A Beautiful Fall (34 page)

2. What are Emma’s personal strengths and weaknesses? Samantha’s? Christina’s?

3. The small town of Juneberry is a place of beauty and strong community. Have you ever known a place like Juneberry? What about the town did you identify with?

4. There are five strong male characters in
A Beautiful Fall
: Will, Bo, Michael, Noel, and Jim. What personal characteristics did they exhibit by their actions?

5. The theme of community, where neighbors help neighbors, runs throughout the story. Do you have a community that exhibits concern for others in your own life? What appeals to you about that sort of community?

6. Home is another major theme in
A Beautiful Fall
. Both Emma and Janette Kerr left home to search for a place where they belonged. In what ways can you relate this idea of leaving home in order to find it?

7. Michael and Samantha vowed to watch over Emma after her mother died. How did you react to two children making such an important pledge?

8. Parenthood is an important aspect of the story (e.g., Emma grows up without her mother, Will raises Emma as a single parent and endures twelve years of estrangement, Jim and Samantha help shape Noel into the faithful servant he becomes). Why do you think the author placed special emphasis on the role and experiences of parents in the story? How do your experiences compare to those of the characters?

9. Bo realized that Christina was an exceptional woman. Why do you think he hesitated before asking her to marry him? What caused him to change his mind?

What are other examples of this hesitancy in relationship?

10. Noel is an especially responsible and mature young man. Do you think it’s realistic that a twenty-two-year-old could make such a positive impact in a community? What do you think contributed to Noel’s maturity?

11. Christina Herry loves a man who for the longest time wouldn’t commit to her. Was she right to hold on for so long? How did she find the patience to wait?

The Original Premise

Five years ago, I jotted down the title
A Beautiful Fall
in a journal with a note that went something like this: “Woman falls from high career position into a better, simpler life. It happens during the fall.” When David C. Cook asked if I had another novel, I found that journal entry and wrote the following premise to show them the direction I would take for a second novel. Much of the story stayed true to the premise, but you’ll notice that some of the characters and plot points were merged together to speed up the storyline. Consider this a kind of behind-the-scenes look at story writing.

Synopsis:

Emma Madison is Boston’s fastest-rising-star attorney. Her strong work ethic and personal ambition earned her a partnership at Adler, McCormick & Madison by age thirty. But when her father, Will Madison, suffers a stroke, Emma must return home to the small Southern town of Juneberry, South Carolina, to help arrange her father’s affairs. What she thought would be a quick weekend trip is unexpectedly extended as Emma realizes the extent of his debilitated condition.

While caring for her father, Emma becomes reacquainted with the small town she broke ties with years ago to pursue big-city success. On a drive into Juneberry, she has a chance meeting with her old beau, Michael Evans, the love she walked away from fifteen years earlier. Michael was twenty-two then, Emma a college sophomore already invested in the education she knew was her ticket out. Theirs was an impassioned love affair that long, easy summer, and though it was difficult, when fall came, Emma returned to college to pursue her legal career. Michael remained in Juneberry, becoming the town’s highly gifted carpenter, never ceasing in his love for Emma. She invites Michael to work on her father’s house, which has fallen into disrepair.

Emma is telephoned by her best friend, Lara, still in Boston and eager to lure her back to the excitement of the law practice and a fast-paced single’s world. Emma’s boyfriend, attorney Colin Douglas, is also leaving frequent messages on her cell phone, since she’s become increasing difficult to contact following her first encounter with Michael.

Emma is surprised by how much she has in common with the people of Juneberry. She values the counsel of her grandfather, Sam Turner, who shares his wisdom and stirs the faith she learned in childhood but lost hold of in her twenties. Her cousin, Samantha Connor, becomes a new friend and trusted confidant as she teaches Emma the panache of the Juneberry women. Emma develops a mentoring friendship with Sara Prichett, the eighteen-year-old high school senior who reminds Emma of herself, with the same burning desire to leave Juneberry after graduation. She also finds inspiration in Samantha’s son, Noel Connor, the young college grad with an especially strong faith and an expectation that the Lord has a calling on his life.

Emma’s feelings confront her as she thinks over her life and her hard-fought identity as an independent woman. Her all-consuming career feels less important as she reconnects with the town of Juneberry and mends fences with her father. Her lifelong ambitions fall aside as she bonds with the small-town community. Emma treasures her single life, but feelings for Michael Evans are strong, rooted in vivid memories from the past, and kindled by an intense passion now.

Colin Douglas is worried about Emma. After conferring with Lara, he travels to Juneberry to rescue Emma and bring her back to her senses. Emma must decide who she is. Is she Boston’s star attorney with the platinum salary and a scorecard of courtroom victories? Or is she her father’s daughter, bonded to generations of Juneberry women, and fulfilled by the discovery of the lost love of her life?

Autumn is bringing colorful and surprising changes. This season, attorney Emma Madison will leave a new home to find an old one, surrender a dream to take hold of the Dreamer, and cease living one life to be reborn in another. The corporate ladder climber is about to let go of the high rungs. Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful fall.

