Welcome to Fliterary! We love
making new friends.
Let’s sit together on the swings
and you can introduce yourself:
Thanks so much for inviting me. I’m Marta
Perry, and I’ve been writing forever, it seems to me, starting when I had three
young children in the house and had to write in ten minute snatches of time.
Now that they’re grown and have provided me with six beautiful grandchildren, I
can write every day—except when those grandkids come to visit. Then my time is
completely devoted to them! My husband and I lived in an 1860s era farmhouse on
25 acres of land in a rural Pennsylvania valley, and this time of the year
we’re always busy trying to keep up with the garden and the flowers and the
ripening strawberries!
You have a new book out, what’s
it about?
Lydia’s Hope, the Lost Sisters
of Pleasant Valley, is the first of a two-book series from Berkley Books,
and it releases June 4th. Lydia Beachy, an Amish wife and mother, is
stunned to discover that she has two sisters she doesn’t remember—sisters from
whom she was separated after a tragic accident killed their parents. One was
adopted by an Amish couple from another community and the youngest was taken
away by their English grandmother and raised English. Grieving the relationship
they might have had, Lydia sets out to find her two lost sisters, despite the
strain it puts on her marriage. Will her efforts bring them fresh trouble—or
lead to a richer life for all of them?
The series concludes with Susanna’s Dream, coming out in February,
2014.
Where can we buy it?
Lydia’s Hope
is available at http://www.christianbook.com;
http://www.amazon.com; http://www.barnesandnoble.com, and in
bookstores and Walmart, Target, and similar stores.
If we invited your main character
to sit with us, how would she/he react?
As an
Amish woman, Lydia would dislike being the certain of attention, but if any one
of us felt ill at ease of needed something, her strong maternal instincts would
kick in, and she would be the first one to offer help.
What would they say? What advice
would they give?
Lydia would say that family and faith are the two most
important things in her life. She’d advise us to cherish the small blessings of
each day and never take them for granted.
If any one person from history
could sit with us, who would it be and why?
I would love to talk with any of my
favorite authors from my childhood, especially Louisa May Alcott, whose stories
of her own family’s love and care for each other have always meant so much to
me.
Why did you choose to be a
Christian writer and what does it mean to you?
I feel strongly that God has
guided my writing career every step of the way. Sometimes He has opened a door
to something that would have seemed impossible to me—and sometimes He’s had to
kick me through it! With each book, I strive to be obedient to the words He
would have me say, believing that someone has already been prepared to hear
them.
What advice do you have for
aspiring authors?
Read, read, read and write, write, write. There really aren’t
any short cuts, and if writing is what you’re meant to do, then you have to
surmount each discouragement and hold onto your dream.
Where can we find you on the web?
My website is http://www.martaperry.com;
and you can find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/martaperrybooks/
Thank you so much for stopping by
for a visit!
Thank you for inviting me!