This week on Story Behind the Story, we welcome June Foster to the blog! She just came out with a new book a couple months ago, A Kiss Under the Mistletoe. Let’s learn a little bit about it, shall we?

The men in Noel Kendrick’s life have always lied to her. When she accepts her pastor’s plea to head the Christmas nativity scene project, she doesn’t realize the job requires her to work with Carson Shumate, the handsome youth pastor with midnight blue eyes. Despite her efforts to keep her emotional distance, she falls hard after a kiss under the mistletoe.

But Carson has a secret of his own. If he reveals the truth about his identical twin to his church, he fears they will fire him, and he could lose Noel.

A Kiss Under the Mistletoe is the sequel to An Unexpected Family.

So, what IS the story behind A Kiss Under the Mistletoe?

I love to steal bits and pieces from real life when I write my stories. Some characters are like me and others about people I know. In A Kiss Under the Mistletoe, my heroine, Noel Kendrick, is a little like me in that she’s about twenty pounds overweight.

Twenty pounds isn’t so bad, right? Wrong. Noel feels frumpy and just plain frustrated. When she goes through the cafeteria line at the hospital where she’s an RN, the delicious chocolate donut seems to jump right onto her tray. Not to speak of the black coffee with sugar and cream.

Noel had reasons to overeat, though. She allowed snacking to shoo away her bitterness against men—her father and her former boyfriend.

Mr. Kendrick left Noel and her mother when she was twelve, and she never heard from him again. What made it worse, Noel had worked hard to earn good grades so her dad would be pleased with her. She accomplished her goal, and he left anyway.

Then Noel ate every time she thought about her college boyfriend. She figured dating a youth pastor would be safe. It wasn’t. He dated another girl at the same time and lied to her. Now, she’s especially distrustful of youth pastors. And you guessed it. The hero in the story is a youth pastor.

So, it’s easy to write a character who struggles with the same issues as I. I’m sure there are many women, like me, who would love to lose a little weight. I’ve battled with the same twenty pounds for years. Sometimes I shed them, then they mysteriously appear again. I try to remember the diet I was on and somehow, I’m stumped.

Shh. I’m not telling how much Noel weighs at the end of the story. I hope you’ll read it for yourself. The Lord’s blessings.

An award-winning author, June Foster is also a retired teacher with a BA in Education and a MA in counseling. She is the mother of two and grandmother of ten. June began writing Christian romance in 2010. She penned her first novel on her Toshiba laptop as she and her husband traveled the US in their RV. Her adventures provide a rich source of information for her novels. She brags about visiting a location before it becomes the setting in her next book. To date, June has written twenty-two contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels and novellas. She loves to compose stories about characters who overcome the circumstances in their lives by the power of God and His Word. June uses her training in counseling and her Christian beliefs in creating characters who find freedom to live godly lives. She’s published with Winged Publications. Visit June at www.junefoster.com to see a complete list of her books.

Social Media Links

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/junefoster

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorjunefoster

Where to Buy A Kiss Under the Mistletoe

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2FjUR4a

Foster is giving away an ebook copy of A Kiss Under the Mistletoe. Directions below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you, June, for joining us today and sharing your story behind the story!