Deleted Scenes and Bonus Content

Most DVDs include a special-features section, deleted scenes, and glimpses into the making of the movie. I wanted to share a couple of deleted sections and behind-the-scenes notes from
A Beautiful Fall
. This paragraph below was written in longhand in a yellow legal notebook I carry with me. It outlined my first thoughts on the character of 1960s movie starlet, Janette Kerr. After the premise was written, these were the first words I wrote for the novel:

Marjorie Kerr lived a simple life, or least she had for the past twenty years. Ever since she’d left Hollywood, California, in a powder blue Cadillac convertible in 1972 following a brief, tumultuous career as B-movie starlet. Marjorie had seen the studio system up close as a working contract actress to MGM, been cast in many B-movie player roles as night-club cigarette girls, passengers on trains, and chorus line dancers. She’d even played opposite Clark Gable in
Some Go East
, collecting his coins at an onstage newspaper stand and delivering her one line on cue: “Twenty-five cents.” He’d replied: “Here you go, kid.” But she left Hollywood. Left it and didn’t ever care to go back …

o o o

This section below is an unedited swatch, a first-draft glimpse at
A Beautiful Fall
as it was being written. The barn-dance scene was written out of sequence with the rest of the novel. When this was written, none of the other scenes with Christina and Bo had been set to paper yet.

(Hayride Scene)

“Bo, thanks for coming on this hayride with me. Don’t know why the others didn’t want to come.”

“Some people aren’t as adventurous as you are.”

Christina snuggled closer, tighter to Bo. The faces of the other couples were in shadows cast by the darkness of the orchard. There was no wind, but the night air was chilled.

“I’m glad you are.”

The rumbling chug of Farmer Whitfield’s tractor up ahead of them made all talk private. Just two people in a group sitting on a blanket on the trailer’s floor, edged with bales of hay.

“You seem especially happy tonight. Having a good time?” Bo said.

“I’m having a wonderful time. I love being outdoors, even at night. I love being with all of our friends, and I love being here with you.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything you need.”

“Yeah, Bo. I do. I just want the piece that’s missing. Knowing it’s always going to be this way.”

Bo joked. “You want me to hold back the changing of time? Try and keep things just the way they are?”

“No,” Christina let out in her soft voice of confidence and resolve. “I just want to wake up every morning with you sleeping next to me. That’s all.”

Christina lived by the confidence that if ideas could be put into words and expressed, then they could be understood. Bo was the kind of man who liked things he could put his hands on, not ideas that he couldn’t wrap his mind around. Still, he felt guilty when he heard the words that sprang out from her heart. He knew where they came from. He knew Christina was honest and could only say what she felt on the inside. Sometimes he thought he would just ask her. Just surprise her one day with a ring and get the whole thing over with. Bo knew he would be marrying up. Christina was a jewel. His own dad had told him that at Thanksgiving the year before. She was smarter, she was better looking, and she had to be making more money than he. No, just give it another spring, another summer. They were having a great time. Why rush it?

“As long as I’m the last man you kiss before you go to bed, we’re good. You aren’t seeing someone else after I drop you off, are you?”

“Yes, Bo. I keep him in my laundry room.”

Christina pinched Bo on his arm. The hayride turned the back loop of the dark trail and Christina watched the tractor’s headlights pass over the apple-less trees. The clouds above them moved south, heading for warmer weather. The bark on the trees seemed to hold close for warmth. Could it be cooler than forty?

“Hey, after the ride why don’t we invite everyone back to my house for hot chocolate or cider, or anything warm? Does that sound like a good idea?”

“Yeah, if everybody wants to. You’re just cold now.”

“Bo, I love these times when we’re alone.”

Christina sat in front of Bo on the blanket. She turned her head to face him.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You know so. I couldn’t make anything more clear.”

Bo kept silent. Christina was in high spirits. This was everything she loved in one special night. He hoped she wasn’t going to use this moment to scratch the marriage itch. He didn’t think this was the time or place.

Christina reached her open hand up behind Bo’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss. “Maybe just you should come to my place for cocoa.”

Bo found the deep pool of Christina’s eyes among the shadows of the night. She sat still as a statue before him, unblinking. He wondered just what went on inside her, and if he would possibly drown if he fell off the edge. He kissed her again, a long kiss, and knew how deep was her love. Just like the song that played on her stereo when he’d picked her up that night. Just like the question she was asking him. How deep?

The tractor rounded the last bend and pulled in under the bright naked exterior lights mounted high in the corners of the barn. They were again in the company of friends, greeters in the night happy to see the couples return to the party.

“Anyone in the mood for a late-night hangout session at my place? We can make it the first official lighting of the fireplace.”

“Oh, it’s so late, hon,” Emma said, because she wanted to be alone with Michael.

“Yeah, it’s getting kind of late,” Samantha echoed Emma’s thoughts, only for entirely different reasons. She was tired, tired enough to want to get home and go to sleep. It had been a wonderful night, but it was time to go to bed.

Jim fished the keys to the van out of his pocket and opened the driver door, turning on the dome light.

o o o

This last section is a deleted scene from chapter 1. Originally, I wanted to show a more complex relationship between Emma and Robert Adler. This became problematic fairly quickly, so I abandoned the idea. Here’s a sketch of Robert Adler’s thinking as he watched Emma in the courtroom in chapter 1.