My creativity is sparked by anything and everything. The story idea for The Snow Globe was sparked when I was sitting in a recliner in the chemo room while receiving treatments for breast cancer in 2009.
The woman two recliners down from me had a different type of cancer. It was in her thyroid glands in her neck, and her neck was horribly swollen with the lumps. They were giving her chemo to reduce the size before they operated.
While talking with the other partners in cancer treatment, this lady, we’ll call her Donna, mentioned that she worked on a Mississippi River tugboat as a cook. That grabbed my interest! I sat up straight, whipped out a notebook and started asking questions. What did she like about her job? What was lodging like? What type of food did she serve? And a lot more.
This sparked an idea about a Riverboat tugboat captain. Modern day. And what if he were a runaway from the Amish?
Donna and I never saw each other again, but when it came time to write this story, I prayed that God would bring her or someone else who worked on the Mississippi into my life to answer anymore questions and read the story for accuracy.
God answered my prayers… a man who attends my church, we’ll call him Clifford, was over at our house helping my husband and son with some electrical repairs. And on the way out to his truck to get some supplies he casually mentioned he’d worked on the Mississippi River on a tugboat. My ears perked up. And when he came back into the house I was waiting. Clifford agreed to help, even supplying newspaper clippings his wife had saved and reading through the finished book before it went to print.
A White Christmas in Webster County (September 2014) started because another Amish romance writer asked me to write an anthology with her. Long story short, we didn’t. But Whitaker House was interested in a proposal. While talking with my editor, she mentioned wanting to see one that included old characters from my pervious books. So I thought about it. Prayed about it. And God led me to Abram, the male lead in Awakened Love who had a twin brother named Abner who moved to Montana. . . What if Abner visited Abram for the holidays and found love? Then someone mentioned a newspaper clipping she saw about Amish going fishing on Lake Michigan…. And there we have Mercy’s story…
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Award winning author Laura Hilton, her husband, Steve, and three of their children make their home in Arkansas. She is a pastor’s wife, a stay-at-home mom a home-schooler. Laura is also a breast cancer survivor and has two adult children.
Her publishing credits include three books in the Amish of Seymour series from Whitaker House: Patchwork Dreams, A Harvest of Hearts (winner of the 2012 Clash of the Titles Award in two categories), and Promised to Another. The Amish of Webster County series, Healing Love (finalist for the 2013 Christian Retail Awards), Surrendered Love and Awakened Love was followed by her first Christmas novel, A White Christmas in Webster County, as well as a three book Amish series with Whitaker House, The Amish of Jamesport series, The Snow Globe, The Postcard in April 2015, and The Bird House in September 2015. Other credits include Swept Away from Abingdon Press. Laura is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and a professional book reviewer.
Check out her author page on Amazon and on Christian Book Distributors.