I like to say I inherited my love of baking and gardening from my mother; a love of horses, reading, and writing from my dad—and the wanderlust gene from both. When I traveled to Southold, L.I., with my mother in 1999 to discover our roots, passions collided: my love of faith, family, travel, history, and writing. Little did I know it was the beginning of my writer’s journey. My novels, A Place in His Heart, To Capture Her Heart, and To Follow Her Heart, were born of that journey and many subsequent visits with my dad, hubby, and sisters. My three daughters and their families gathered with me and the hubs, to celebrate the release of the first book in Southold. I had the amazing opportunity to give a book talk at the Southold Free Library in the historic local history room. I’d researched my story through the Whitaker Collection with librarian Melissa Andruski. She is wonderful to work with and gave me an enriched sense of both the founding families of Southold and my story.
I often thought of writing a novel, and I know that came from my love reading. But I didn’t write for years—I was busy raising children, but even more than that I didn’t know what I wanted to write. I knew it would be fiction, and I thought perhaps suspense—but God had something else in mind for me. And when I took that trip with my mother in 1999 to see a lighthouse named after our ancestor, Barnabas Horton, I came back with a story that would not leave me.
My novels are historical romance, based on the real lives of my ninth great-grandparents, Barnabas and Mary Horton. My mom, born Helen Horton, told the stories to me and my siblings that came down through the centuries filled with lore about when the Hortons coming from England on a little ship called The Swallow. When my brother found a lighthouse named after Barnabas on Long Island, I took my mom to Southold to see it. We found so much information about Barnabas at the lighthouse, the library, and the historical society, but not so much about Mary, who was after all, my ninth great-grandmother. I wanted to write her story, to give her a voice – and the many women who followed their husbands to a wild, mostly unknown land. My first novel, A Place in His Heart, sold as a three-book series, The Southold Chronicles, to Revell and was published in 2014. My mom passed away in 2005, before my book could be written, but I like to think she’d have been as thrilled with my novel as she was thrilled by our trip to discover the ancestor who she’d known only through the family lore.
As a Christian writer, there were Bible verses that spoke to my heart as I wrote these stories. Barnabas’s grave in Southold is covered by a large blue slate. He is said to have written his own epitaph. Below that is engraved: “He being dead yet speaketh.” Hebrews 11:4. That stirred my writer’s soul! And a verse that became a theme of my third novel, To Follow Her Heart, is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you.” A verse that has followed me throughout my writing journey is Psalm 19:14, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.”
There was a lot of interesting information about Barnabas. He was a baker and a very recent widower with two young sons when he met my ninth great-grandmother, Mary, in Mowsley, England. But I could find very little about her, and I began to wonder what dreams and motivations consumed her, and the courage she possessed when she married, and then left her family behind for the wilds of Long Island. A few years and a lot of research later, I began writing my novel. It was such a fun book to research and write! I always thought I would write contemporary suspense with a touch of romance and a Christian worldview. But when I sat down to write my first novel, it was historical fiction about my Puritan ancestors! I’d always had an interest in history, but a passion for the details gripped me and I became the intrepid researcher.
I’ve been asked what was the greatest moment of my publishing career. There have been many, but the one that stands out was actually celebrating my dad’s publishing feat. We were returning from a trip to Southern California where we stayed at the historic Highland Springs Resort. It had begun as a stagecoach stop in the 1800’s. While in line at the airport, my dad turned to me and told me I should write a historical novel set at the resort. He then proceeded to tell me the storyline and even had a title, The Stagecoach Murders. I could tell he’d spent his nights there dreaming up this story. I told him I couldn’t write that book because I already was on deadline for book #2, with a contract to write a third. I told him he should write it. He began writing that book at age 87. He would send me each chapter in a priority envelope as he finished them, and he was amazing me with his prose. (BTW, my only suggestion to him was to change his title because he was writing a western romance, lol. But he loved his title! I do too!) He wrote throughout that winter. When he was almost finished he required open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. Two days later he had a major stroke which affected his speech and ability to type. His recovery is a whole other story, but I was able to help him type the last four chapters while he haltingly dictated, and then we published The Stagecoach Murders through Create Space. Watching him autograph a copy for me was my greatest literary moment, followed closely by his book signing at his 90th birthday party. He passed away at age 94, and I miss him everyday. I’m thankful that in Christ is my hope of seeing him, with my mom and a sister that left us too soon, someday.
Love, Rebecca
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14