My twelfth book in The Smoky Mountain series publishes this year. To celebrate this series of stand-alone novels, all set around the Great Smoky Mountains, I’m going to dedicate each blog for this coming year to one of my titles.
My second novel TELL ME ABOUT ORCHARD HOLLOW came out a year after my first in the spring of 2010. An interesting fact few people know is that this was actually the first Smoky Mountain novel I wrote, even through THE FOSTER GIRLS was the first book published. When I began querying agents and later publishers, I read most expected to see the hero and heroine meet in a compelling, memorable way in the first chapter or two of a book. Since this was definitely not the case with Orchard, I submitted Foster instead.
In TELL ME ABOUT ORCHARD HOLLOW the story begins in New York City and it takes some time before Jenna Howell comes to Townsend and meets Boyce Hart. Even then, she is still married, and it is hardly time for a sudden romance to begin for either of them.
Here is the hook and short synopsis for TELL ME ABOUT ORCHARD HOLLOW in case you haven’t read the book or forgot the story:
In this second novel in the beloved Smoky Mountain Series, a young woman, hurt by the one she loves most, finds healing and a new confidence in a rural cabin on the quiet side of the mountains. ….. 
New Yorker Jenna Howell has spent many pleasant hours listening to her older neighbor, Sam Oliver, spin stories about his beloved home place on Orchard Hollow Road in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. This rural world is far removed from Jenna’s life in downtown Manhattan, but when several shocking events and marital betrayal come her way, Jenna—a previously sheltered girl—decides to take Sam up on his offer to visit his cabin in the mountains……At Sam’s place in Townsend, Jenna meets many new friends, including her good-looking neighbor, artist Boyce Hart. A quick attraction sparks between Jenna and Boyce, proving to be both exciting and confusing at this time in Jenna’s life. It is not the right time for a new relationship for either Jenna or Boyce. However, as spring blooms in the Smokies, Jenna blooms. She gains a new appreciation for unselfish love and simple pleasures, develops confidence in herself and her talents, and begins to find new understandings about faith. Just as she is finding happiness and beginning to heal, an unexpected tragedy forces her to return to New York City. Here she has to test out her new-found strengths, resolve the problems in her life, and decide on the direction for her future. Choosing the right course proves to be more difficult than expected – as two very different lives vie with opposite allures for Jenna’s heart.
Having never traveled to New York City, I had to read extensively and look at a number of YouTubes to begin my story there. … I wanted to contrast city life with country life. I wanted to show the differences between people from both places and also the similarities. Since the earliest of times, people who live in the hustle and bustle of the city have retreated to quiet country places for vacation, for refreshment, for peace, and even for an escape in a time of hurt or sorrow. Jenna, having heard so many rich stories from her neighbor Sam Oliver about his mountain cabin, decided his place in quiet Townsend the perfect spot to run to when her life fell apart.
An overly sheltered girl, Jenna had found it hard to develop confidence or respect for herself and her abilities. As the story unfolds, the reader sees that Jenna’s husband Elliott and her parents encourage little independence, control Jenna’s life more than is healthy and limit her growth. Suppressed people often don’t see they are suppressed, and a part of this book’s story is about Jenna emerging into her own person. Around an entirely new set of good and wholesome people in Townsend, Jenna begins to change and bloom. I loved painting the picture of her growth and creating all the little scenes in which Jenna begins to “find herself.” Aristotle said “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” and there is much truth in those words. Socrates also said ‘when you find yourself, you can think for yourself.’ Throughout the book Jenna comes to know herself more and more and to think for herself with more confidence.
In a lovely parallel, Jenna’s new friend in rural Townsend, Charlotte Bratcher, has experienced few of the privileges of education and wealth Jenna has known, yet the love and acceptance she’s had throughout her life from family and friends has built in her a strong sense of self and an easy comfortable wisdom. Charlotte proves a kind help to Jenna at a hard time in her life, and in many instances throughout the book Charlotte offers Jenna needed practical advice to live by. “My Granny Oliver says there is no shame in making mistakes in this life. It’s just a natural thing,” Charlotte tells Jenna in one scene. “But it’s what we do after we make them that’s really important.”
