She had a vague belief in God, but attending a Christian boarding school in England exposed her to a different type of religion and concept of God. After her parent’s divorce, she found herself in a different culture in England, having lived in a nominal Muslim community back home in Iran. Tessa Afshar’s writing has been significantly influenced by her experiences growing up in Iran, England, and the United States. “Pearl in the Sand” was the winner of the New Author of the Year Award in the 2011 Readers Choice Awards. Afshar won the Best Historical Romance Christy Award for the novel Harvest of Gold, and made the finals for the Best Fiction title at eh 2013 ECPA Book Awards for “Harvest of Rubies”. The novel also made the shortlist for the Best Inspirational Romance at the 2016 RT Reviewers Choice Awards.

Over the years, she has won several awards including an Inspy award for “Land of Silence”, that was also the winner of the 2016 top five Christian Fiction novels.

Afshar wrote her first novel “Pearl in the Sand” in 2010, before she followed it up with “Harvest of Rubies”, the first of the Harvest series in 2012. He currently serves on the board of one of the oldest American churches in the US, though she is yet to lose her love for chocolates. In addition to taking a theological course at Yale, she was the Divinity School’s co-chair of the Christian Fellowship. She migrated to the United States where she went to College at Yale, graduating with an MDiv. She converted to Christianity while she was in her twenties, which had a profound effect on her life. In England, she went to a boarding school, which is where she was introduced to and fell in love with the likes of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. Tessa was born in Iran and spent most of her childhood there, before she moved to England aged fourteen. Tessa Afshar is biblical and historical fiction award-winning American author who has made a name for herself in the Christian genre.

Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar