When I give a book talk, I like the question and answer part the best. One of the questions I’m often asked is “What is your favorite book?” I always tell whoever asked what a hard question that is for an author to answer. It’s something like asking a mother which is her favorite child.
All these books shown in the picture are favorites in some way. I could pick Scent of Lilacs because I love those Hollyhill characters and had such fun writing all the Jupiter stories Wes and Jocie shared. It’s also the book that brought me into the inspirational fiction market that turned out to be a great place for the type of stories I love to write.
I could pick The Outsider, my first Shaker book, because it opened some new doors for me and brought me new readers. I could say Murder at the Courthouse because I love reading mysteries and it was such fun writing those Hidden Springs mysteries. I could pick Words Spoken True because it truly has some amazing Louisville history in the story and mystery mixed with romance too. I really enjoyed researching the Frontier Nursing Service and heading to the Appalachian Mountains to come up with my story, These Healing Hills.
And then there’s that amazing true story about the slave Louis in the town of Springfield during the 1833 cholera epidemic that inspired my book River to Redemption. The line I let Louis say over and over, “pray believing” has touched many of the book’s readers. Then there was the e-mail I got once about my book, Orchard of Hope, where the reader said my book had inspired her to rededicate her life to Christ. How could I not include that as a great reason for a favorite book?
But if I am pushed for an answer of one favorite book, I always have to name Angel Sister. That’s because my mother’s stories of growing up during the Great Depression inspired the story. The book is fiction but there are so many echoes of the stories my mother and her sisters loved to tell woven into the background of that story. And then my characters gave me some heart touching, dramatic scenes like the one below.
Scene from Angel Sister
(Setting the scene- Kate, Lorena and Graham have just survived a flash fire in a dry woods. Now they’re finding their way home.)
It was very dark with the rain falling around them and the clouds blotting out any sign of the moon or stars. Kate had walked between her house and Graham’s pond a hundred times, but now nothing was the same. She had no idea if they were going the right direction or not as they made their way between snags of burned tree trunks and fallen branches. The lingering smoke burned her nose even with the wet rag to filter out the worst of the ash. Kate couldn’t imagine what the place would look like in the morning light. She didn’t want to imagine it. Sunrise would bring the truth soon enough.
And then they stepped into a different world. A world where the trees were still standing and the rain was filtering through a canopy of leaves over their heads. Graham stopped and looked back at Kate. “See I told you the old girls would make it through.” He stepped up beside one of the oak trees and laughed as he laid his hand on its trunk.
Kate looked up. It was still very dark but she could sense the trees towering over her. Trees that had been there since long before Rosey Corner had been settled. The fire had gone through but it hadn’t taken any of the trees down. When the song rose up inside her, she let it out. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Kate always wanted to sing when she was in under the great trees and never more than now.
Graham joined in with her. He didn’t have much of a singing voice, but he sounded joyful. “Praise him all creatures here below.”
Lorena sang the amen with them.
“The strong find a way to keep standing. No matter what happens.” Graham patted the tree trunk closest to him. Then he put one hand on Lorena’s head and the other on Kate’s shoulder. “That’s us. Strong. We’re still standing.”
“Because you knew where the pond was.” Kate wasn’t feeling very strong, just blessed. Mightily blessed.
“It’s the Lord who gives us strength,” Graham said. “To face all the fires of life.”
“You sound like Grandfather Reece,” Kate said.
“If a fellow can’t preach a little after what we’ve seen tonight, there’s something wrong inside his heart.”
“Can we go on home now?” Lorena asked in a small voice. “Or are we lost?”
Kate picked up Lorena. “No, sweetie. We aren’t lost. We know where we are and who we are. Why don’t you say your name now?”
“Okay, but put me down so I can say it right.” Lorena stood down on the ground and lifted up her head to shout at the tops of the trees. “My name is Lorena Birdsong.”
Kate laughed and shouted after her. “My name is Katherine Merritt.”
Graham echoed his name right behind them. “My name is Graham Lindell.”
Then Kate shouted. “And we are alive.”
The word alive bounced off the trees around them. She pulled in a deep breath and wanted to sing again. And dance. And laugh. She’d never before thought about how good it felt to breathe.
~~
I hope you enjoyed that scene from Angel Sister and that if you haven’t tried some of my “favorite” stories, that you will give one of them a read. Or all of them. 
If you have read some of my books, did you have a favorite? Or a favorite fiction book by any author?