Until 2019, all my books were set around the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, near where I live. My first book, titled THE FOSTER GIRLS, published in 2009, quickly became well loved by readers, as did the subsequent books in the series. All twelve of these titles were stand-alone novels, each taking readers to different places in every book with a new story and new characters. While working on the final books in the Smoky Mountain series, and already planning a new continuing series my editor at Kensington named The Mountain Home Books, a new idea began to rumble around in my mind for books set at our favorite beach in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. I talked to my editor at Kensington at the time to see what she thought about it. Audrey said, “Lin, I think your readers will love traveling to the beach with you. Everyone loves your Smoky Mountain books and I’m sure they’ll love any books you write set at the beach, too.” So. after finishing my current mountain title … I started to work on a new Lowcountry trilogy of books set at Edisto Beach.

The term “Lowcountry,” in general, refers to any low-lying geographical country or region. However, when South Carolinians talk of “The Lowcountry” they always mean a specific geographic region consisting of the twelve counties along the South Carolina coast. This region extends from Georgetown, just south of Myrtle Beach, through Charleston, Edisto, Beaufort, Hilton Head, to end at Daufuskie Island above Savannah at the Georgia border. The South Carolina Lowcountry implies not only a specific region but the term also embraces a unique cultural mindset, its people and places. The Lowcountry area is known for its distinct beauty, sandy beaches, recreational pursuits, seafood, historic places, and favorable climate.

J.L. and I had always taken most of our vacations at different Lowcountry beaches but one summer in the 1980s – when our children, Max and Kate, were three and five—we discovered Edisto Island and Edisto Beach. It immediately snagged our hearts and drew us back summer after summer – and still does. Edisto Island is located on the coast, in the heart of the Lowcountry, half way between Charleston and Beaufort. Edisto is one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, the larger part in Charleston County with its southern tip, Edisto Beach, in Colleton County. The roadway into Edisto from Highway 17, winds its way to the beach, traveling  through remote rural areas and crossing long stretches of marsh land. Edisto Beach, at the road’s end, is an unobtrusive place, not very commercial in comparison to most of the well-known beaches along the Lowcountry coast. But we loved that aspect about it right away, and we returned year after year to enjoy the beach, the quiet island, the small shops and local restaurants, the bike trails, and the area’s beauty and laid-back charm.

It was to Edisto that I wanted to take my readers—to a lesser-known place in the Lowcountry with a small-town feel. My first Edisto book CLAIRE AT EDISTO, brought Claire Avery to the island to recover after the unexpected loss of her husband Charles. Claire had been a stay-at-home mom with two small girls, Mary Helen, nine, and Suki, five. Living at the time in the church manse, next to the historic church where her husband had pastored, Claire was facing all the many transitions an unexpected loss encompasses—shock, grief, lifestyle changes, a multitude of decisions, and the need to find work and a new home for herself and her girls. The resulting book is the story of Claire’s journey and all the adjustments and problems she faces making a new life on her own. The house she comes to at Edisto, for a space of vacation and a time to grieve, belongs to her husband’s brother Parker. The beach house, named Oleanders, is familiar to Claire, as she, Charles, and the girls often visited at this house for vacations.

I loved bringing the beauty of Edisto Island to life in my story, taking readers to visit the vacation spot my family has loved for so many years.  To my delight, readers loved the book, too, and, additionally, CLAIRE AT EDISTO won the Best Book of the Year Award in Fiction Romance in 2019 in American Book Fest’s contest with over 2000 publisher entrees.  The next year the second Edisto book, Mary Helen’s story, RETURN TO EDISTO, published as did HAPPY VALLEY, in the new Mountain Home series… and in the following year the third book in the trilogy, Suki’s story, EDISTO SONG came out. I soon found my readers  – old and new – eager for not only more mountain books but more beach books, as well.  Perhaps at their urging, a new idea for a second beach series soon slipped into my mind and thoughts.

As a girl I had always been fascinated with lighthouses and I loved whenever my family vacationed near a coastal area where we could visit an old lighthouse. Taking the tours of the different lighthouses and grounds, reading about their histories, and seeing how many of the old keeper’s homes had been converted into bed-and-breakfasts, when the lighthouses were decommissioned, formed the base for my new book series idea. I soon began to envision what it might be like for four sisters to grow up on a lighthouse island.

Already familiar with the Lowcountry and Edisto, I learned there were rough plans at one time before the Civil War to build a lighthouse on the north end of Edisto, where pirates and shipwrecks were always a problem. Although over seven lighthouses were built from Georgetown, on the Lowcountry’s northern end, to Bloody Point Lighthouse on Daufuskie to the south, a lighthouse was never built at Edisto. Since for legal reasons, I couldn’t “take over” and use an existing lighthouse for my book story, I was able to create a fictitious lighthouse and an entire lighthouse station on the northern end of Edisto Island. Here, a section of Edisto Island had become separated from the mainland by a hurricane in the 1950s. The island formed, once called Watch Island, is a five-acre tract now totally surrounded by water and in a conservatorship. This legal arrangement will keep the island pristine with little future development….and it provided a perfect site for my lighthouse story setting. I named the inn and lighthouse  I created on the island the Deveaux Inn and Lighthouse, after the nearby Deveaux Bank, a bird sanctuary close to the island.

