Mirror, Mirror: How Fiction Unveils Us

Cover reveal + meet the tempter in my new Screwtape-inspired book

It’s almost here: in just a few short weeks, on February 16, my new book arrives—just in time for Lent.

Which is fitting, really, since it was Lent that inspired me to write it.

My husband and I reread C.S. Lewis’s spiritual classic The Screwtape Letters every Lent. That is, when Screwtape doesn’t get the best of us. For those who are unfamiliar, The Screwtape Letters is comprised of the fictional correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and Wormwood, the junior demon he is assigned to advise.

It is at once brilliantly witty and chillingly insightful. Everything is backwards because it is written from a deeply diabolical perspective. God becomes “the Enemy,” Satan is “Our Father Below,” and the newly converted Christian being tempted is “the patient” (who, of course, they are not conspiring to heal but to corrupt entirely).

The more I read of Lewis (and all great fiction, really) the more I am struck by how it unveils us. Lewis’s fiction somehow makes his nonfiction all the more real. I can read about evil in his essays, but I see it incarnate in Perelandra. He describes the nature of temptation in Mere Christianity, but when I read The Screwtape Letters, I feel it in my bones.

Is there a work of fiction that does this for you—somehow makes what is real even more tangible, as though it were holding a mirror to your soul?

I penned my first letter several years ago when I was invited to write a testimony about our local Catholic Women’s Conference. What kept swimming in my head were all the reasons not to attend—all the little lies that we allow to creep in and separate us from the wonderful. The idea grew from there, blossomed into the book, and is finally ripe for harvest.

I wasn’t the only one to have this idea. There are now a couple of other versions for women on the market. The Holy Spirit seems to be up to something. I can say this is the only version to have a nihil obstat, the only one that features Mary, Catholic motherhood, and the truth about the Mass, Reconciliation, and the Eucharist.

The back of the book features a study guide which is great for groups or individual study. There are also two special bonuses for preordering:

• a downloadable companion journal

• a bonus letter so you can dive in right away

If you preorder today, the book will arrive just in time to be your Lenten book study this year—and please join us at the CatholicMom.com book club! (Preorders cost you nothing extra, but they do worlds of good for authors.)

There are so many beautiful ways to spend your Lent. I do hope you will choose to spend it with me and Bellbind this year.

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Naming the Tempters

And now, it’s time for the big reveal!

If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve been hearing about Bellbind for months. If you’re new here, Bellbind is named for a vicious weed that I battle in my garden (that deceptively pretty flower on the cover is the face of my nemesis). It weaves its way around crops, stealing nutrients and reducing output by up to 50%. If you pull it, it multiplies. Even if you eradicate it from the soil surface, its roots live up to 20 feet below. The battle is daily, and even that sometimes won’t be enough.

What (almost) no one has heard yet is the name of Bellbind’s advisor (yes, in this version, the title is named for the tempter gnawing away at his patient’s soul).

Drumroll, please…

Today, I am proud to introduce you to the diabolical advisor who whispers those devilish lies in The Bellbind Letters: Boomslang.

Boomslang’s name comes from an African tree snake whose venom is so deadly to humans that an antidote isn’t enough; its victims need a blood transfusion in order to survive. We considered all sorts of names for this tempter, from plays on Latin words for nefarious traits to parasites to spiders. But once I learned about the blood transfusions, I couldn’t resist the symbolism.

After all, in the end, it really is the blood that saves us.

There was a fair bit of controvery over the fact that the word boomslang appears as a potion ingredient in the Harry Potter series. In the end, we ruled that J.K. Rowling does not have a monopoly on the words used in the books, which is good news for the future of English literature.

As for those of you who submitted names for consideration, thank you! Some of them do appear as characters scattered throughout the book. I hope you’ll enjoy hunting for them.

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Praise for The Bellbind Letters

To close, here are some of the incredibly kind things people are saying about the book:

Stephenson’s contemporary take on Screwtape is utterly captivating, revealing astonishing depths of spiritual insight. She manages to weave together the old-as-time, perennial human temptations with the struggles particular to our secular, digital age. This is a must read for those seeking to sharpen their consciences and deepen their spiritual lives through the sacraments, Sacred Scripture, and the daily habits that help us grow in virtue.

— Alexandra Macey Davis, Managing editor, Public Discourse

The Bellbind Letters is a powerful and creative work that speaks right into the heart of Catholic motherhood. With wit and insight, Samantha Stephenson unmasks the subtle temptations we face in our everyday lives and reveals the deeper truth of God’s mercy that meets us there. Every mother who longs to grow in faith—and laugh a little at the devil’s ridiculous schemes along the way—will find both challenge and comfort in these pages.

— Danielle Bean, author, speaker, and host of the Girlfriends podcast

The heart of a mother is one of the masterpieces of God’s creation: humble, self-sacrificing, unconditionally loving in the face of any obstacle. Naturally, then, a mother’s heart is a special target of our enemy. Satan wants to carry on with his evil plans for mothers undetected, but The Bellbind Letters floods light on these spiritual attacks. This book made me reflect on many habits and attitudes that have indeed affected my walk with God as a modern Christian woman, wife and mother, and now I know exactly which graces to pray for and diversions to ignore. Not today, Satan!

— Caitrin Bennett, author of Holier Matrimony: Married Saints, Catholic Vows, and Sacramental Grace

With wit and wisdom Samantha Stephenson walks us through the landscape of motherhood where we find ourselves seduced by worldly ideas and offerings. So many AHA! moments in this delightful read, recognizing my own temptations (so deviously subtle) presenting themselves untiringly during my own mothering years. As we seek holiness in our vocation, Samantha illuminates where we can be lured, particularly to the extremes that undermine our path of the golden mean of virtue. Satan is real, active and shadowed, enchanting or discouraging us in our weak moments and we must be aware.

Samantha awakens our perception with a cool and compelling hand.

—Bonnie Landry, host of the Make Joy Normal podcast

Women have been attacked by Satan forever. Women are a never ending target of our culture that cripples them with lies, fears, guilt, and being overburdened. This book does a great job of revealing, exposing, and countering those lies to help women find peace, purpose, growth in holiness, and truth that leads to joyful freedom.

—Bryan Mercier, Catholic Speaker, Author, Apologist, President of Catholic Truth

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If you know someone who would love this book—or have a friend you’d like to do a Lenten study with—would you share this email and help get the book into the hands of the readers who’d delight in it?

PS The book officially publishes Feb. 16—just in time to be your Lenten reading—but is available instantly on Kindle if you just can’t wait!