Local Author See’s Success From Recent Book

Tasha Janssen

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Sharing your creative talents with the world can be a scary affair, but can also be greatly rewarding as well.

Tasha Janssen is known by her pen name of Tasha Harper, and she’s enjoying some well deserved success with her latest work.

Janssen has written a total of eight novels, three of which have been published. Besides novels, she has also had poetry published.

Christian-fiction novels are the genre that Janssen writes. Her novels were originally aimed at teenagers, but her latest work, ‘Hyprocite’, is focused at the teenage to college age readers. “Adults have read it too, and have really enjoyed it. It’s a more broad spectrum book than I’ve written before.”

For those unfamiliar with Christian-fiction, Janssen says that the book is a typical fiction novel, “it just always has an aspect of Christianity in it.”

When it comes to building or creating her novel, Janssen says that she does pull from her personal experiences sometimes. For ‘Hyprocite’, there were many interviews with individuals to build the information to be creative and to be as accurate as possible. “This book tackles a lot of big issues, like premarital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, underage drinking.”

Janssen’s first book was self-published, with her second book being published with the aid of a publisher.

This time, Janssen called the publisher she had worked with in the past, and after reviewing the manuscript, the publisher was excited about the book, saying it was “the best one I’ve ever written,” and that they had never seen a book like the one being worked on.

The work to write the book started at the end of July and was completed before November.

The story was in Janssen’s mind “for quite awhile. I wrote the first chapter four or five years ago.”

School then took over Janssen’s life, as she was studying to become a nurse practitioner.

After some of her local acquaintances found out about her previous work, they encouraged Janssen to write another book.

A couple of friends of Janssen’s helped her to critique the book as it was written. One of those assisting was in their 20’s, while the other in her 40’s. “They read it as I wrote it.”

That instant feedback was something new for Janssen, “so I critiqued the book based on that.”

“I wouldn’t go on in my writing until I heard from both of them,” added Janssen.

The photography for the book is also Janssen’s work.

“Without giving it away, the book has a very unique ending,” said Janssen. “I wasn’t going to end the book that way, I had a completely different ending in mind, and when I sent the way I ended the book to them, both of my readers were very unhappy.”

“I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about, what do I do now?” said Janssen. ” I was actually on a trip with my husband, we were sitting in the airport, and I was listening to this lady next to me talk about something, something that happened to her, and that just instantly gave me the idea of how to end the book.”

“I sent it to them [readers], and all three of them had the exact reaction I was hoping for, and they said it really made the book, the best book that they’ve read,” said Janssen.

You can purchase Janssen’s latest release at the Eagles Nest in Oskaloosa, or at Amazon.