The Story Behind Soul Matters by Yolonda Tonette Sanders

 

The Story Behind Soul Matters

By Yolonda Tonette Sanders

Becoming an author was never something I planned. I’ve always enjoyed storytelling (in general) and poetry, but writing a novel wasn’t something I’d imagined for myself. The idea for Soul Matters came during a season when I sought greater meaning in my life and work. At the time, I had a long daily commute, and those quiet drives provided me with the opportunity to think, dream, and reflect. I enjoyed my job, but I felt like I wasn’t utilizing my full potential. Writing offered a creative outlet that blended reflection, imagination, and purpose.

When I started, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no publishing background, no connections, and certainly no grand plan. I just started typing. The story grew from the seed of an idea about family and faith into a full-fledged novel about Wendy Phillips, a third-grade teacher whose life looks stable on the outside but feels uncertain within. Wendy, her sister Kim, their mother, Marlene, and their grandmother, Frances, each taught me something different as their personalities unfolded. Through them, I saw how love, wisdom, humor, and stubbornness intertwine in families that are both messy and beautiful at the same time.

Once the manuscript was complete, I began exploring publishing options and submitted an inquiry directly to a publisher. I didn’t have an agent at the time, and although direct submissions are unconventional, everything worked out in ways I couldn’t have scripted. My debut novel, Soul Matters, was traditionally published, and I learned a tremendous amount through that process. For one, I learned that if I was going to continue working with traditional publishers, I indeed wanted an agent. (Lol.) However, as self-publishing gained more prominence, I began taking steps to become a hybrid author—one who is both traditionally published and self-publishes. I re-released the book independently for its 20th anniversary, and this is yet another milestone for me. I’ve helped others publish their books and have even independently published devotionals and short stories, but Soul Matters is the first novel that I published under my company, Yo Productions. It’s exciting to see how much I have grown as a writer and entrepreneur. Soul Matters is just the beginning. 

Looking back, I see that my writing journey has been a mix of courage, curiosity, and continual learning. Inspiration, for me, didn’t arrive in one dramatic moment but unfolded quietly, one idea at a time. Finally, I realized that creative writing wasn’t just something I could do; it was something I was meant to do.

 

 

 

Title: Soul Matters

Author: Yolonda Tonette Sanders

Publisher: Yo Productions LLC

Publication Date: September 30, 2025

Pages: 360

Genre: Contemporary Christian Fiction

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle

With a successful husband, a fulfilling teaching career, and a baby on the way, Wendy Phillips seems to have it all. She’s certain God is on her side. After all, the woman she’s become wouldn’t exist without the strength of her close-knit family or her own determination to be a model daughter, sister, and wife.

But one phone call shatters Wendy’s illusion of perfection, turning her carefully crafted life upside down. Suddenly, everything she believed about herself, her family, and her faith is called into question.

As her marriage crumbles and her faith wavers, Wendy finds herself needing more support than she ever imagined. Her journey to healing will require a sister’s unexpected strength, a mother’s surprising honesty, and a truth Wendy never saw coming.

Now only God’s grace can help her confront the pain she didn’t expect and discover the soul-deep freedom she never dreamed possible.

Soul Matters is available at Amazon and Walmart.

  

Yolonda Tonette Sanders, Ph.D., is a storyteller at heart with a passion for both words and people. She is the co-founder of the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival and the author of numerous works, including novels, poetry, short stories, and academic publications. Her writing blends authenticity, emotional depth, and spiritual insight, often drawing from her own journey of faith and resilience.

Yolonda earned her doctorate in organizational leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University and is certified in emotional intelligence. She enjoys teaching, mentoring, consulting, and helping others discover their own voices through writing. When she’s not creating or consulting, you’ll likely find her spending time with her husband or enjoying heartfelt moments with loved ones.

Her latest book is the contemporary Christian fiction, Soul Matters.

You can visit her website at www.yoproductions.net .

Watch her YouTube channel!

Connect with her at  X, Facebook, Instagram and Goodreads.

The Story Behind The Essence of Bliss by Emily Astillberry

The Story Behind The Essence of Bliss

By Emily Astillberry

The Essence of Bliss is an emotional rollercoaster, an exploration of human emotion wrapped up in a story that will make you examine those big questions, such as chance, choice and destiny. It began with a concept, a something that would give me magic to work with, whilst allowing me to establish the rest of the narrative in the real world. That’s what I wanted, a story set in a town of real people living ordinary lives, characters, themes and development that would be relatable to my readers, with a twist, a frisson of otherworldliness that is enchanting enough to transport them towards a hint of fantasy.

I always knew that I wanted to write something emotional. I believe that our potential to feel - to love, to hate, to fear, to desire, is one of the things that sets us apart and gives us humanity. Whenever I fall in love with a book, and when I think back to all of the books that have moved me the most, it is the characters and the relationships between those characters that makes a good story, great. I read and love books from all sorts of genres but it is human emotion that I find most compelling.

