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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ThrowBACKLIST Thursday: LAKESIDE

In honor of COURTING HER AMISH HEART, the first in my Prodigal Daughters series, releasing this month and in honor of the main character being named after my sister Kathleen, I thought it would be fun to interview her about one of my backlist titles.

ME: What did you think when your little sister first started writing books? 

KATHLEEN: I was surprised because I didn’t know you wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t surprised at the dedication and hard work you put into becoming a published author. When you first started writing, you would send Mom, Deb and I rough drafts to read. Your writing got better with each one I read. I remember reading Cinda’s Surprise and thinking “This is good enough to be published!  It's as good as many published books I have read.”

ME: I was surprised too. I didn't know I wanted to be an author until I started writing in my twenties, and got published in my thirties. You, Mom, and Deb helped me tremendously to grow as a writer. I couldn't have done it without you.

What is one of your favorite books that I've written? 

KATHLEEN: When you first asked me this

question, the first book that came to my mind was LAKESIDE.

ME: I wrote LAKESIDE while waiting for edits to come back on my first book published, NEWLYWED GAMES. In LAKESIDE, Lorelei Hayes returns to a lakeside cottage carrying a secret that has stolen her joy and hope for the future. Garth Kessel has waited ten years for her, but will he want the woman she has become?

My inspiration for this came from my husband's family's lakeside cottage in northern Michigan. The lake really is called Starvation Lake. They had a floating dock a short ways from shore, and I looked out at it from the deck, and before I knew it, the kissing bandit rose up out of the water and kissed a girl on the dock. Well, I had to know more about that story and so wrote LAKESIDE. Several small antidotes in this story are taken from stories my husband told me that he and his family did at this cottage, like jumping off their deck into several feet of snow.

What made this story stand out to you?

KATHLEEN: The heroine has to overcome some very big issues to get her happily ever after. I remember crying during one scene near the end where Lorelei has to confront a person from her past. It really touched me. However, although the book covers some heavy subject matter, there was also some wonderful humor. For instance, the discussion at the beach party about the kissing bandit and the dialogue where Garth and Lorelei are telling each other things about themselves that the other person doesn’t know.

ME: What did you take away from this story? 

KATHLEEN: God is good and can give you a happily ever after even if you think it’s not possible. Also, forgiveness brings healing to both the forgiver and the forgiven.

ME: What is your favorite part of the story?

KATHLEEN: As mentioned above, the scene that made me cry. I don’t want to give away any spoilers so I’ll leave it at that.

ME: Which character would you like to see in a sequel.  Why that character?  What do you think it might be about? 

KATHLEEN: Well, Garth’s sister, Gretchen, would make an awesome heroine of her own story, but I’d really like to see a continuation of Garth and Lorelei’s story. I would like to see them with a houseful of foster or adopted children, perhaps ones that no one else wants.

ME: Let me tell you about Gretchen. She was supposed to be in exactly one scene as a walk-on then walk-off character. Every time I turned around, she kept showing up at her brother's place. I finally had to tell her that this wasn't her story and she needed to go away. She folded her arms and said, "Make me." After promising her, her own story, she relented and went off to her parents'. I came up with a whole series in my head for her, but I could never get that series off the ground and to sell. Maybe I'll come back to it one day. I do love Gretchen.

LAKESIDE was the first in a series of four stories set in Michigan and on Mackinac Island; LAKESIDE, THE ISLAND, THE GRAND HOTEL, and HERITAGE. Though I don't have any plans to continue Lorelei and Garth's story, they do make an appearance in book four, HERITAGE, that I think you'll be happy with.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about this story? 

KATHLEEN: The supporting characters are very well written. I especially liked Garth's family. The banter between Garth and his siblings was great and made me want to be part of his family!

I loved Garth's family too. When the time came to put three of the four stories in a collection called MICHIGAN WEDDINGS, the publisher wanted an epilogue with a wedding scene. As I wrote the scene, I cried all the way through it. I was so happy for Lorelei. Then when I went back to edit it, I cried some more. As a quick refresher, because it's been a long time since I thought about this story, I reread the epilogue. Guess what? I cried again.

Thanks, big sis, for a great interview!


Latest release: COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
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?

#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 2018, Courting Her Amish Heart in March 2018, The Widow’s Plight in July 2018, Courting Her Secret Heart September 2018, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December 2018. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

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

MaryDavisBooks.com

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Tuesday Tidbits: What’s in a name—er title?

Like people’s names book titles are important.How does a book come to have the title it has?

A good title should fit the story and tell you something about the tale within, without giving too much away. It should intrigue. It should make a would-be reader want to pick up the book and learn more and ultimately purchase the book.

I’ve gotten to the end of several books and closed them shaking my head, trying to figure out why it was given the title it was. Some, I could eventually kind of come up with a roundabout way the title might fit, but only if I hold my tongue just right. Others, I think they gave the book an intriguing title and didn’t care if it fit the story. Or maybe the element in the story the title reflected was edited out and the title not changed.

Most of the books I’ve written have retained my original titles. When titles have gone through a change, the publishers have asked for title suggestions. The process is generally expeditious and without much fuss.

Courting Her Amish Heart didn’t follow the norm. We went through 65 or more titles before landing on Courting Her Amish Heart. My editor and I went back and forth over several emails.

Here is a small sampling of some of the options.

Courting Doctor Kathleen (my working title and still how I think of this book)

Courting the Amish Doctor

An Unconventional Courtship

The Return

A Plain & Simple Education

A Plain & Simple Doctor

Against the Rules

A Special Kind of Courtship

The Amish Doctor Sets Up Practice

The Amish Doctor’s Returns

You may think this was too much fuss about something as trivial as a book title. But there is science (a science I know nothing about) behind titling books. The marketing and sales departments at publishing houses study titles and have a feel for what sells and what doesn’t.

When the marketing and sales department says that your beloved title needs to be changed for such-and-such reason, it’s wise to listen to them. They know far more about titling a book than I do. I have only my opinions and my preferences for one title over another.

By the time we finally decided on this title, it tickled my funny bone at all we had to do to get the right title. I think both my editor and I were relieved when we’d found that right title that was going to work for this book.

I can’t argue with marketing when my book landed on Publisher’s Weekly’s bestseller list for mass market novels. There are some pretty heavy hitters above me. I’m in good company!

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
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?

#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 2018, Courting Her Amish Heart in March 2018, The Widow’s Plight in July 2018, Courting Her Secret Heart September 2018, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December 2018. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

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

MaryDavisBooks.com

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