Boyce Hart often plays the role of “homespun philosopher” too. He grew up in nearby Wears Valley, where his mother and brother still live. Life for Boyce’s family evolved around farming, faith, and family. Boyce’s father had been a preacher. The family lived on the land, loved it and worked hard with their hands. Boyce learned to paint early as a boy, helping out in his older brother’s craft and sign shop—painting signs and birdhouses, and eventually branching out to paint pictures of the things he loved around the valley. Self-taught, his art developed with practice until he became a well-known landscape artist and opened his own gallery, the Hart Gallery, in nearby Townsend.
As the story begins Boyce is happy and easy with his own life. He feels a little annoyed when asked to “be nice” to city girl Jenna Howell when she comes to stay at Sam’s cabin across the street from his place. He knows though this girl has been good to Sam in New York, and because Boyce loves Sam, he’s determined to reach out with kindness to Jenna. That he soon finds himself attracted to her surprises and upsets him. His strong principles would never let him take advantage of a friend of Sam’s or of a vulnerable girl running from betrayal and still a married woman.
Fate, however, seems to have decided that Boyce and Jenna have something to give each other. And fate continues to find ways to throw them together. Yet both know the timing is totally wrong for initiating a relationship and both are horrified they even feel attracted. So begins this story and this awkward match. Or will it ever be a match? And are these two different people ever meant to get together at all?
As an author, this was a fun story to weave. My heart went out to both main characters, so torn with an unexpected mess of problems and emotions. I loved, too, creating all the side characters in Townsend that Sam Oliver had always spun his magical stories to Jenna about….Sam’s sister Raydeen, Charlotte and Dean Bratcher, Una, Boyce’s neighbors the Hesters and the Lanskys, Boyce’s wise mother Ruth Hart, his brother Charles, and more.
As I researched and plotted this book, I made many trips to Townsend, on the quiet side of the Smoky Mountains. I revisited favorite places, little shops and stores, and drove down quiet back roads to find the perfect spot for “fictitious” Orchard Hollow Road where Sam Oliver’s cabin and Boyce’s home both lay. I searched through Townsend, too, for just the right place for the complex of businesses that held the Hart Gallery, the Apple Barn, and the Lemon Tree. The map here is an early one I hand-drew when working on my story, and a later similar black-and-white one was created to put in the front of the actual book.
One interest that main characters Boyce Hart and Jenna Howell do share is a love for art. Boyce’s skills as a painter are revealed from the first, but gradually as the story unfolds, the reader learns Jenna has skills in art of her own of a different type. Boyce encourages Jenna to appreciate her art more, helping her to see that art takes different forms and is expressed in different ways. “That is what art is,” he tells her at one point, “creating something from out of yourself that touches other people’s lives.”
Boyce also takes Jenna into the beauty of the outdoors for inspiration—and just for fun. He takes her hiking to see and sketch pictures of wildflowers. He points out beauty to her all around. Jenna also begins to see it more for herself. With the book set in the spring, I enjoyed letting Boyce and Jenna hike the Porter’s Creek Trail in Greenbrier, one of our favorite spring trails, to find flowers and to later hike in Cades Cove to the John Oliver cabin. 
Jenna also hikes up the Chestnut Top Trail outside of Townsend, another beautiful spot for wildflowers in the springtime.
