What is a Crossover Book?

I don’t know if there is such a thing as a crossover book.  It’s certainly not a genre in the publishing word – yet!  When I decided I wanted to do a series of books about angels and what goes on in the spirit realm, the first thought I had was “Who would want to read something like that?”  The first answer to myself was – religious folks who are ‘somewhat’ interested in that subject.  Yuck!  That’s a technical term for “maybe I can talk my wife into reading it.”  I truly did not want to limit my story to religious folks who “might” be interested in such a topic.

I wanted to tell a story that would be fun and adventurous, and give the reader the escape we all want when we pick up a book.  I didn’t want anyone who had little or no interest in spiritual things to feel like I was “cramming religion down their throat.”  We all know it doesn’t take much for someone to feel that way.  The truth is, they wouldn’t buy such a book in the first place.

May goal was to write a story that anyone, whether they had a religious background or not, could enjoy and truly get into!  I purposely avoided talking about God, Jesus, the Bible, and using religious terms and expressions.  All that is CLEARLY implied – especially for those who know where all the spiritual concepts come from, but I wanted it to be subtle rather than ‘in your face.’

I avoided using familiar biblical names for the same reason.  First, I wanted to keep it as neutral and non-threatening as possible, but also because – we don’t know if all those names and descriptions are still being used in the spiritual realm.  I will talk about that more in another blog, but using the description of agent and not angels is a good example.  Angels are called several different things in the Bible, but how do they refer to themselves?

I also don’t talk about heaven and hell or God verses Satan much – at least not specifically.  In later books, there is a little more than what is in The Judas Sword, but we really don’t know what words and names spirit beings might be using now.  For one thing, are they speaking English, Greek, or maybe Hebrew?  Maybe it’s something totally different.  A new tongue?

May hope and prayer in developing this series, is that non-religious people might read and enjoy a book filled with action, supernatural elements, and great characters, and – as some point – talk about it with someone who might have a more experienced understanding of what the story is really about.  I wanted Christian fiction to crossover into mainstream fiction.  We’ll see.