New Directions

Welcome to my little space on the world wide web. I thought I’d give an update. Last time I updated, I’d begun the process of discerning what to do with my career. I hadn’t written romance in a good long while… and knew I was looking for a new direction. As 2025 is waning, I find myself coming to some conclusions. I’m going to talk about them here…and let you decide if you want to keep poking around.

I published my romance books, and my Hawk Elite Security Series, books between the years of 2016—2021. I was young and a little rebellious. I’m not so different today, but I am older and wiser. I love my stories and the characters that inspired them, but after some time contemplating… I can honestly say a few of them are outside the moral bounds. My characters aren’t always married, something I strongly believe in…but i’m not foolish enough to think that “real” people don’t sin, real people have faults. We all do. I talk more about my opinions on the nature of marriage on the START HERE page. God created marriage and He created sex—as a procreative and unitive, amazing and provocative.

Unfortunately, I’ve spent the last five years watching the world turn to chaos. Starting with the reaction to Covid. We lived in Mississippi at the time of the “Pandemic," and we didn’t give a hoot…we didn’t bother with masks and we turned our noses up at “the rules.” Because we saw them for what they were…

LIES.

Then came the vaccine mandates…and the boosters, and the discrimination against people who CHOSE to decline. And we ignored those, too. Because, we saw through the first lies and weren’t willing to give in to the demands of a government that seemed to be over-reaching and siding with pharmaceutical companies, scientists who use dead babies to make serums—no thank you. Untested drugs and vaccines and we experienced the consequences of those “jabs” personally. We’ve watched good friends die—for no reason at all; just drop dead. We’ve seen good, strong careers get slashed, destroyed. Fortunately, my husband was able to ‘stay under the radar’, so to speak. But he wasn’t unaffected, either. His refusal to take the vaccine caused upheaval, even for our family.

There’s just too much to talk about in regards to politics and where this country has gone.

For me, I’d been willing to ride the middle line for a long time… I could be sad about the loss of morality, the confusion, but it wasn’t up to me to fix things. I needed to pray for my country and the world. But then things got heated, and it wasn’t just “let people live,” it became a matter of persecution. Because, if I refuse to call my nephew a girl or if I believed a woman doesn’t have the right to choose to kill her baby or if I think we need borders or if I believe the Catholic Church isn’t a racist, white male supremacy organization, I am the bad guy.

Charlie Kirk’s death hit me hard after years of…growing faith and growing unease. In the same month that my own life officially took a new direction, the world experienced the assassination of a man who 100% believed in the way of life I wanted. He spoke truth about family and God.

And that is the one thing that made me ask… am I worthy of persecution? Have a stood up for my beliefs? Have I not backed down?

Or have I been wishy washy, live-and-let-live, for far too long. It’s not about being political or a voice for politics. It’s about turning to God and asking Him, What do I do to serve you and your Church?

Peace.

Bethanne, writing as Beth Rhodes

P.S. I’ve had some good discernment and feedback on what to do with my books… I’ll drop that in the next blogpost/newsletter.