PenWorks of the Word | Featured Author | Linda Shenton Matchett

Greetings, 

Today, I have the privilege of welcoming Linda Shenton Matchett to the PenWorks of the World Blog Tour. She was the first author to extend a hand of support to a wayward newbie launching into the genre of Biblical Fiction as he was releasing the first full-length novel he had ever written. It was my first guest post on her website that helped me accept that I could do this thing called being a writer.

When Linda told me she wanted to do a "story behind the story," I was ecstatic. I loved hearing those kinds of stories because they always fascinate me to see how stories find their authors. They come from all kinds of places, and today, I think you are going to like learning how A Lesson in Love was born. Without further ado, here is Linda, and I'll see you in the "digital" pages.

M.J.E.

(PS: Don't forget to check out the KingSumo Giveaway for the PenWorks of the Word Blog Tour after you read this one)

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As an author, I get story inspiration from lots of different places: snippets of overheard conversations, scenes or tidbits of information from books and movies, biblical stories, newspaper and magazine articles, museum displays, historical events, and old-fashioned brainstorming. A Lesson in Love is a WWII romance set on a fictional estate in a fictional Yorkshire, England village. As an Anglophile, I love anything British, so many of my stories are set in England.

I’m also a big fan of Foyle’s War, a BBC mystery show that ran between 2003 and 2015 and featured a Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Foyle who solved murders in the small town of Hastings during WWII. Two of the episodes featured homes that had been requisitioned by the British government.

Intrigued, I did a bunch of research and discovered that during the war, thousands of country manors of the wealthy peerage were commandeered for a variety of uses, from hospitals and orphanages to secret facilities and troop billeting. With the evacuation of children from London during Operation Pied Piper, many of the homes were used as schools. Having worked at a boarding school for eight years, I knew I could write about that experience.

Now, to come up with my protagonists. As a “woman of a certain age,” I’ve started writing later-in-life romances, so I decided to do so for A Lesson in Love, which meant my characters were old enough to have lived through The Great War. Thus, Gavin Emerson became a veteran of that conflict. Isobel is a teacher, but because of the evacuation, she lost her position, so I put her in the Women’s Land Army, totally out of her comfort zone.

She’s city born and bred, can barely drive, let alone milk a cow, or sow a field. Those facts made for lots of fun foibles. My research revealed the fact that many of the women who joined the WLA were from the city and didn’t have many of the required skills. Some had to learn how to drive in order to operate the farm machinery.

My grandfather was a farmer, my mom and brother have green thumbs, but I’ve been known to kill fake plants, so I could put myself in Isobel’s shoes as I researched how to drive and repair various farm equipment, what each piece is used for and how it work, the countless varieties of potatoes and how to plant and sow them, and animal husbandry. Most of the WLA recruits received 4-6 weeks of training, but there were many who received none and had to learn on the job. I’m here to tell you, I’m not sure six weeks is enough!

As a former teacher, Isobel has lots of great ideas to engage Gavin’s students, but he’s just fine without her interference. On top of that, he has to manage a pair of squabbling teachers, and a school full of boys intent on mischief. But Isobel turns up everywhere he looks, and perhaps her ideas aren’t so outlandish after all. Eventually, the two get their happily ever after, but not without a lot of fits and starts first!

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About A Lesson in Love (Christian Historical Romance):

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

 

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Her friend talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

 

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm.

When the group’s blue-eyed, blonde leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

 

Purchase link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0 

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About Linda:

Linda Shenton Matchett writes happily-ever-after historical Christian fiction about second chances and women who overcome life’s challenges to be better versions of themselves.

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, she was born a stone’s throw from Fort McHenry (of Star-Spangled Banner fame) and has lived in historical places all her life. She is a volunteer docent and archivist at the Wright Museum of WWII. She now lives in central New Hampshire, where she explores the history of this great state and immerses herself in the imaginary worlds created by other authors.

 

Social Media Links:

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