LOVE COMES SOFTLY The first novel written by Oke was published in 1979 and tells us the story about Marty Claridge who has just moved out to the West with her husband who passes away in a horrible accident shortly after they move to the West. Today, Janette lives with her husband nearby Alberta in Canada where they are active in the local church. In recent years, Janette and her siblings have restored her parents’ prairie farm home, which now serves as a gift shop and museum of prairie life. In addition, her books have been translated to fourteen different languages. She has received multiple awards, for example, the Gold Medallion Award, the 1999 Life Impact Award from the Christian Booksellers Association International theChristy Award of Excellence and the 1992 President’s Award for her contribution to Christian fiction from the Evangelic Christian Publishers Association. Her warm and special writing style has been appreciated by millions of readers and people in all ages read Oke’s books. She also writes inspiring gift books and engaging children’s stories. With more than 23 million in sales, her historical novels illustrate the lives of early North American settlers with many different backgrounds. Janette Oke with a deep simplicity about what she is most familiar with – lasting values, real life, and honest love. She also received the CBA Life Impact Award in 1999 and the Gold Medallion Award for fiction. In 1992, Oke received the President’s Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association for her compelling contribution to Christian fiction. Since that date, Oke has written more that 75 other novels. The first novel she wrote, Love Comes Softly, was published by Bethany House in 1979. Furthermore, one of her daughters has helped her to write some of her books. Oke and her husband have 4 children, including two twin brothers.

Oke and the two were married in 1957 and have churches in Calgary, Indiana, and Edmonton in Canada. In college, she met her future husband Edward. Oke graduated from Mountain View Bible College in Didsbury, Alberta. Oke was born as Janette Steeves in Champion, Alberta, to a Canadian prairie farmer and his wife during the Great Depression.

She is a devoted Evangelical Christian and therefore, many of her novels are influenced with Christianity and religion. Many of her novels are set in a pioneer era and focus on female protagonists.

Janette Oke is a profilic Canadian writer and pioneer of inspirational fiction that was born on 18 February 1935.

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