When people ask why I started writing the Willow Creek Hearts series, the honest answer is that I didn’t set out to write a book—I set out to find light again.
In real life, I lost the great love of mine. It wasn’t expected, and I wasn’t ready. (Is anyone ever?) I became a widow before I’d ever really thought about what it meant to be one. In those first disorienting days, I couldn’t even say the word out loud. I called it “being a W.” As if softening the sound could soften the sorrow.
But even in the fog of grief, I began to notice something surprising: silver linings.
Like the fan. My beloved always needed it on at night but I never liked it. And that first night, in the quiet stillness without the hum of that old fan, I let myself feel the comfort of that one small thing. Just for a moment, I smiled. It was the first silver lining. And there would be more.
Laundry was easier. The kitchen remodel we’d planned together? I finished it. The new glass door we’d picked out? I ordered it. I painted the walls, one by one. I pulled out the overgrown shrubs he had loved and replaced them with a flower bed that blooms nearly year-round: daffodils, lilies, irises, clematis, Hosta, the colors and new life where there had once been only greenery.
That flower bed became a picture of my own heart. Slowly, gently, without rushing or forcing, I began to bloom again too.
Letters from Willow Creek was born in that season of quiet rebuilding. It’s not a sad story. It’s a story about love after loss. About second chances that don’t feel second-best. About slow-burn hope. It’s about choosing joy, even when your story has taken a hard turn.
I believe in the kind of love that’s worth loving again. Not settling. Not pretending. But the real thing; the kind that finds you when you’ve learned how to stand tall in your own right and still have room to be swept off your feet.
That’s the heartbeat of Willow Creek. That’s why I wrote Letters from Willow Creek and it's why the whole series exists. It’s not just about romance. It’s about remembering that life is still beautiful. That you’re still worthy of love. And that maybe, just maybe, it’s not too late.
Not second best.
Not too late.
Just exactly right.