Serena

I am being told by those who know about these things, that my second historical is not strictly a sequel, nor is it a series. I’m new at this, and did not know the distinction. So here’s a little more information about the not-a-sequel, not-a-series book I just finished writing:-) It is set in 1871 Michigan, the year of a terrible drought. My hero is a widowed dirt farmer with five children. My heroine is an immigrant girl from Sweden by the name of Ingrid. It is a story of survival and enduring love. The sequel part comes in when the farmer is forced to seek work in one of the lumber camps and ends up in Robert Foster’s. The reader gets to see how Katie and Robert are doing, but the book isn’t ABOUT Katie and Robert. So–this is not technically a sequel. And it is not a series because each book is a stand-alone novel. Now that that’s all clear, I think I’ll go read the dictionary so I won’t make that sort of mistake again:-)

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Yesterday morning, at 3 a.m., I sent my editor the sequel to The Measure of Katie Calloway. The title is: The Endurance of Ingrid Larsen (A Promise To Love), and oh how I loved writing Ingrid’s story! I spent most of yesterday, after sending the manuscript in, either staring into space or crying. Finishing a book is an emotional roller coaster for me. I am grateful to take a break, but my characters become so real to me that I feel a sort of grief when the book ends. In the Sugarcreek book, for instance, I still miss Bertha. I find myself longing to talk with her, and have to remind myself that she isn’t real, but it never works, because in my heart she’s very real. That’s why getting to write the sequel to Katie Calloway was so satisfying. I had never written a sequel before, and getting to revisit the lumber camp, was so much fun. (I’ll tell you right now–Jigger did NOT enjoy his sojourn cooking for the health institute in Battle Creek, Michigan!) However, in The Measure of Katie Calloway, it is Delia–the old prostitute–that I miss the most. This surprised me, because she was a […]

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I just got back last night from staying with an Old Order Amish family all weekend. Seven children. One litter of kittens. One litter of unexpected puppies. Fifteen horses. Two milk cows. A five-year-old in a bonnet handing me a baby bottle filled with milk to feed a tiny kitten. Sitting with oil lamps in the evening, the five-year-old on my lap, three other little barefoot girls iin choring kerchiefs all fascinated with me NOT because I am a published author but because I have actually been to visit Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house in Missouri!!!! (They are rabid Little House fans) An older sister sewed a new dress on a treadle sewing machine in the corner, another older sister pressed her new dress (there’s a family wedding coming up) with a cast-iron iron she heated on the stove, the mother sat in a rocking chair reading a recently published book of Amish history I had brought her as a hostess gift. Not all Amish families are alike. From what I have read, not all Amish families are emotionally healthy. But what I saw this past weekend was a family at peace with themselves, with their world, and with God. Not […]

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