‘Make Haste Slowly’ brings a sensitive topic to the forefront
By Catherine Hosman
Amy K. Rognlie loves plants and gardening, knitting and crocheting, books, pugs and German shepherds. So it’s no wonder that the main character in her latest novel, Make Haste Slowly, a Mountain Brook Ink Publication, captures the essence of her favorite things, including a good, cozy mystery.
In Make Haste Slowly, Rognlie weaves romance, intrigue, mystery, real life issues, technology, larceny, loss, sorrow, dysfunctional family dynamics, human trafficking and healing.
It begins when Callie Erickson relocates from Columbus, Ohio, to Short Creek, Texas, a fictional small town located somewhere between Temple and Academy, it was to start a new life after the death of her husband, Kevin. She was familiar with Short Creek. It’s a place Callie visited many times as a child to visit her Aunt Dot, who now lives in an assisted living community. Callie buys her aunt’s house and opens a flower shop with a book nook and a place to sit and knit or crochet, if that’s what her customers want to do, and a place where all good pets are welcome, especially her beloved pugs, Purl and Intarsia. She also became active in the local church.
“I love knitting and the plants and the pugs,” said Rognlie, who has a pug and a German shepherd. “If I was going to open my own store I would have all those things in one shop.”
Callie’s life is quiet — until she finds a dead homeless man in the backyard of her home that once belonged to Aunt Dot, and a package delivered to her that had been ripped open. What was in this bag that someone wanted so badly they would kill for it?
When I started reading Make Haste Slowly (https://amyrognlie.com), I wasn’t sure which direction the story was taking me. But as I got further into the story and its characters, I had a hard time putting down the book. Every page led me to a new clue to this mystery.
Rognlie said she didn’t set out to include the subject of human trafficking in the story. However, the more she heard about it at the school where she teaches three days a week, she began to realize the importance of finding and freeing the people.
“Human trafficking was heavy on my heart the more I heard about it,” she said. “I wanted the main character to be close enough to it to make a decision without consciously bringing that all about.”
In Make Haste Slowly, there is a young female character whose life was turned upside down after she was brought into human trafficking. Because Callie lives in a small town, it’s impossible not to be intertwined with the struggles her neighbors are going through — even something as serious as human trafficking.
“The characters are very real to me. I wanted it to be that close to Callie — it is that close to us,” she said.
What starts out as a murder mystery in Callie’s backyard becomes a labyrinth of plot twists and turns that do not let Callie’s conscience rest until she finds the answers to all the unusual happenings that began with the homeless man in her backyard.
Rognlie blends in God, Jesus, scripture and prayer effortlessly in the conversation between characters. Her use of scripture is subtle and moves the story along.
“The faith aspect is huge for me,” she said. “I feel how much I’ve learned and grown though my own life experiences and how it changed my perspective.”
Rognlie said she wanted to give her characters grace as they worked through their problems.
“People are carrying much heavier burdens than when you look at them,” she said.”I wanted to raise awareness of others.”
