When this house was built, the property was known as Maple Lane. The story goes that a long line of maples grew on the right side of the driveway–just out of view of the camera. Over a hundred years later, it was known as Twin Oaks.
But in my family, it’s simply known as The Brick.
My parents moved to this house when I was in high school and lived there several years before high winter heating bills and a kitchen fire forced them to leave. For over a decade, it stood empty.
Neglected.
Abandoned.
Though not in my imagination nor my dreams.
As a young adult, I seldom drove by The Brick. The sight of a dilapidated trailer in the grassy circle we called The Oval just broke my heart. But at least with someone living there, the vandals no longer ransacked the place.
Eventually someone, a man with a young family, bought it. Restored it. Loved it.
I took the photo on the right the day my mom, sister, and I dropped in and met the man and his family. He graciously gave us a tour of the house that meant so much to us.
My sister and I followed him up the steep stairs to the attic, and he told us about the hours and hours he spent cleaning it of pigeon dung and raccoon carcasses.
My first contemporary romance, Into a Spacious Place, takes place at The Brick.
I could never own it again, but Shelby Lassiter Kincaid, my heroine, can.
Shelby believes all her dreams have come true when she makes a home for herself and her young daughters in the house she loved. But she’ll learn that a family’s material legacy is not nearly as important nor as valuable as their spiritual one.
Into a Spacious Place, the first in a three-book series that takes place in fictional Glade County, Ohio, releases in January 2016 from Revell.
