Having moved almost twenty times in my life, I have a passion for home – finding home, creating home, and enjoying home no matter where you land. My personal space is filled with books, my favorites being about homecomings and safe places of peace and restoration. Home fills me with joy and is a theme in each of the historical novels I write. Everyone should have the haven of a home, both here and now and eternally.
I wrote...
A Heart Adrift
By
Laura Frantz
What is my book about?
A Virginia chocolatier and a privateering sea captain collide once more after a failed love affair a decade before. Will war and a cache of regrets keep them apart? Or will a new shared vision reunite them?
It's 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair. Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing the lighthouse in the dangerous Chesapeake Bay, a dream he once shared with Esmée. But when the colonial government asks him to lead a secret naval expedition against the French, his future is plunged into uncertainty.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
The Books I Picked & Why
The Blue Castle
By
L. M. Montgomery
Why this book?
Anne of Green Gables, step aside! The Blue Castle, a lesser-known work for adults from author Lucy Maud Montgomery, features a laugh-out-loud heroine that goes from spineless to sassy in a mere 310 pages. Set during the 1920s in the Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada, the heroine Valancy Stirling, escapes to Mistawis Island, the home of her heart with her very unlikely hero. Descriptions of the natural world are spellbinding as is the shimmering romance. A book to reread over and over again, something I rarely do.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
A Song of Years
By
Bess Streeter Aldrich,
Anne Reeve Aldrich
Why this book?
A Song of Years captures all of the struggle and angst of carving out a home from pure, unspoiled Iowa prairie by those bold pioneers who risked everything to do so. While reading, I became the heroine, Abby Deal, as she sacrificed and struggled to wrest a life and create a home from the frontier that challenged her and her family at every turn. Realistic, even epic, this 1939 novel is on my keeper shelf.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
At Home in Mitford
By
Jan Karon
Why this book?
Such a charming, colorful smorgasbord of characters in one tiny North Carolina town that leaves a lasting impression. At Home in Mitford is just that, an open door to a world where everyone is at home, the reader included. First in a series of fourteen, each novel is unique and centers around home and those who inhabit it with all their commonalities and quirks, concluding with Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good, published in 2014. The Mitford Museum is now open in Hudson, North Carolina along with Happy Ending Bookstore, a beloved, must-visit site.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Jane Austen at Home: A Biography
By
Lucy Worsley
Why this book?
Written by one of my favorite historians, this novel explores the rooms and homes that shaped Jane Austen and her timeless literary career. Home indeed shapes us, defines us, and even imbues our work as Lucy Worsley shows. A unique look into the life of a beloved novelist that adds rich layers to the fictional world of Austen and fleshes out her settings of Longbourn, Netherfield, Barton Cottage, etc.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
The Light Between Oceans
By
ML Stedman
Why this book?
Imagine living in a lighthouse and calling it home! Yet lightkeeper, Tom Sherbourne and wife Isabel create an unforgettable refuge atop the rocks of Janus in Australia at the end of WW2. When a baby washes ashore in a boat after a storm, their lives change forever and the definition of home is redefined. Riveting and emotional, this novel is based on a true story you won’t soon forget. Now a major motion picture.
