of froze, so I couldn't access all the files – like, I got bits,” Rowe said.
“That took a little bit to put it back together again.
“You're just staring at the screen (thinking) ‘Do I start again?’ or, ‘I'm not, no, I'm not starting again.’
“You've got that moment ... you put so much into it already, and now it's just gone.
“So I just decided, well, I'll just start again. So I'm glad I did.”
But that wasn’t the end of the challenges: her particular approach to writing was another obstacle, with seemingly no easy way to define the category it belonged to; she couldn’t find a suitable publisher when she finished her first book in 2019.
“(I was) getting good feedback, but it was usually: ‘not quite what we're after’,” Rowe said.
“One person went a bit further, saying, ‘you're too Christian for a worldly market, and you're too worldly for a Christian market’, so I was on that uncomfortable edge.
“So I asked him, ‘What do you think I should do? Who would you recommend I submit the manuscript to?’ and he suggested Ark House, so I went to them and they liked it."
It took about two years to finally get it published.
“Once the first one came out, I was already pretty much finished (with) the second one,” she said.
“About six months later, the second one came out, and about a year after that, the third one came out ... just trying to keep the momentum running.”
A common thread in the stories was breaking through some common perceptions about church life.
“There seems to be some sort of a concept that if you're a Christian person or a God-fearing person, that your life is going to be a-OK and everything's great,” she said.
“But people who have a faith, they go through things that just about everybody else does. So they could have parents who break up or have abusive relationships, or a drug-addicted sibling.
“The difference is, because they have the faith in how they can manage what they're going through.”
She also said the age of the main characters was a key theme.
“At that sort of youngish, early-20s, mid-20s age group, you're learning about yourself, you're learning about what you want to be and who you want to be, and relationships, and jobs – all those sorts of things,” Rowe said.
She said she wanted to raise awareness of the positive side of “what churches do”, especially with youth programmes, and also took inspiration from some of the areas near where she lived at that age in her own life, in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
Her target audience was “upper teen, young adult”, and a reading experience for her has also played a part.
“I've always been an avid reader, but I remember reading a book when I was (about) 13, and it really altered how I saw myself and life and how I approached things,” Rowe said.
“It was an absolutely fantastic book (A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers), but it shows just how books can really shape your character and help you to become what you want to be.
“Books are so powerful. It's important that young people are reading good material – but having said that, I had a 90-year-old friend message me the other day saying, ‘I loved your books, I actually lost sleep over them because I couldn't put it down, (it) reminded me of when I was a young girl’ and things like that.
“That's really special.”
The nomination for the award came as a big surprise, as Karen’s motivations had been much less ambitious in measuring success.
“I was just trying to follow the prompt to write these five books,” she said.
“So to have someone nominate me, I took that as a great encouragement to keep going and to finish the series, because it is a lot of hard work to write a book and long hours, and it can cost a bit of money as well when you're getting it professionally edited and covers designed and typeset.
“It's really something that you do for the love of it, not so much with the idea of making bags of cash or something – you do it for the love of the content and the person who's going to read it, that you're hoping that you will encourage and inspire that person.
“Then when you heard I was a finalist ... this is pretty exciting, and then on the night to find out I was a silver award winner … thank you, Lord.”
Given that the fifth and final book in ‘Casts of Silver’ is not due out until about May next year, the Dimboola Banner asked Rowe how the series was judged.
“I was nominated on two books from the series,” she said, of Unbreakable and Unassailable.
“So the other two, they just questioned me about … the whole sort of idea of the series concept, what I'm hoping to achieve and the outcomes and things like that.
“So even though the fifth one’s not out yet, they they obviously must have liked the concept and the first four that are there.
“They look across the board, not just what you're writing, but the motive behind your writing and how you're trying to get there.”
To some extent, her life’s direction with the books and the expanding recognition has been a surprise.
“I never wanted to be a writer,” Rowe said.
“It was not in my mind. I was probably, at best, maybe a C-grade English student.
"I wanted to be a vet nurse, that was my goal.
“When I moved up here, I did get a job at Horsham vet clinic, but it was just reception.”
She said she took a significant piece of advice from J.K. Rowling to aspiring authors.
“She would often say, ‘Just start, it doesn't have to look good, just get your thoughts out on paper – work them out later’,” Rowe said.
“Otherwise, you'll sit there typing one sentence ... you'll go back, and then you retype, and you'll go back, you type it and go back, and you can use hours of time trying to get that one sentence perfect.
“Just get it all out, go back later and fix it.”
With other authors such as C.S. Lewis, Irene Hannon and Cassandra Clare inspiring her, Karen said she has many people to thank for getting so much work completed.
“When you sit down to write a book, it can take a long time,” she said.
“So I find that family (and) friends, they're quite supportive, but they know it's going to be a process, so they don't ask about it all the time.
“A lot of them will say, Look, if you need me to read, be a fresh set of eyes over your work, flip me the manuscript, I'll have a look.’
“That's been really important, because sometimes you do need to step away from your characters and have someone else look at it and give their perspective. I've got a good circle of readers in my network that give me feedback, suggestions and direction.”
She was happy to promote the book as a potential gift for its deeper messages.
“Coming up (to) Christmas time, it's a good, clean, wholesome series,” Rowe said.
“It is challenging on some books, but it shows grit and definite character reformation of the person. You just stick to your guns. No matter what's going on, you'll come out the other side. You'll be stronger and wiser for it. Don't give up. Lean on your friends.
“These sorts of concepts are through it.”
Find out more about the books at kjrowe.com