WON 10 AWARDS in 10 MONTHS!
Although self-published with Westbow, Andrea Comparato, Literary Agent, offered Douglas representation after reading this book.
Introducing Douglas J. Wemple, whose writing style mirrors Nicholas Sparks, with Christian tones of Mitch Albom.
This story is Serendipity meets Do You Believe?
A bitter young man with an eye on his career bumps into a young woman with very strong faith. They part ways after their quick conversation waiting in line at the local coffee shop. Just another stranger--or was it? After an unplanned mishap, they find each other face to face again. What is God trying to tell them?
Country boy Colton Dust moves to Los Angeles to study journalism at USC after graduating from high school in his small hometown. A few years after graduating with a degree in journalism, he finds himself quickly rising up the ranks as a news columnist in LA when his first column at a smaller newspaper catches the eye of the Editor in Chief at the largest newspaper in LA. However, just as he is finally achieving success in his career, he happens to meet a beautiful young woman named Emma Lee Coal who begins to stir something inside of him he had not felt in a long time, but in order to open his heart, he has to encounter a painful experience still haunting him from his past.
Even though Emma Lee is initially enchanted by his charming looks, she quickly finds him a bit brash and self-centered. Yet, she also finds herself intrigued to learn more about why he believes what he does, she just isn't sure if she'll ever see him again after their first encounter. Then after a twist of fate brings the two of them together again, she begins to help him experience the healing power of forgiveness, but as his life hits a crossroad point, he must decide if he truly has faith and trust in God in order to experience something he never could have imagined.
Sometimes you read a book you know will stay with you forever. Something We Never Imagined is one of those. It’s a story of friendship, faith, and the power of God’s love. This book is exactly what the world needs right now!
From the beginning, I felt a great connection with Emma and Colton. The deep dive into a time of darkness for Colton is emotional and relatable. Such a moving story where Gods work unfolds in their lives. Must read!
Something We Never Imagined is a heartwarming story of the power of love and forgiveness. This book is sure to inspire and encourage, reminding the reader that peace and restoration are attainable through Christ alone!
This book was very well written and from the first chapter, I found it to be a sweet story of faith and love. I read this whole book in about three days. Definitely worth checking out! I am hoping the talented author has another story up his sleeve soon!
This book is perfect for those struggling with their own darkness that need a reminder of the light that comes with faith, forgiveness and the power of love. The poem at the end is powerful and like that extra scene after the credits just leaves you wondering what the authors next book will be.
This book was inspiring, powerful, and resonated with me on a level that I rarely experience when reading Christian fiction and/or romance novels. It helped me through a rocky time of life and was a good reminder of the power of self-forgiveness and how it propels us toward our dreams and purpose by connecting to God. Highly recommend!
An emotional story of love and forgiveness. I enjoyed this book a lot. The MCs are well-written and feel relatable and real.
A beautiful story of love and forgiveness that I think many could relate to. I was invested in the character’s lives and couldn’t put the book down!
This book is perfect for those struggling with their own darkness that need a reminder of the light that comes with faith, forgiveness and the power of love. The poem at the end is powerful and like that extra scene after the credits just leaves you wondering what the authors next book will be.
Colton Dust is a talented young writer who lives in California and works for a respectable local news company. Colton’s sheer talent as a columnist, producing stories about his views, has created quite a stir within the community. Colton denies that there is any need for a God, if one exists at all. Emma Lee, a competent and charming young woman, enters the picture. Colton catches her attention in a chance encounter, but his attitude leaves a foul taste in her mouth. Days pass and Emma only finds out that she disagrees with his morals as well. Despite this, both characters are drawn to each other inexplicably, and it is only a matter of time until they cross paths again.
Something We Never Imagined, by Douglas J. Wemple, is a fascinating read about faith and love. Wemple’s work is centered around the young and ambitious Colton Dust and Emma Lee, a struggling but resourceful young woman of faith. Both characters are highly relatable and will quickly draw readers into their tale. Despite being raised in a Christian family, Colton believes that a person is accountable for their own destiny and should not believe or rely on a God he isn’t even convinced exists. Emma Lee, on the other hand, is a fervent believer that God not only exists but should be the focus of one’s life despite the fact that she’s constantly tested by life circumstances. The conflict of their principles is one of many factors of the book that captured my interest, and I became emotionally invested in both characters.
Wemple’s writing style is easy to follow, and it is also encouraging and uplifting, giving readers faith. The author seamlessly conveys the message that forgiveness and faith in God are essential for finding meaning in life.
Something We Never Imagined, by Douglas J. Wemple, is a heart-warming and eye-opening read I can highly recommend to those who enjoy contemporary Christian romance.
Something We Never Imagined is a heartwarming story of the power of love and forgiveness. This book is sure to inspire and encourage, reminding the reader that peace and restoration are attainable through Christ alone.
Wonderfully warm feel good story. Beautifully written. Was hard to put down. Read it in two evenings. Renewed my faith in mankind!!
Something We Never Imagine is a wonderful book about forgiveness and love. Colton and Emma Lee are characters whose emotions and actions are relatable to any one of us. We all have our personal experiences of failures, grief, achievements, and jubilations. Yet their story is a powerful reminder that God's love is with us always, guiding our spirit, and never failing.
This is the most heartfelt, enthralling book! I couldn't put it down! I laughed, I cried, and I added this to my top 5 books ever--and I read A LOT! RECOMMEND for anyone--believer or not! This book can warm anyone's soul!
