Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller

Book Feature: Beauty Reborn- A Summer Solstice Chronicle (Book 3 of The Solstice Chronicles)

Beauty Reborn is my third book and the third book in my fairytale series, The Solstice Chronicles. I started working on this one shortly after my second book ,Beauty Redeemed, released in the Spring of 2022. It was the fastest book I’ve written, but most of my time writing, it felt like the story was already in my mind and just waiting to spill out onto the pages. This story takes place in the summer realm, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, I will have a fourth book that takes place in the fall realm coming out hopefully around the fall equinox to complete this series. Fire has always been a big part of my summers. During my summer breaks in college, I worked at a warehouse known as a cache that sends supplies to wildfires in the area. My brother started working there too the summer after I started there and our Dad does supply runs for them throughout the season, so to say fire season is a big deal in our family is an understatement. One of the summers I was working there, we had several huge wildfires here in Colorado that we were supporting and we pretty much worked around the clock that summer. Fires can burn for weeks, and sometimes even months. The high winds can keep fires burning for a long time and can take them across the land before the firefighters can contain it. One of the fires even jumped one of our interstates that year, so they can be very difficult to control or contain. Hotspots flare up or places you thought were contained can spring back to life. We rated the fires based on how many acres were burning or had burned, how close it is to structures/homes, how many workers are needed to put it out. Many people have lost everything they owned in fires or had to evacuate if the fires were getting too close. As devastating as fires can be, it’s actually a needed part of nature. Living near the mountains, I see so many dead trees in our forests and sometimes it takes a fire to get rid of the dead trees/shrubs and replenish the soil with needed elements to make things grow again. There are even some seeds and pine cones that were designed by our Creator to only open under the intense heat of a fire.

If you couldn’t guess–my third book focuses a lot on fire. One of the elements, not necessarily a fairytale, that I used in this story is the mythological Phoenix bird. The Phoenix bird is a flaming bird of mythology that is also known as the firebird. It had different lengths of its lifetime when I was researching it for my book, but most say the Phoenix bird lived for several centuries before it came to a point where it was time to die. When the Phoenix bird’s time to die came, the Phoenix bird would build a next of wood and spices, combust into its fiery flames, and willingly die. Out of the ashes, the firebird is reborn and the cycle begins again. There were so many elements connected to the Phoenix bird that I loved and enjoyed using in my summer solstice book. The fire, obviously a big part of my story, showed how sometimes things need to die before they can be reborn. I liked the imagery of how the Phoenix bird built a nest of wood and spices as its place to die as it reminded me of Jesus Christ, who carried a wooden cross to Calvary and willingly sacrificed himself on the cross so that we might also be reborn. It was the custom of that day to cover a dead body in sweet spices too, which is what the women were on their way to do to Jesus’ body the day he rose again and his body was no longer in the tomb. The tears of the Phoenix bird were said to have healing powers as well, so again, a nice correlation to the thought that tears bring healing, and Jesus also brought healing to many he interacted with while on this earth, and still brings healing to those who ask for it. Fire was also used in many instances in the Bible: God spoke to Moses in a burning bush; God led the people through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt with a pillar of fire; The prophet ascended into heaven in a flaming chariot; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace and encountered their Lord in the flames with them–and they walked out of the fire completely unharmed, unsigned, and without a trace of the smell of smoke on them. Fire is referred to as a refining element too. Precious metals are put through the intense heat of a very hot fire to bring the impurities to the surface so they can be scraped away. This is done over and over again until the metal is pure and without blemish.

Fire and trials can be painful and scary and push us to the limits in our lives, but sometimes they are necessary to remove all the things that are holding us back from living the lives we were created to live. Fire brings rebirth. Sometimes things need to die before they can be reborn. Sometimes God asks us to walk through the fire in order for His glory to be seen in us and to purify us, but we never walk through the fire alone. There is always another in the fire with us.

May you find the beauty of rebirth within the purifying fire of God’s love.