Suspense mounts in the story when Elliott returns from his trip to Paris and finds Jenna gone, his anger flaring. He attacks Sam, a handicapped man, sending Jenna fleeing home early. At this point, Jenna, now stronger in herself, is purposed to get through her separation and divorce and find her own way. She does so, but not without difficulty. At this point in the book, you wonder what she will choose to do with her life. Her career takes off, her life is working out. She has good friends like Sam and her long-time friend Carla. She is finding her way. … Although she and Boyce are communicating through notes and drawings to each other, Boyce wants nothing to do with the city and Jenna has her life and work in New York. It is hard to say how things will work out. … and I hope the reader is wondering how all will resolve right up until the end. I admit I worked hard to hopefully keep you guessing!
Some fun extra notes about TELL ME ABOUT ORCHARD HOLLOW:
(1) As a teen (as in photo here), I drew many greeting card designs. I entered a set of card designs in an American Greetings contest at about fifteen and won. When the company rep came to our home to offer me a design job with the company, he was stunned to find me only a minor. 
He encouraged my parents to send me to an art college to major in illustration and told me a job would be waiting for me at American Greetings when I graduated. He gave my father his card but my parents did not take the visit seriously, nor did they keep the card. Even when I won scholarships to several art colleges with illustration majors, my parents wouldn’t let me accept them. So I understood many of Jenna’s art frustrations.
(2) I had to do extensive research about divorce proceedings and about legalities relating to it for the state of New York. I enjoyed creating attorney Maury Berkowitz to champion Jenna in her legal problems. I hope if I ever need an attorney for anything in life that I find an attorney like Maury.
(3) Sam’s red setter Dan and Boyce’s dog Patrick were based on the smart red Irish Setter that once belonged to one of our friends. We loved Patrick, an incredibly bright, loving, and well-trained animal … and I thought of him with fondness often every time “fictitious” Patrick came on the scene in this story.
(4) Sam Oliver was a major character in this story, even when not on the scene. I loved how he and Jenna bonded, even with Sam in his eighties and in a wheelchair and Jenna so young. And I loved how they both helped each other. I believe age doesn’t have to be a factor in friendship when two right hearts meet.
(5) Another of nationally acclaimed artist Jim Gray’s beautiful paintings “Mountain Memories” was chosen for the cover of Orchard and I modeled my little Townsend art Gallery in part after Jim’s lovely gallery in Gatlinburg: http://www.jimgraygallery.com
(6) In Chapter 13 where Jenna talks Boyce into telling her about his first love, he tells her about falling in love with Audrey Bierman, an actress making a movie in Townsend one summer. He also talks about Celine Rosen, another actress a friend Jack Teague fell for and married. This little “hint” lays the groundwork for a later Townsend book starring Jack Teague called Down By The River. I enjoy dropping minor characters into books that will appear again in later stories or in bringing back a past character into a story later on.
(7) Boyce Hart has a strong faith Jenna admires. She struggles in the book to enlarge and grow in her faith, wanting a strong relationship with God like she’s seen in Boyce. The blossoming of this faith shows later in the story as Jenna learns how to pray, how to lean to God for help, and how to read and study her Bible to deepen her spiritual knowledge.
(8) At one point in the story, struggling on her own and lonely, trying to become a person in her own right, Jenna says, “You can do this Jenna … Let’s become someone that ‘s not just someone’s daughter or someone’s wife. Let’s become someone that’s her own person.” I felt so proud of Jenna before the book was over because she becomes exactly that.
[Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.]
THE FOSTER GIRLS was my first book published in the Smoky Mountain series. In 2008, I signed the book contract, with excitement, for it to become a reality. In April of 2009, THE FOSTER GIRLS published with Parkway Publishing, then an imprint of John F. Blair Publishing. John Blair was a wonderful, reputable old publishing company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, headed by CEO Carolyn Sakowski, with distribution all around the United States. It was a happy moment to see my first novel in print. All authors hold a special love for their first book published and I am no exception.
Those words lingered in my thoughts afterward, and one day the idea for THE FOSTER GIRLS, along with several other titles, simply floated into my mind. I was working near the Smokies in Vonore, Tennessee, calling on schools as Huntington Learning Center’s Educational Coordinator—one of my part-time jobs then around my college teaching for Tusculum. After finishing work that day, I raced home and scribbled down my thoughts, already loving the idea of a series of novels with each new story set in a new and different place around the mountains.
