Betsy St. Amant, the author of more than fifteen inspirational romances, shares the inspiration behind her latest novel, The Key to Love, an “opposites attract” story featuring a romantic baker and a jaded travel writer.

Betsy originally planned to set her story both in the U.S. and at the love-lock bridge in Paris. The bridge, which crosses the Seine River, had a metal railing. A longstanding tradition was for couples to place a padlock on the railing and throw the key into the river to symbolize their everlasting love. About the time Betsy was writing her story, officials decided the railing was an eyesore and replaced it with panels.

During our chat, Betsy talks about how that Paris decision inspired her to create a love-lock wall behind her heroine’s bakery.

We also talk about Betsy’s amazing writing journey. A fan of The Babysitter Club stories, she wrote fan fiction before she knew fan fiction was a thing. As a young adult, her first novel was contracted by Love Inspired. Betsy also writes especially for women at iBelieve.com.

Connect with Betsy on her website and on Facebook.

Purchase Links: The Key to Love and Love Arrives in Pieces

The Key to Love

The only thing Bri Duval loves more than baking petit fours is romance. So much so, she’s created her own version of the famous Parisian lovelock wall at her bakery in Story, Kansas. She never expects it to go viral–or for Trek Magazine to send travel writer Gerard Fortier to feature the bakery. He’s definitely handsome, but Bri has been holding out for a love story like the one her parents had, and that certainly will not include the love-scorned-and-therefore-love-scorning Gerard.

Just when it seems Bri’s bakery is poised for unprecedented success, a series of events threaten not just her business but the pedestal she’s kept her parents on all these years. Maybe Gerard is right about romance. Or maybe Bri’s recipe just needs to be tweaked.

Novelist Betsy St. Amant invites you to experience this sweet story of how love doesn’t always look the way we expect–and maybe that’s a good thing.

Love Arrives in Pieces

For so long, Stella was known for her beauty. Now, with her heart stripped bare, she must discover who she really is.

Former pageant queen Stella Varland doesn’t trust beauty anymore after her divorce. Her appearance betrayed her and led to brokenness, so instead of being beautiful, now she tries to make beautiful things, but she always falls short. So she keeps her passion for art to herself and focuses on her interior design work. But if she doesn’t get another job soon, she’ll be stuck living with her parents.

Contractor Chase Taylor is determined to live a life of no regrets after losing his fiancée. Now he lives life at full speed, striving to see how much he can accomplish. He knows if he slows down, he’ll fall apart. So he returns home to Bayou Bend to renovate the town’s old theater and is shocked to discover that the designer for the project is his old flame, Stella.

Forced to work together, Chase and Stella battle their chemistry and past as they struggle to compromise and work together on a vision for the theater. Their wills clash as they attempt to hide their brokenness—and their unresolved feelings for each other—until Chase discovers the hidden parts of Stella, while losing her trust in the process.

A near catastrophe, a fire, and a small-town gossip mill finally force Stella and Chase to realize that they have a choice—to hold on to the shards of their pasts, or surrender their fragmented pieces to the One who makes a beautiful masterpiece from their brokenness.