Tuesday Tidbit: ANATOMY OF A SERIES

 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

I'm excited about book 3 in my Prodigal Daughters Amish romance releasing today. This has been a fun series. Here is a little bit of how this series came about.

Ahhhh, romance! I love romance. If there is a specific gene connected to romance, I must have it.

When asked if I’d consider writing a contemporary Amish romance series, my first thought was that I didn’t know enough about the Amish, so let me pray about it. After praying, God led me to a few ideas that I developed into a series: Amish women with nontraditional hopes and dreams. Prodigals. I figured my Prodigal Daughters series was too non-Amish that a publisher wouldn’t want it. Imagine my surprise when the publisher contracted them.

Before starting to write stories with Amish (or writing about any unfamiliar people group), I had to get to know them a little. Like a lot of people, I had preconceived notions of who the Amish were. As I researched the Amish, I learned things I never imagined that shattered my two-dimensional-people image I had of them and discovered a vibrant people.

I had so much fun coming up with Amish women who didn’t follow the traditional path for an Amish woman. So I thought, What’s something Amish almost never do? Go to school beyond eighth grade. So what would propel an Amish girl to defy her culture, religion, and way of life. I discovered, it was because of those things, she went against the rules. She loved her people so much, she was willing to sacrifice and endure ridicule to serve them.

In COURTING HER AMISH HEART, though Kathleen might not have thought of herself as strong, she was strong indeed. She gave up her dream of her own family to go against hundreds of years of tradition and rules to provide her fellow Amish with medical care. Kathleen’s prodigality was for a noble cause.

Kathleen is dear to my heart not only because I admire her strength, but because I named her after my wonderful oldest sister.

So, what else would an Amish person not do? Fashion model is high on that list. My next challenge was getting her away from her family farm all the time without her family noticing. I felt so bad for Deborah that her family didn’t notice her regular absence, especially her mutter. So, I explored why they could be so calloused toward her.

In COURTING HER SECRET HEART, though Deborah may have thought she craved attention, she really just wanted to belong in her own family. Deborah’s prodigality was selfish, but when her family needed her, she was willing to sacrifice everything for them.

Deborah is dear to my heart not only because my heart ached for her misguided actions, but because I named her after my wonderful second oldest sister.

For a Prodigal Daughters series to be complete, I needed to have a true prodigal. Where my first two heroines were still very much Amish, I wanted this third one to have turned her back on the Amish ways. When she finds out she’s pregnant and has no place else to turn, she’s forced to seek help from the one place she never wanted to return to: her Amish roots.

In COURTING HER PRODIGAL HEART, Dori had done everything she could to look the

opposite of Amish. Not only with clothes and make-up but with piercings, rainbow-colored hair, and pregnant. Dori’s prodigality was very selfish, and it took all of her Englisher ways, Eli’s kindness, and Gott’s love to help Dori become Amish after all.

I have only two sisters, so Dori wasn’t named after anyone, but my heart went out to her in her struggling to figure out who she was. I loved getting to know these three couples as I wrote their stories.

Happy reading!

Blessings,

Mary (Endowed with the Romance Gene)

     =0)

An Overview of the series

COURTING HER AMISH HEART

A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one… Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream? 

COURTING HER SECRET HEART
Caught between two worlds… Deborah Miller lives a double life as an Amish woman—and a fashion model! All photography is forbidden in her Plain community, so she must keep her job a secret. But when Amos Burkholder starts helping at her family’s farm, hiding the truth from him is impossible. And soon she must choose between the Englischer world of modeling and the Amish man she’s come to love.

COURTING HER PRODIGAL HEART
Mother-to-Be’s Amish Homecoming... Pregnant and alone, Dori Bontrager is sure her Amish kin won’t welcome her—or the child she’s carrying—into the community. And she’s determined that her return won’t be permanent. As soon as she finds work, she’ll leave again. But with her childhood friend Eli Hochstetler insisting she and her baby belong here, will Dori’s path lead back to the Englisher world…or into Eli’s arms?

#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December, and Courting Her Prodigal Heart (Book 3 in the Prodigal Daughter's series) January 2019. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-four years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:
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