And from the beginning I decided to let Vivian’s reasons at first be a mystery. Why had Vivian Delaney come all the way from California to the Smoky Mountains? Why did she tell her employer early in the book ‘Keep me hidden …’ Hidden from what? For what reasons? Throughout the book I enjoyed letting the reader in on the answers bit by bit as the story progressed. Vivian is a complex character whose background and secrets heavily impact her actions, feelings, and beliefs.
The more the characters and setting came to life as I planned THE FOSTER GIRLS, the more the ideas for the conflicts and problems in the story began to emerge. These came to me like “light bulbs” popping on sometimes, often unexpectedly while I worked on developing plot and storyline. It’s a fun process. … And eventually I began to lay all these ideas into a structured story outline to follow as I write. For me, a good outline is like a map. It reminds where I’m going, things I want the reader to see, learn, and experience along the journey, right up to the end. Like any good story, I layer in ups and downs, unexpected events and conflicts, little mysteries to unravel, warm moments and memorable scenes, along with a lot of twists and turns to keep the reader involved.
Sarah turned out to be a delightful and important character in the book. She soon worked her way into Vivian’s heart and life—and hopefully into the readers’ hearts, too. She certainly worked her way into my heart. The bond between Vivian and Sarah becomes a major part of the story … And that growing bond ties into a deep conflict between Vivian and Scott before the book ends.
From my earliest memories, I can vividly recall my mother sitting and writing Christmas letters and notes to tuck into the cards she sent to friends and family every year. She spent days picking out exactly the right card for each one on her list and penning each one a sweet personalized note. In her latter years, when writing so many personal letters by hand became hard, I typed up mother’s Christmas letter and duplicated it for her to put into her cards. But, still, she often added personal messages to each card anyway. Christmas, to my mother, was the time to make personal contact with all those she loved.
I drew the happy sleigh on the right many years later—when our family had expanded to four. It shows J.L., Max, Kate, and myself tucked into the seats of the sleigh. Inside this card was a poem I wrote starting with these lines: “Dashing through the year … Where did the months all go? It seems like yesterday, I wrote to you before!” I guess that was my creative writing streak surfacing even then!!…ha,ha.
Christmas letters had become a tradition by then, and loved holiday traditions are hard to leave behind. Becoming more “computer savvy” in those years, I began to create photos cards for the holidays. I tucked these into every Christmas card or sometimes sent them instead of a Christmas card.
” Hello December, the last month of the year, …May you all savor holidays full of good cheer! … Hang up your wreaths, decorate your trees,… Address Christmas cards and send one to me!… Wrap up your presents, offer them with love, …And remember all season the Gift from Above.
Embroidery is the art of decorating fabric with yarn or thread. It’s an old craft dating back to the Third Century BC and examples of embroidery work have been found in practically every culture and social class around the world. In times past, skills in embroidery, sewing, and quilting were more prized—and needed for practical reasons—but at regional arts and crafts fairs, like the one we attended this weekend, you can still see clever and artistic embroidery and needlework displayed.
My mother sewed, as did both my grandmothers who also made beautiful quilts, but none of my close family did what my grandmother termed “fancy work.” I can’t remember that anyone taught me to embroider although I learned to do so. I do recall, however, that when mother made her many trips to the fabric store for patterns, thread, and fabrics, I always headed to the sewing crafts section. I loved to study the framed embroidery examples of cross-stitch, crewel, and needlework on the walls. At some point I came home with my first simple cross-stitch kits to try out.
