Featured Book: Two Roads Home

Featured Book: Summer’s List Featured Book: As Waters Gone By

Featured Book: Two Roads Home

And the winner of Summer’s List by Anita Higman is:

Maryann

Congratulations, Maryann!

And now for our featured book . . .

Nagging setbacks continue to challenge Grant and Audrey Whitman’s initiation into the world of inn keeping, but larger challenges brew when an occasional flirtation leads to big trouble for the Whitman’s son-in-law, Jesse.

Jesse Pennington’s friendly, outgoing personality has always served him well, especially in a career that has earned him and his wife Corinne a very comfortable lifestyle. But Corinne and Jesse are both restless–and for similar reasons, if only they could share those with each other. Instead, too many business trips and trumped up charges of harassment from a disgruntled co-worker threaten their marriage and possibly put their three precious daughters at risk. With their life in disarray, God is tugging at their hearts to pursue other dreams. Can Corinne and Jesse pick up the pieces of what was once a beautiful life before it crumbles beneath them?

An Interview with author Deborah Raney:

Finish this sentence. Inspirational fiction is . . . fiction that inspires readers to examine their own lives in light of the situations the novel’s characters are experiencing, and to come away feeling encouraged, enlightened, or even empowered in their real lives.

Tell us how you got the idea for Two Roads Home.

The idea for the whole series came when I was yakking with my friend Courtney Walsh at a conference. Throughout our evening, I’d told several family stories, and at one point she said, “Deb, you have so many fun family stories, you ought to write a book about a big extended family like yours! Or a series!” That got my wheels turning, and from there, I’ve just had to create a family for each of the five Whitman offspring. It’s been a blast!

What ’s one of your favorite scenes in Two Roads Home?

There’s a scene where things get very crazy at the bed and breakfast late one night…one of those situations where eventually, as things go from bad to worse, all you can do is laugh. I laughed when I wrote it because I could so see something like that happening in my own family—especially if we were trying to run a B&B!

Are you anything like Corinne, your main character? If you could cast him/her in a movie, whom would you choose?

The truth is, I’m a little bit like all of my characters. I really do try to write some characters who are very different from me, but since I must put myself in my characters’ shoes to write their scenes, eventually, they all have a little bit of me in them.

I think I’m most like Corinne, in that I was a stay-at-home mom, with all the wonderful and conflicting, and difficult, and glorious things that entails.

I could easily see Maggie Gyllenhaal in the role of Corinne. I love her ability to be girl-next-door casual one minute, then very glamorous the next.

Describe Jesse Pennington. What actor would you hire to play him?

Kyle Chandler! I’ve had this guy in my head as my hero in several books. Sorry… He’s just so winsome! Drop-dead handsome, yet down-to-earth at the same time. And exactly how I pictured Jesse:

What do you want readers to take away from this book/novel?

That dreams and purpose in life are so much more important than money and security! It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn in my own life in recent years—the hard way…as I tend to learn every important lesson. But I’m so very glad I learned it before it was too late and I would have been full of regrets.

Do you have another book in the works? Tell us about it.

There are three more books in the Chicory Inn Novels series after this one. Five in all. Book 3, Another Way Home, releases in October and the new two in 2016, early 2017. But I just turned in Close to Home (Book 4) so only one left to write for me! I’m really going to miss this family once I write “the end” on that last book!

What was your favorite book as a child? Why?

I attended a two-room country schoolhouse, one of the last in Kansas. We had an incredible, but small, library and I’m sure I read every book on the shelves. But one I returned to over and over again was called The Village That Slept. It was the story of two young teens who survive a plane crash in Europe and care for a tiny infant survivor as they try to make their way out of the mountains to civilization. When my childhood school closed down, I lost track of that book, and spent three decades searching for it—except I couldn’t remember the title or the author! Makes it difficult to find a book if you don’t know those two details. Long story short, I’d almost given up when I came across a reference to the book while I was researching a novel. (Turns out it was a translation from the French, and I’d been searching for a story set in the Alps, when actually the crash happened in the Pyrenées mountains.) The book was long out of print, but I was able to locate a used copy online. The dealer was asking $60 for it, but he cut his price in half, and then a dear writing friend sent me a $30 certificate to that site, so I got it free! When the book came in the mail some time later, it was like welcoming an old friend home!

If you could describe the perfect date with your spouse, where would you go?

This might sound funny, but since we moved to Wichita two years ago, Ken and I haven become huge fans of garage sales! We’ve always loved art museums and antique shops, but now we’ve added Goodwill and garage sale excursions to our repertoire! There’s just something about the thrill of the hunt! And then bragging about the huge bargains we bagged! We have a standing date every Thursday morning for donuts, coffee, and a couple hours of garage sale-ing.

Deborah is offering a copy of Two Roads Home (US only) to one of you. Please answer the question below in the comment box along with your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you’re the winner. The winner will be announced next Thursday, September 3rd, so you have a week to enter. Tell your friends!

Whether you’ve ever read a Deborah Raney novel or not, which one of her book covers makes you want to read the book the most? (Double click to enlarge)

About the author:

Deborah Raney’s thirty books have garnered multiple industry awards, including the RITA, the Carol, the HOLT Medallion, National Readers’ Choice Award, and Silver Angel from Excellence in Media, and have three times been Christy Award finalists. Her first novel, A Vow to Cherish, which shed light on the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease and inspired the highly acclaimed World Wide Pictures film of the same title, continues to be a tool for Alzheimer’s families and caregivers. Deborah is on faculty for several national writers’ conferences, and serves on the executive board of the 2,700-member American Christian Fiction Writers organization. She and her husband, Ken Raney, recently traded small-town life in Kansas—the setting of many of Deb’s novels—for life in the (relatively) big city of Wichita. They have four children and five precious grandchildren (plus two on the way!) who all live much too far away. Visit Deb at www.deborahraney.com.