Book Stories: Hold Her Heart
After I wrote my bestselling Just One Thing, my editor said, "Write me something like that. The same, but different." I did. I wrote Carry Her Heart. It was the story of Pip...a teenage mother who gave her daughter up for adoption and then built a life around that child she didn't have. Pip was a writer. That quote up above is hers...but it could be mine. I have never written War and Peace. I have never wanted to. I try to write "little" stories of real people. And, like Pip, I hope they make readers laugh and maybe even cry.
After Carry Her Heart, I wrote These Three Words. It was loosely tied to CHH. But even I was surprised when Pip's daughter, the one she gave away and never met, showed up. I'll confess, I cried as I wrote that scene.
That's how I knew there was another book. Siobhan's (Amanda's) book. I needed to know what had happened since book one ended. And I'll confess, I cried when I wrote the opening scene to Siobhan's story. It was a short scene. It left more questions than answers. But Ned, Pip's husband, did me in...
Prologue
Ned Chesterfield was done waiting.
He stood on the front porch of the unfamiliar house, in an unfamiliar town, feeling uncharacteristically uncertain as his hand froze mere inches from the door.
He knew that once he knocked, Pandora’s box would open wide. There’d be no undoing it.
He also knew this was not what Pip wanted. More than that, she’d specifically told him not to come here. Ned also knew Pip could forgive him almost anything, although he wasn’t sure she’d forgive him this.
But he’d decided that was okay.
If Pip never forgave him—if she carried a grudge for the rest of her life—he could live with that.
What he couldn’t live with was a world without Pip in it.
He didn’t hesitate any longer. His hand came down on the door. He prayed Pip would be mad at him for a very, very long time.
I talked yesterday in this blog about writing series. And I'll confess, this is why so many of my books, even though they're all stand-alone, turn into series. What happened after Carry Her Heart ended? I knew that Ned and Pip had indeed found a happily-ever-after together, but since I try to write real stories, I realized that sometimes life happens. Sometimes we're hit with obstacles. And we're lucky if we have someone to go through those hard times with.
That's why Hold Her Heart is a story I needed to tell. And I hope that's why readers of Carry Her Heart and These Three Words needed to read it!
Holly
PS. There's a fourth book in the Words of the Heart series this fall! Between the Words. You can sign up for my newsletter if you want a heads up!
PPS. Hold Her Heart is on sale this week! I hope you'll check it out!
PPS. (darn that's a lot of PS's this time) These books are first person and told in the heroine's point of view, but Ned not only got that prologue in Hold Her Heart..he had a little say in Carry Her Heart that made me cry. (Yeah, Ned is one of those characters who can get me every time!)
Sometimes home isn’t just a place . . .
I am not your birth father, nor am I the father who raised you, but you are part of me. And when you find Pip, you’ll find me.
You’ll find us.
And when you do, there will be no shock of recognition; there will only be a welcome home.
For wherever we are, you have a home with us . . . you are part of both of us.
And we’ll be waiting for you.
—From Carry Her Heart by Holly Jacobs
