Hello everyone. My latest book, Amish Redemption, is showing up in stores from coast to coast this week. I thought you might enjoy a glimpse at the story behind the story.
I knew my book was going to be as spring release when the book was contracted. Here in Kansas, spring normally means the end of a hard winter, but it also means the beginning of severe weather season. I’m talking tornadoes. Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz type tornadoes.
March is traditionally the beginning of tornado outbreaks in the Great Plains. This year has been the exception with 0 so far, but the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925 was the deadliest tornado in history, killing 695 people. It is also the longest tornado track ever known – 219 miles – across parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. When I started thinking about having Mary and Joshua meet under trying circumstances in the spring, the first thing that popped into my head was, “tornado!” The deadly storms of my state have brought literally thousands upon thousands of volunteers and victims together in amazing stories of overcoming odds and rebuilding communities from nothing. I knew I wanted to showcase human kindness in that fashion.
The idea of trapping Mary and Joshua together in a basement under a house leveled by a tornado came from some of my own experience. I was a sophomore in high school when my family raced to the basement of our rural farmhouse with that horrible sound bearing down on us. It doesn’t just sound like a locomotive. It sounds like a gigantic, ferocious, enormous howling beast. The sound is unbelievable and unforgettable. I distinctly remember watching the outside cellar door lift open and a lawn chair came floating down into the center of the basement and landed softly. It was a surreal moment. The cellar door banged shut a second later. A loud crash followed, and rain began pouring down the inside stairwell. My dad said, “Well, the house is gone.”
I remember thinking how calm and brave he was as he huddled over me.
Our house was spared a direct hit and everyone emerge safely. The water running down the steps had been sucked in by the wind when the back door flew open. Water had been sucked throughout the house and there was even some in the teacups in the china cupboard. Tornadoes are freaky things.
I already knew Mary’s story. I revealed some of it in A Home For Hannah, back in 2012. Joshua’s story was a little more difficult to formulate, but once I realized what a big family he came from and how diverse his brothers were, I knew I had the start of a new series at my fingertips. I enjoyed weaving their stories together and showing the way people, even total strangers, can come together in a moment of crisis.
I hope you will pick up a copy of Amish Redemption and let me know what you think of the story.
P.S. March is also the Parade of Quilts in the nearby Amish community of Yoder KS.
Blessings all,
Patricia Davids