Later, I checked out books about the craft in my local library to learn more about embroidery techniques. Most of the items I made in those early years were given away as gifts, but a few years back—while cleaning out my mother’s sewing after she passed away—I found two samples of my childhood work Mother had saved, a toaster cover and a table runner. I laughed to find them. I doubt anyone would be caught dead with items like these in their homes today, but I couldn’t resist tucking them away in a drawer to keep, just as my mother did.
When I married, craft items for the home were much more popular than today. I returned to embroidery then, along with learning other craft skills of the time like tole painting, to make decorative items for my home and to give for gifts. Homemade gift items were lovingly appreciated at that time, cherished and used, and I gave away many embroidered and handcrafted items and framed paintings for holidays.
Before both my children were born, in addition to making crib blankets, baby pillows, toys, and some clothes, I stitched an embroidered sampler for each child’s room—one for Max of the ABC’s and one for Kate with her name on it. I’ve kept these for sentimental reasons like I’ve kept the children’s early drawings in their baby books.
Looking through my old embroidery basket, while working on this blog, I found several items partially begun and unfinished, plus a set of cute kitchen items I worked in crewel, with a lot of French knots, that I always meant to frame. Also in the old basket were colorful embroidery floss and crewel yarn, my old embroidery hoop, linen fabrics, patterns, and a kit for a crewel pillow covered in pretty wildflowers I bought but never began.
I rarely have time to embroider anymore. Now my artistry skills and creativity go into writing and creating books. But I still admire the skill because I know how much time, talent, and patience it takes. I stood watching a quilter add lavish, detailed embroidery work to a lovely crazy quilt this weekend at the Mountain Makins’ Festival in Morristown, Tennessee. The old itch to pick up a needle resurfaced as I watched. I doubt, however, you’ll see me posting new embroidery pieces on my blog or Facebook pages any time soon … but my guess is you will soon encounter a new book character, skillful with a needle, who adds intricate embroidery work to her crazy quilts and crafts. Perhaps she’ll also make some colorful stitched home items like my old kitchen pieces to sell at arts and crafts festivals near her home.
In one of L.M. Montgomery’s beloved Anne of Green Gables books Anne Shirley said: “I’m so glad we live in a world where there are Octobers.” Here in Tennessee, October is an “expectant” month. We watch the trees, still green, knowing that sometime soon we will begin to see those first turning leaves and then – perhaps suddenly in late October – a rush of color … russet reds, rich oranges, and golden yellows. Oh, yes … we’re glad to live in a world where there are Octobers…. And in a world where there is the expectance of beauty and the expectance of change.
your feet, and to look up into the canopy of fall color. John Muir said: “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks” and this is so true. When on a walk, you will feel that touch of peace, refreshment, inspiration, and inner joy that only being in God’s glorious outdoor world brings.
People often ask J.L. and I where to best enjoy the fall colors when visiting in the Great Smoky Mountains, and we have some favorite places. Although the popular Newfound Gap Road to the overlook on top of the Smokies is a lovely drive, the traffic is often so congested in the fall that we avoid it for lesser-known but equally beautiful spots. Near Gatlinburg, the Gatlinburg By-Pass offers lovely views and the Roaring Fork Nature Trail winds along a scenic one-way back-road, passing by old cabins, historic spots, and many pleasant trails. We like both of these places for color as much as the Newfound Gap Road.
To the west of the Smokies near Townsend we also avoid Cades Cove in the fall, because of the congestive traffic there, stalling constantly for tourists to take photos of any wildlife they spot along the way. Instead, we take to the back roads and love drives like the Rich Mountain Road behind Townsend that travels up to Rich Mountain Gap. It’s a winding, steep road but the foliage along the way is beautiful in fall and there are several trails you can enjoy at the top of the mountain.
Between Townsend and Maryville, Tennessee, is the 18 miles long Foothills Parkway, offering some of the most stunning autumn vistas you can find anywhere in the Smokies. On the highest point of the Parkway, a half-mile walk to Look Rock will take you to the Observation Tower for 360-degree panoramic views. Soon, too, the new extension of the Parkway will open across the mountains to Wears Valley, bringing even more miles of scenic beauty. We love the Foothills Parkway drives. 
