Kehila News Israel Staff:
A Kehila News Israel (KNI) writer recently launched his fourth novel, the retro-romance comedy Sunny Side Up!, now available for sale in paperback and Kindle versions at Amazon.com.
Author Cliff Keller, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, now resides in Jerusalem. In addition to keeping busy with his numerous contributions to KNI, Keller has been actively researching and publishing novels.
Keller’s work has been well received, garnering almost exclusively five-star reviews at Amazon. Before Sunny Side Up! became available, a fan wrote on his website, “Because this book is written by Cliff Keller – it’s going to be good!”
We recently had the privilege of learning more about Keller’s life and latest book in an exclusive interview.
Let’s talk about your writing!
The Three Prophet Series and Sunny Side Up! were all published after we moved to Israel. Sunny Side Up! was initially written and completed over 20 years ago but, although generally commended by publishers as an entertaining story, it was roundly rejected as lacking commercial appeal—which I interpreted to mean lacking graphic physicality, vampires and gratuitous violence. A few years later I sold my business in the states to devote more time to writing and produced several other secular novels, all of which were similarly found lacking by publishers.
Then, around 14 years ago, my wife, Marcia, challenged me to write something completely different and the Three Prophets Series came about. Again, we encountered hurdles. My literary agent at the time literally told me that she “did not know what to do” with religious fiction. I changed agents (no small challenge for an unpublished author) and, subsequently, a publisher of religious fiction showed mild interest in For the Sake of His Name, the Prophet Daniel’s Miraculous Life in Babylon, but then asked, to improve its marketability, if I would consider changing the story to give the Prophet Daniel a love interest!
The Daniel story was the first published of the three but was the last, chronologically, in the series. Book one of the series, The Ivory House – the days of Elijah, was published next. Book two, Faithless Heart – a love story, is about Hosea and Gomer. The main, recurring themes are the restoration of Israel in prophecy and, of course, the everyday nature of miracles.