After extensive research and planning, I finished creating the lighthouse island, with its large bed-and-breakfast inn, guest cottages, light station buildings, trails, beaches, marinas, and docks –all centered around a high red and white striped lighthouse. The storyline and plot were soon planned, too, with a host of rich characters, conflicts, and elements of suspense for the four-book series to come. There are now two novels published in this new series, LIGHT THE WAY and LIGHTEN MY HEART, with a third coming in April 2024 and the last publishing the following year. If you love lighthouses, you will enjoy these books and reading the stories of the four Deveaux sisters, so different from each other but yet with strong sister ties.

The first book introduces the island, the inn, the lighthouse, the family, and the full “cast” of characters in the story who live on and around Watch Island. I had a wonderful time creating the lighthouse’s history, its museum rooms and gift shops, and designing the lovely bed-and-breakfast where the family lives and works, sharing the beauty of their island with visitors who come to stay with them. The first novel LIGHT THE WAY is Burke’s story, the oldest daughter, who has stayed to work with her parents at the lighthouse. The story also brings the other sisters home before the book ends, too, so you meet and come to know them, as well. Life is never without its ongoing issues, good and bad, and you’ll soon see the problems each sister wrestles with, while you learn more about the island, the lighthouse, and the joys of coastal living.

In developing the Lighthouse Sisters books, I enjoyed branching out to visit and spend time in nearby cities close to Edisto. In LIGHTEN MY HEART, Gwen’s story, a large part of the book’s setting is in Beaufort and Port Royal. Beaufort is one of our favorite Lowcountry spots to visit, kind of like a small “Charleston,” and I especially enjoyed creating Trescotts Restaurant in downtown Beaufort. Since Gwen gets a Lowcountry teaching position she’s been hoping for in the nearby community of Port Royal, many of the book scenes are centered there, as well. J.L. and I were charmed with our visits to historic Port Royal, founded in 1562, which we’d missed exploring much before.  If you’ve missed going to Port Royal, too, take a day to see all its sites when you are in the area. It has wonderful walking trails, historic buildings, charming shops, great local restaurants, a Cypress Wetlands, streets lined with colorful homes, and a scenic beach with boardwalks and an observation tower at The Sands.

This Spring, Celeste’s story, LIGHT IN THE DARK, will take you visiting to Charleston to the north of Edisto. A rich array of the story’s scenes are set in the downtown Charleston area, introducing you to its shops on King Street, the city’s colorful homes and gardens, its quiet walkways, lush parks, and to the market and other historic sights. Celeste Deveaux, a retail lover, is drawn to Charleston, where she loves to spend time shopping and where she first performed in a downtown restaurant called Thurmond’s. You’ll meet many new characters in this story and see Celeste find her way out of the problems that have been plaguing her life and interrupting her career.

Right now, as I write this post, I’m finishing my final outline for the last book in this four-book series, Lila’s story, which will focus on the Deveaux Inn and Lighthouse again, while branching out to encompass Edisto Island as a whole. In this book, I’m bringing a big plantation into the story, a market on the highway, many new characters, and a sweep of hidden issues and problems that need to come to light and be dealt with for many of the characters to find peace and joy again. As the title THE LIGHT CONTINUES suggests, life and love do continue after problems and pains. And we can all begin again after sorrows and hurts and find new love and joy. I hope you will enjoy all four of these Lighthouse Sisters books … and tell your reader friends about them!

My husband J.L. and I just returned from a week at Edisto Island, enjoying the beach and a time of relaxation. While there we visited new places, and met some new people, that I hope to bring into the novel that I’m beginning. I gathered a lot of fun stories and facts while visiting at Edisto, too, that I hope to work into my storyline. Readers are already hoping I’ll write more Lowcountry books in the future, as well as continuing more mountain books… and a few ideas are already drifting around in my mind for future stories. So, In time, I’m sure there will be more Lowcountry books as well as more Mountain Home books to come.

If you have never visited Edisto you may want to visit it “via book” with the books I’ve written and set there … and you may also want to visit in person one day. The island is only eleven miles long … and you can rent beach houses along the island’s paved and sandy streets or rent a villa, condo, or house in the lovely Wyndham Resort. You will not find any hotels or motels on the island and one of the joys of the island are its many public beach access points all along the Atlantic coast and the St. Helena Sound. At Edisto the beach truly belongs to the people, and not to big hotels, and it is free to the public at every point and easily accessible.

Bike trails wind through the island to enjoy, too, as do creeks and streams for boat and kayak access. If you are a camper, the Edisto Island State Park offers two campgrounds – one at the beach and another a short distance from the beach up the highway. There are lovely spots to visit all over Edisto Island, including museums, old historic churches, plantations, charming shops, art galleries, and local restaurants. You can also explore the 4000-acre Botany Bay preserve in a free auto tour, getting out to see marked sites along the route that tell about historic buildings and old plantations, or walking out on the boardwalk trail to Botany Bay beach. For day trips, Edisto is only a 45-minute drive from either Charleston or Beaufort, where an array of historic beauty and tourist attractions abound.

An old quote by Toni Morrison says: “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” And that’s exactly what I did … taking readers first to the Smoky Mountains I love and then to the Lowcountry with wholesome, rich, and memorable stories that will linger in your heart and mind, draw you back to read them again and again … and pull on your heart to visit the places I write about….Books are truly the way I go home with people, and I hope you’ll let me “visit” with you soon in one of my stories ….Happy Reading!

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.