East of the Smokies, the far end of the Foothills Parkway climbs the mountain ridges between Cosby and Newport, with lovely pullovers and vistas. These Parkway roads are seldom overly crowded or congested with traffic—true treasures for Smoky Mountain visitors.
Still another beautiful spot for stunning fall color is the Cataloochee Valley on the east side of the Smokies near Maggie Valley and Waynesville, North Carolina. The road into the valley is always a glory in the fall and visitors can enjoy many fine hiking trails scattered throughout the valley. The scenic, winding Cataloochee trails, like Bradley Creek, the Cataloochee Divide, Pretty Hollow Gap, and the Boogerman Trail, offer quiet walks to enjoy the fall color up-close and personal. 
The Blue Ridge Parkway, rising behind Maggie Valley, and traveling across the mountain to Cherokee, NC, also has many beautiful vistas and overlooks. While on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we also like to drive the Balsam Mountain Road to the picnic area, where a short walk takes you out to the Heintooga Overlook with fabulous panoramas across the Smokies ranges.
In town, we also have city parks with lovely fall color and nice outdoor trails. Our favorite is Ijams Nature Park. But we also enjoy simply walking the streets of pretty neighborhoods in Knoxville (like our own) where mature trees abound around old established yards. Often a few late fall flowers and mums add an extra touch of beauty to these landscapes.
People like collecting things … from simple inexpensive things like postcards to more precious items like Faberge eggs or rare coins. There seems to be an innate part of us that likes to find, keep, and collect things we like. Small children pick up pretty stones, leaves, or pinecones almost instinctively to take home and put on a shelf. On trips to the beach kids love to collect shells, which I still like to find and bring home even now. As children grow older they often begin to collect other small items and toys they can purchase inexpensively like stickers, stamps, coins, bracelets, small cars, or stuffed animals.
Amateur versus serious collectors may collect items of all different kinds simply because the subjects interest them. They may not care about the monetary value of the things they collect at all.
I’m not sure of all the reasons why people collect things but I seem to remember nearly everyone in my family collecting something at one time or another. My mother collected pitchers; she liked pretty colored glassware – and she collected Fiestaware, which I inherited. She also collected buttons because she liked to sew. I remember loving to get out the metal tin boxes filled with the buttons she’d collected to play with them. My father collected tools because he liked to fix and 
make things. I remember he collected National Geographic Magazines, too. As an engineer, they appealed to him and he enjoyed them. Dad also had a few carved birds. He liked to whittle. I inherited two of his birds and I later picked up a few beautifully carved and painted birds over time that I love, too.
I never really got into Barbies as my daughter Kate did later. But I created a fine fantasy family with my big collection of dolls. Dad built me a dollhouse for them and I spent many happy hours decorating and making furniture for that house and inventing play stories about that family.
Drew books, records, and magazines are long gone but I still have many of the horses and my old charm bracelets.
them … unlike so many items I collected but have now let go. I have many old books in my collection, passed down from others, many reference and academic books, novels by favorite authors, spiritual and devotional books. I’ve also started collecting a few glass paperweights. I admit I’m drawn to them when we’re traveling or when I see special ones at a crafts fair.
A lot of people say they don’t collect anything and yet their closet is filled with forty pairs of shoes, their hobby room overflows with fabrics or art supplies, or their garage is piled high with sports equipment. So, probably all of us collect one thing or another whether we realize it or not.
Now I am more of a collector of experiences, adventures, and stories. I tend to collect “moments” now more than things. … However, I think collections tell a lot about the individuals who have them. I also think homes with collections are always more interesting than homes without them. So, should people collect? My answer is yes, and I love this quote about collecting to close: “Collect things you love, that are authentic to you, and your house becomes your story.”
Lin Stepp 