My leading lady, Isabel Bliss, became the focus of my concept. She is, for the most part, a normal person, leading a normal life. She has a family, a boyfriend, a best friend and a job that she loves and is great at. However, Isabel also has something that sets her apart from anyone she has ever met, she has an extraordinary relationship with human emotions. She can feel emotional energy, be impacted by it, experience and influence the emotions of the people around her. Due to her gift, and her inability to control it satisfactorily, Isabel has learned that being around children can be easier for her. She has found that children’s emotions tend to be more simple, purer and easier to understand and manage than those of many adults, hence her career as a primary school teacher. 

Once I had my concept and my protagonist, I needed a story. I wanted my readers to explore the potential of Isabel’s gift alongside her, which is why The Essence of Bliss became a first person narrative, a journey of discovery for Isabel, peppered with twists and turns that I hope will surprise, upset and delight. I started to craft the story around her, following her as she deals with a pretty horrific situation involving a little boy in her class, and then discovers a huge betrayal in her life and a whole world of possibility that will change her forever.

As this is my debut novel, I had no idea what my writing process would be like. I didn’t know if I should make a plan or just start writing and see what happened, whether I should draft out the plot or just wing it, and how much research I would need to do. What I did know was that I had a story in me and I needed to get on and get it out. I had been waiting for the right time to start writing and in the meantime I had grown up, settled into a wonderful career, fallen in love, got married, had 5 children, a menagerie of rescued animals and a dilapidated 250 year old cottage that needs regular propping up. I realised that the right time would never come. The RIght Time, is a concept that doesn’t exist, not in my world anyway, and I needed to stop making excuses and start writing.

I did, and I loved every moment of the writing process. Due to my hectic life, finding the time to produce a six hundred and something page long novel took over three years, snatching moments, committing to periods of time and neglecting my poor family but I got there in the end. I have a double camping chair and I did most of my writing, sitting on it in the garden, me at one end and my dog, Bobby, on the other. I had an idea of where I wanted the story to go and I made copious notes, timelines, pages of character statistics and information, chapter lists etc but I was amazed at how organic the actual writing ended up being. Characters started to write themselves and things started happening that I had never planned. I would picture a scene in my head, when I was out on a dog walk or driving between jobs at work, and I would let it play out, watch and listen to what my characters did and said and then quickly jot it down on one of my many notes pages.

One of my favourite discoveries was Isabel’s mum, Bethany Bliss. She started out as a supporting character, but as I wrote, she became much more. Her eccentricities and complexities had to come from somewhere and so she ended up, not only with a much bigger role in the novel than I had anticipated, but also with a full back story that I hope to be able to tell in a prequel novel one day. I have so many ideas for more stories set in Isabel’s world, I hope I have the opportunity to make them a reality. I am currently well on the way to producing the sequel, The Essence of Insanity and am excited to be able to share it with the world next year.

 

 

 

Title: The Essence of Bliss

Author: Emily Astillberry

Publication Date: December 16, 2024

Pages: 615

Genre: Speculative Fiction/Romance

Formats: Paperback, Kindle

Isabel Bliss is a reception class teacher. She experiences other people’s emotions and can influence how they feel but she doesn’t truly understand her gift and has been encouraged, by her mum, to hide it from others. She often feels lost and alone. 

When a child in her class experiences chronic distress that only she can perceive, Isabel uses her ability to relieve his suffering, but his situation continues to worsen. Eventually she is forced to take matters into her own hands, escorting him home where she finds horrific signs of abuse. She saves his mum’s life and his father is arrested for the brutal torture he has inflicted upon his family. 

A wealthy family moves to town and Isabel meets the two sons. She recoils from Daniel, who is hateful, rude and emotionally deficient but is inexorably drawn to Scott, who awakens something magical, deep inside her. They are like her. They are fluencers and have the ability to sense, read and willfully manipulate emotional energies. Isabel confronts her mum and uncovers hurtful lies and deceit within her own family. 

She falls deeply in love and ultimately discovers the untold potential of her gift and the passion and power that dwells within.

Read a sample here.

The Essence of Bliss is available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

  

Emily Astillberry is an author and RSPCA Inspector from Norfolk, England. She has a degree in English Literature and Linguistics from York University and has been investigating animal cruelty and neglect and rescuing sick and injured animals for 20 years. In her day job, Emily deals with very difficult and often emotional situations and meets all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Her career provides some of the inspiration for themes and characters that can be found in her fictional work.

At home, in a very old cottage in the country, Emily has a husband, 5 children, a dog, a cat, an axolotl, 2 giant African land snails and a varying number of rescue hens, so finding time to write can be a challenge. She is happiest outdoors, growing fruit and vegetables in the garden, walking the dog and family holidays usually involve walking up mountains in summer, skiing down them in winter and sleeping in a tent whenever possible.

