This week, please join me in welcoming Heather Smith to The Story behind the Story. Of course, I’m partial to stories with foster care and adoption as major themes. Here’s a little bit about the book itself.

Recently retired Colleen Hill is always busy, constantly on a quest to make life more interesting.

When the ladies’ group at her church partners with the local children’s home, Colleen jumps in as usual, volunteering to share her passion for cooking with a troubled teenager named Grace. But Colleen must balance the new project with her pursuit of becoming a contestant on a television game show, along with all the other ideas her brain continually spins out.

Colleen’s daughter Melody is quite different. She lives a calm, simple life and is content with who she is. That is, until an unexpected opportunity to work with Grace, too, pushes her to reevaluate life and dare to take on bigger dreams. The path starts with a newly-found interest in soap-making and leads her to responsibilities she didn’t even know she wanted, including helping Grace understand the meaning of her name.

Grace & Lavender is a book for all audiences—a heart-warming story that reminds us to seek God’s purpose for our lives.

Sounds like such a good read. What inspired you to write it?

I’ve always loved to write, but I was not inclined to write a book until one day in July of 2017 when I was sitting on the beach watching my three children play in the surf. “Out of nowhere”, a character popped into my head and started telling me her story. I loved the story, so, over the next few months, I wrote it down. Now I can’t stop writing.

There are two characters in Grace & Lavender that were greatly influenced by my own life. Colleen Hill–the main character—is a restless soul with too much energy and not enough time to fulfill all the wild pursuits she believes will make life more interesting. While I hesitate to admit it, that character is largely autobiographical (though she’s more than twenty years older than I am.) This excerpt sums up how Colleen and I are alike:

Still, for a long time, she had harbored a constant, overwhelming sense that there was something she wanted or needed to do that she hadn’t yet discovered. The passion she felt for finding and fulfilling an unknown purpose was almost exhausting.

Part of that search for purpose has been filled by my new love for novel writing, as well as by becoming a licensed foster parent. Foster care and adoption are major themes in the book.

Another character born from reality is the town of Springville, North Carolina. While some might not consider the setting to be a character, the role the town plays in shaping the story warrants its status as such. Springville has many elements of my hometown of Elkin, North Carolina and similar communities in the area of western North Carolina known as the Yadkin Valley.

Springville is a tight-knit community where everybody knows everything about everybody, and churches seem to outnumber even the multitude of cow pastures and chicken houses. Springville’s downtown area is on the brink of rebirth, and people are excited about the future while careful to honor the memory of the past. It’s hotter than hot in the summertime, but if you have just the right spot, the temperature is worth bearing just to sit on the back porch and take in the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.

Heather Norman Smith is a devotional blogger and author of inspirational fiction. Her goal is to use the written word to entertain and encourage, while illuminating the redemptive love of God. Grace & Lavender is her first novel. Her second novel, Where I Was Planted, will be released Summer 2019.

Heather is proud to be a life-long North Carolinian and aims to present the beauty of the Tar Heel State in her writing. Her home is just outside Winston-Salem, NC, where she lives with her husband, their three children, and several spoiled pets.

For more information, visit www.heathernormansmith.com.

Follow Heather on:

Facebook- www.facebook.com/heathernormansmith

Twitter- www.twitter.com/hnsblog

Instagram- www.instagram.com/heathernormansmith

Links to purchase:

Grace & Lavender on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Lavender-Heather-Norman-Smith/dp/1620208334/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Grace & Lavender on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grace-lavender-heather-norman-smith/1129215335?ean=9781620208335

Heather is giving away one print copy of her book. Follow the directions below to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for sharing with us, Heather!