Hello everyone. Today my guest blogger is Amber Leigh Williams!
***
I always knew I would write about Fairhope, Alabama. My hometown is as pretty as they come. Founded on the picturesque Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay and only a hop, skip, and jump from the white sands of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, a group called The Utopians set out to create “a town with a purpose.” It is now a lush and quiet haven for retirees and starters alike. It’s renowned for its nurturing of the arts. In fact, Fairhope is a nesting ground for writers the likes of Fannie Flagg, Sonny Brewer, W.E.B. Griffin, and Winston Groom. Events like the Art Walk, Jazz Festival, and the annual Arts & Crafts Festival draw artists and visitors from as far as Canada.
Until I sat down to write A Summer’s Hope, the first book in my Fairhope series, I realized I’d never written about a place I’ve been completely immersed in and love deeply—so deeply it’s a part of me. In Fox & Hound, the descriptions of the Louvre were based on virtual tours and pictures from websites sprinkled with a few nifty imaginings of my own to help my jewel thieves get in and out without detection. Same with Denied Origin—the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal scenes were researched to the nth degree yet I threw in secret doors and creepy catacombs. Yet A Summer’s Hope was different. I knew my descriptions of Fairhope had to be dead-on. How do you describe a place so vivid? How do you pen to paper a place that simply breathes peace?
An answer came from Fannie Flagg herself in the book Fairhope by Cathy Donelson: “Although I’ve done my best to describe it, the truth is, Fairhope is really a state of mind and cannot be explained by using mere words. It must be felt.” On brainstorming drives, I’d wind up sitting on Fairhope’s most enduring landmark, the Pier, facing the bluff where I planned to build my heroine’s B&B, Hanna’s Inn. Upon my return home, my lost and haunted hero, Cole, solved everything with the following observation:
The Fairhope pier was empty but for the early-morning fishermen who reclined in beach chairs and dozed as their lines drooped over the railing and down into the shallow bay water below. The only sound was that of pelicans doing their far-from-graceful dive for breakfast or the heavy splash of crab nets hitting the water. The bells of buoys could be heard over the lull of silence as well as the lap of water against the boats harbored by Yardarm, the pier’s only business—a seafood restaurant—midway down the historic pier. Part of Fairhope’s most enduring residential park, it had survived numerous hurricane forces and modern industrialization.
Until I sat down to write A Summer’s Hope, the first book in my Fairhope series, I realized I’d never written about a place I’ve been completely immersed in and love deeply—so deeply it’s a part of me. In Fox & Hound, the descriptions of the Louvre were based on virtual tours and pictures from websites sprinkled with a few nifty imaginings of my own to help my jewel thieves get in and out without detection. Same with Denied Origin—the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal scenes were researched to the nth degree yet I threw in secret doors and creepy catacombs. Yet A Summer’s Hope was different. I knew my descriptions of Fairhope had to be dead-on. How do you describe a place so vivid? How do you pen to paper a place that simply breathes peace?
An answer came from Fannie Flagg herself in the book Fairhope by Cathy Donelson: “Although I’ve done my best to describe it, the truth is, Fairhope is really a state of mind and cannot be explained by using mere words. It must be felt.” On brainstorming drives, I’d wind up sitting on Fairhope’s most enduring landmark, the Pier, facing the bluff where I planned to build my heroine’s B&B, Hanna’s Inn. Upon my return home, my lost and haunted hero, Cole, solved everything with the following observation:
The Fairhope pier was empty but for the early-morning fishermen who reclined in beach chairs and dozed as their lines drooped over the railing and down into the shallow bay water below. The only sound was that of pelicans doing their far-from-graceful dive for breakfast or the heavy splash of crab nets hitting the water. The bells of buoys could be heard over the lull of silence as well as the lap of water against the boats harbored by Yardarm, the pier’s only business—a seafood restaurant—midway down the historic pier. Part of Fairhope’s most enduring residential park, it had survived numerous hurricane forces and modern industrialization.
As he sat drinking coffee inside the long-standing restaurant, his eyes were not on the sailboats that well-to-do hobbyists had taken out early or the pelicans that swooped into view. His eyes were on a building in the distance. About a quarter of a mile south of the pier on a high, grassy ridge stood Hanna’s Inn.
The inn was built much like a waterside Tara with white, wooden walls and regal columns gracing the bayside façade. A private pier, sundeck, and boathouse were alluring benefits—not to mention the long, green sweep of landscaped lawn. It was as charming as it was striking, one of many decades-old, southern-style houses travelers admired.
From the distance, it was all its promotional brochure promised: a serene getaway. Forget the world, it had coaxed. That was what he was counting on.
Serene getaway. Blissful escape. It summed up my hometown to a t!
So plan your getaway, forget the world, and book your escape at Hanna’s Inn. Let Briar make you feel welcome and let Cole charm you to your toes. Forget the world with the release of A Summer’s Hope on May 27, available in e-book and print!
Amber Leigh Williams
http://www.amberleighwilliams.com/
Romance Across the Genres
Anytime! Anyplace! Anywhere!
1 comments:
What a novel way to post a blog interview-- no question, mixing in the excerpt and commentary. I may have to try and do that sometime.
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