Franklin author Donna VanLiere shares her ‘Christmas Secret’
By Carole Robinson, staff writer
crobinson@williamsonherald.com
For single mothers, life can be a blur as they struggle to juggle children and their activities with work and its responsibilities. With an ex-husband doing everything he can to make life difficult and two young children who tug at her heart, Christine (Christy) Eisley’s life is tediously exhausting.
In “The Christmas Secret,” the fourth book in her “Christmas Hope” series, Franklin resident Donna VanLiere and New York Times Best Selling author weaves a story of hope and love in the face of despair.
Christy, a single mother and hardworking waitress with rent overdue and Christmas looming, learns she is not as isolated as she thinks, everyone has secrets, kindness is not meant just for Christmas and everyone deserves a second chance at love and happiness.
Despite the threat of losing her job if she is late one more time, Christy helps an elderly woman who appears to have had a heart attack. She did lose her job, but within hours landed another that will ultimately change her life and the lives of the others who have become her friends.
VanLiere also authored “The Christmas Shoes,” “The Christmas Blessing,” and “The Christmas Hope.”
VanLiere said she pulls her ideas for stories from real people facing real life challenges. Her sister, a single mother and other single mothers she knows moved her to write about the daily struggles they face in “The Christmas Secret.” Life, she said, is filled with obstacles and sometimes those obstacles are large boulders blocking the road, seemingly impossible to move without help. Simple tasks become monumental when there is no one else to share the burden.
“When I watch these women, I think of my own world and wonder, how do they do it without losing their minds?” VanLiere said, who is married and has three young children.
In the book, Christy dismisses a childhood story her mother often told her about a king, a boulder in the road and the prize underneath the boulder because the boulder in Christy’s own road just won’t move. However, despite her own hardships, Christy retains the kindness that has been ingrained in her heart since she was a child. As she goes through her own chaotic life performing simple acts of generosity and kindness toward others Christy comes to realize her own blessings. Secrets are revealed, the boulder is moved and the prize changes her life.
When VanLiere wrote a story about a little bear in the second grade she realized she loved to write, but a bully squelched that love when he made fun of the story. She thought she gave up writing, but that second-grader’s love of reading and telling stories eventually reappeared when she began writing for her high school newspaper and tucked in her room at home, privately writing for her own pleasure, but she never dreaming she could ever write for a living.
That changed in 2000 when she decided to turn some of the short stories she had collected in notebooks around the house into a book. After she published two “gift-type” books, later that year she met with her friend Eddie Carswell with the group NewSong and he told her briefly his idea for a song.
“I said, ‘That would make a good book,’” VanLiere said. “Had he given me more information, nothing would have happened, but he gave me so little it triggered something. I plotted the outline for the book while he was writing the song.”
That song was “The Christmas Shoes.”
“Had I heard the song, I don’t think the book would have come together,” VanLiere speculated.
Before the book “The Christmas Shoes” was published, a producer got hold of a galley copy, read it and immediately decided to turn it into a movie. The book came out in 2001 – the CBS movie came out in 2002.
“I thought I was done, but the editor kept calling wanting me to write another and the series took off,” VanLiere said.
“The Christmas Secret” is the fifth book in the “Christmas Hope” series and while followers of the series will see characters return in several of the books, all are written as stand-alone reads.
“Any reader can pick one up and understand it,” VanLiere said.
Watch for the spring debut of another book set in 1947 Morgan Hill, Tenn., an imaginary town based on the small town of Mohawk, Tenn., where Van Liere’s mother grew up and she remembers visiting as a child.
“When we would visit it was idyllic,” she said. “We could ride bikes or walk anywhere. It was like a step back in time.”
Landmark Booksellers in Franklin is hosting a book signing for VanLiere’s newest book on Sunday, Dec. 13, beginning at 3 p.m. At this time, this is the only book signing VanLiere has on her schedule.
“The Christmas Shoes,” “The Christmas Blessing” and “The Christmas Hope” have all been made into feature-length television movies and will be broadcast on the Lifetime Movie Network beginning at 3 p.m. CST Sunday Dec. 13. She also wrote “The Christmas Promise” and several other inspirational books.
Carole Robinson can be contacted at crobinson@williamsonherald.com
Posted on: 12/10/2009
|