Emily loves spending time with her large, noisy, chaotic family, cooking meals for friends and playing board games. She always has at least one book on the go and has always dreamed of writing her own novel. She now dreams of writing more. 

Visit her website at https://emilyastillberry.com. 

You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

The Essence of Bliss is her latest book.

 

The Story Behind One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches by Kayleigh Kavanagh

 

The Story Behind One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches

By Kayleigh Kavanagh

 

I wrote the first book in the series “Whispers of the Pendle Witches” because it always annoyed me how, even 400 years later, the people who died in those trials were being portrayed as villains. In our supposedly enlightened era, we were still besmirching these individuals as though they were evil. It annoyed me, especially growing up in Lancaster, where they died. I always felt a kinship with them and wanted to put out another narrative. One where they were real people. Ones who today would be considered alternative healers and maybe Wiccans (or the modern interpretation of the word witch), but not devil worshippers, making pacts with the devil and killing their neighbours through malicious magics. 

After I completed the first book, I wanted to do more with the characters, but the only option for following the history was to cover the trials, and I just did not want to do that. After many months of deliberation, the idea of reincarnation came to mind. Then I remembered the spell Demdike and Chattox had done at the end of the first book and thought, “What if it went wrong or had unintended consequences?” And I went from there. 

I initially wanted to set the book in 1812, exactly two hundred years later (and for the 3rd to be in 2012). However, whilst researching the 1800s, I realised just how much changed in the latter half of the century, and there was a huge potential to build on this. My books have a recurring theme of women’s issues—those which are still relevant today. The 19th century had a lot of advancements, but it also saw the rise of a rhetoric which we’re still impacted by today, even though it isn’t as old as people believe it to be; the notion that women are weak and dainty. 

This ideal rose out of a belief that women could lose children doing strenuous work, which is true for the first trimester, but the initial idea went from “women shouldn’t be doing heavy lifting whilst pregnant” to “women's wombs will fall out if they do anything remotely strenuous, and these frail creatures need to be controlled and protected”. Ideals we’re still fighting even now.

From this, the character of Claire, a well-informed midwife, was born. A woman in a position of power in a man's world, something many men do not like—especially in the 1860s. She finds herself fighting against the standardisation of medical practices. Not because she opposes it in principle, but because she fears what men will do to women. 

In contrast, Yana is a young woman who has grown up with this new mentality and doesn’t know to question many things, despite how she senses things aren’t quite right. Though she does have some wiles, taught to her by women who learnt to hide their strengths in plain sight. She’s in the process of going through marriage interviews, and is caught between wants, needs and the demands of society.

Things become even more chaotic when the two women start to remember who they once were, and the trappings and dangers of the spiritual world. 

This is where Demdike and Chattox, the original Pendle Witches, come in. They’ve been watching over their family all this time and are now needed to protect them. But how much can earthbound spirits do? Especially against an ancient force. 

The four women must come together, despite their limitations, to do what the cunning folk (the UK equivalent of shamanic healers) have always done: protect the physical world from the dangers lying in the ether. 

 

 

 

Title: One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches

Author: Kayleigh Kavanagh

Publication Date: September 29, 2025

Pages: 400

Genre: Historical Paranormal Fantasy

Formats: Kindle

Demdike and Chattox, famed witches of Pendle Forest, might be dead, but they’re not gone. Bound to their bloodline, they’ve spent the past two and a half centuries watching over their descendants, waiting for when they’ll be needed. 

When 14 year old Yana comes into her psychic abilities and inherits the ‘eyes of the Chattox family’, she can see the long-dead witches, as well as an encroaching evil. But even with this foreknowledge, she’s trapped by marriage interviews and being unable to see her own future, and more importantly, whoever her future husband will be. 

Demdike’s healing gifts are alive and working in Claire, a mid-30s midwife well renowned for her skills and holding her tongue. The Secrets of Pendle are safe with her and her midwives. However, when surgeons looking to make standardisation the norm encroach on her territory, she soon realises how, even a respected woman is vulnerable in a patriarchal system. 

The two descendants must come together to protect the ones they love from an ancient evil, all whilst balancing their lives and the cruelties of being a woman in a man’s world. Set in late 1800s NW England, this book has all the elements of the area: strong, hardy people, atmospheric horror and days as unpredictable as the weather.  

One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches is available at Amazon.

  

Kayleigh Kavanagh is a disabled writer from the North-West of England. Growing up in the area, she learnt a lot about the Pendle Witches and launched her debut novel around their life story. Her main writing genres are fantasy and romance, but she loves stories in all formats and genres. Kayleigh hopes to one day be able to share the many ideas dancing around in her head with the world.

Her latest book is the historical fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches. 

You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Tiktok.