The Lord is My Shepherd: A Novel of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

 I'm pleased to announce the publication of my new book: The Lord is My Shepherd: A Novel of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the first native-born American to be canonized.

I have known of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton since I attended Catholic school as a child. She was the first American to be canonized and was considered to be the patroness of Catholic schools. She was a big deal! Later on in my life, my daughter attended a homeschool learning community named after her. However, I still knew little about the details of her life.

I became more interested in her after listening to a Glory Story CD of her life put out by Holy Heroes. I wanted to learn more about her and began to think about sharing her story. I read several books about her life to prepare for writing this and was fascinated by her. I also thought it was exciting that she lived on the same street as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (although, alas, she did not make it into the Hamilton musical).  

I truly enjoy the research involved in historical fiction. In this case (as when I wrote about St. Zelie Martin), there was a wealth of primary material as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton wrote many letters and kept journals. It took me about nine months from the time I started researching to complete the book. Here's an image of the work in process.

God seemed to free up time to write the project and I kept getting signs that this was supposed to be what I was working on. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton kept showing up. I even received a prayer card in the mail, which I began praying every day, asking for help to tell her story the way I should. 

 I write by hand, but this time, I typed up what I had written as I went, so I finished typing only a few days after I finished writing. The book ended up shorter than I expected - about 30,000 words, but I wrote the story the way I wanted to. Plus, I hear shorter stories are in style right now - people have shorter attention spans. Of course, once the story was finished, then I needed to edit. After that was done, I submitted it to Amazon and created a cover to get a proof copy.

 

But after looking at the proof and making the necessary corrections to the text, I decided I wanted to go in a different direction with the cover. I found a public domain image of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton attributed to Amabilia Felicchi, who was a friend of the saint in Italy and helped introduce her to the Catholic faith. I took that image and worked up a new cover.

 

And with that, the book was complete. Here is the official description of the book.

Wife, Mother, Founder of Religious Order, Saint

St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821) grew up in the early years of the United States. She was a New York socialite, who lived on the same street as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and met many of our country’s Founding Fathers. She was raised Episcopalian, worshipping at New York City’s famous Trinity Church, and she and her husband, William Seton, raised their children in that faith until tragedy struck. An eventful trip to Italy would change her life forever. As a result, she would help chart the course for Catholic religious sisters in the United States.

When she was canonized on September 14, 1975, by Pope Paul VI, she was the first native-born American to be named a saint.

Discover this remarkable woman and her life of faith in The Lord is My Shepherd.