Kristin Eckhardt, under the name Emily Thomas, is the author of Nowhere to Be Found, the first book in the Guideposts Books series Secrets of the Blue Hill Library.
This past year brought about a big change for our family. Our two daughters moved to Phoenix, Arizona, more than a thousand miles from home. One moved there to attend graduate school and the other for a job as a hospital nurse. We’re both excited and proud that they’ve taken on new adventures, even though it’s difficult to have them so far away.
And yet, technology makes it easy for us to keep in touch. We can use our cell phones to call each other at anytime. We can send messages and photographs through text or email. We can even enjoy group video chats with them and our son for a cyber family reunion.
It’s not the same as spending time together… but then I think about our ancestors and the sacrifices they made to embark on their new beginnings.
My paternal grandfather immigrated to the United States from Denmark, never again seeing beloved family members left behind there. After my maternal grandmother married and moved hundreds of miles from home, she and her mother exchanged weekly letters to keep in touch, since long-distance phone calls were expensive and usually only reserved for special occasions.
Now those old family letters are precious mementos. They tell the stories of everyday life, an abiding faith and the love that binds a family together.
A strong family bond is the basis for Anne Gibson’s new adventure in Nowhere to Be Found, from the new Secrets of the Blue Hill Library series.
Anne, a widow with two young children, moves to the small town of Blue Hill, Pennsylvania, after her beloved great-aunt Edie bequeaths her Victorian house as the new town library. Aunt Edie always dreamed of opening a library and now Anne is charged with making that dream come true.
And what better place to embark on a new adventure than a library? Just think of all the places you can go! A book can take you anywhere in the world and introduce you to so many interesting characters. Even with all the new technology available today, stories written centuries ago still resonate with us.
Even those everyday stories of a daughter and a mother separated by miles but kept close by ties of love and faith.