For Douglas J. Wemple, 47, an emerging author with ties to Ludington, completing his first novel was a lifesaving experience.
Wemple completed the self-published “Something We Never Imagined” in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’d lost his job managing a hockey program in Orlando, he’d started drinking heavily and he was considering taking his own life.
But before taking irreversible action, Wemple felt a compulsion — seemingly out of nowhere — to write.
“I was questioning whether I wanted to keep moving forward in life,” he told the Daily News. “I’d actually decided that I just didn’t want to live anymore. … Right before I carried through with it, I felt something leading me to sit down … at my laptop and just start writing.”
Within 44 days, he said, “I hadn’t had another drink and I’d written a book about the healing power of forgiveness. … It changed my life.
“I felt God was leading me spiritually,” Wemple said.
Now he has a renewed love for life, a reinforced relationship with his wife and family, and a potential new career path ahead of him.
And he has “Something We Never Imagined,” a contemporary Christian romance story he believes can bring some hope into the world.
Though born in Grand Rapids and now residing in Casselberry, Florida, Wemple has always had a strong connection to the Ludington area. He spent many childhood summers in the area visiting family, and Ludington factors into “Something We Never Imagined” heavily.
The story focuses on a character named Colton, who moves from Ludington to Los Angeles after a break-up with his “high school sweetheart.”
“She ends up cheating on him with his best friend and he’s heartbroken,” Wemple said. “He goes on to study journalism, he starts rising through the ranks, writing columns.”
Colton “refuses to go back to Ludington because of the heartbreak that looms over him,” Wemple said, and though the character’s career takes off, he’s lost faith. He writes more and more about skepticism and the disillusionment people feel with God.
Then, he meets a kindred spirit in Emmy Lou, who’s “gone through some tough times, but she had faith and trust in God,” Wemple said.
Over the course of the budding relationship, Emmy Lou convinces Colton to return to Ludington for the first time in years. There are more challenges ahead, but in the end the protagonist finds a new capacity for forgiveness, faith and trust.
“The story at the heart of it is really about … the healing power of forgiveness through faith, trust and love,” Wemple said.
Wemple said there are some similarities between himself and the main character; just as Colton found a renewed faith, Wemple, too, reignited his relationship with God through the process of writing the book.
Wemple said he knew he wanted to feature Ludington in the book because “there’s no better place on earth.”
“It came to me fairly quickly that I wanted the main character to be from a small town and … it didn’t take long for it to pop into my head that I wanted to use Ludington as a small town because I just love Ludington.”
He said his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all hail from the area.
“That’s like home,” he added. “That’s where all my family roots come from.”
Wemple opted to self-publish the book because, though he “always had a calling and desire to write a book,” he’d never written in a professional capacity.
“I guess I’ve always … let life get in the way — raising a family, working — but I think more of it had to do with fear. Putting out something that people would read and judge me on,” he said.
So far, the feedback has been positive, and friends and family members have told Wemple that his story has had a healing impact on them, just as it did on him.
That’s the goal, according to Wemple.
“Life for a lot of people has been a struggle over the past couple years,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that have been searching for hope and healing amid the struggles and challenges in life. I hope by reading this book that it brings people hope and gives them an opportunity to find hope and healing through love.
“I don’t care how many copies (the book) sells or how well it does; just knowing that it’s helped friends and family the way it helped me when I wrote it — it’s worth it.”
“Something We Never Imagined” is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, at the Ludington Library and through the author’s website at www.douglasjwemple.com.
Something We Never Imagined follows a journalist that does not believe in God, and through his encounters with a young woman finds forgiveness and faith are not beyond his reach. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Honestly, I’m not sure where the inspiration came from, other than God. I have a bunch of story ideas I had been working on and this one sort of came out of left-field to me. I was actually in a very dark place in my life when I started writing this story. In fact, that day I started writing it, I was actually going to commit suicide and end my life. But God had other plans and it all resulted in writing ‘Something We Never Imagined‘.
Did you create an outline for the characters in the story before you started writing or did the characters personalities grow organically as you were writing?
I did not create an outline prior to writing this story. Normally I do work off outlines, but this story really grew organically as I wrote it, and I really had no idea how it was going to end, until I reached that point.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
After I had written the book and looked back and what God was trying to reveal to me, personally, I realized that forgiveness must start from within ones own self and that facing struggles, challenges and heartbreak in life is what makes us stronger, not weaker.
Proverbs 3:5-6 and Luke 1:37 have both been very important pieces of scripture in my life, especially over the past few years and I wanted to explore how faith does not make things easy, it simply makes them possible, while also focusing on how trusting in God, and not our own understanding of the things of this world, can help make our paths straight.
In the story, I reveal how Colton found his faith and trust in God, through writing daily prayer letters to Jesus, and that is something that truly happened in my own life over the past 7+ years. Last night was actually my 2711 starlight day of writing day prayer letters to Jesus, and doing so has changed my life in ways I can’t explain.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have several books I’m working on writing, which includes a series of children’s books, as well as some more Christian fiction books that focus on helping the homeless and the broken through faith, hope, love and trust in the Lord. I don’t have an exact time frame for when the next book will release, but hopefully within the next year. God has also been revealing how he wants me to share the story of my own life, and what I’ve been through the past few years, from nearly ending my life to becoming a self-published author who is simply trying to spread the love God has for us!
