I recently read The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams. I selected it because I knew it dealt with polygamy, just as my book Sister Wife does. It’s a subject that fascinates me so I was curious to see how Williams handled it. What I didn’t expect was that our two stories would share so many of the same elements. In each book the young protagonist is secretly meeting a teen boy, a hugely forbidden activity. They both have mothers who are struggling with their pregnancies. They are both about to be married to a much older man. They both have a little sister they are very attached to. They also both have a sister who is close in age and more committed to the religious practises. Forbidden books and librarians are featured in both stories. The list goes on…

I checked the publishing dates and they came out at about the same time which is not surprising, polygamous communities were being highlighted in the news then, but still, the similarities were uncanny. Most of us know that when two writers set out to write about the same subject, the books usually come out distinctly different. Not in this case.

Our writing styles are very different though and although the story endings are similar, they each have a different twist. Regardless, I find it amazing that someone else’s writing brain works so much like my own…