The creation of this book was a unique process for me, compared to my other books that I wrote as a teenager. The origins of it are as old as The Peasant Queen, but I didn’t actually start writing it until July 2021.
To explain all this, we must go back to 2015. At this time, I was working on the first book in a fantasy series ( I have plans to rewrite and hopefully publish this series one day!), but I was also planning sequels to The Peasant Queen, which I’d written the year before. I knew for certain I wanted to write at least two sequels–one for Rowan and Arabella’s oldest son, who was called Nicholas at that time, and one for their oldest daughter, Adelaide. I wanted Adelaide’s story to be a retelling of Ruth, but couldn’t figure out how to make it a Ruth retelling while having her end up with the character I had in mind. I had more ideas and inspiration for Nicholas’ story, so that’s the one I turned my attention to first, and I decided to wait on Adelaide’s for a while.
Nicholas’ book didn’t work out well for me in the end, but that’s a story for another day.
The important thing right now is that I pretty much didn’t write at all for three and a half years. I picked back up my pen–or keyboard, rather–in the latter half of 2019 when I decided to start my blog, actually follow through with my talk of self-publishing The Peasant Queen, and start writing a new book. I had a false start on one story idea before transferring to another idea that I was super passionate about. For the next year and a half, as strongly as I felt about the story, I struggled to write that book. Half the time, it felt like slogging through mud to get anything on the page. But I was determined to see it through.
After TPQ came out, people immediately started asking me if there would be a sequel. I was still set on writing my other book, so I would vaguely answer, “Yeah, hopefully someday.” But the longer I struggled to write the other book and the more I saw how much people enjoyed Rowan and Arabella’s story and wanted more of that world, I began to second guess myself. What if this story wasn’t the right one to do next after all? What if I should return to Nicholas’ story, or better yet, try to figure out Adelaide’s?
In the spring of last year, I had a dream that sparked an idea for Adelaide. It involved her being betrothed to the Crown Prince of Trilaria, who I named Nicholas (taking the name from Adie’s brother, who is now named Roland after his late grandfather). It was not a retelling of any kind, but it was the only idea I’d had for her in years, so I briefly outlined it and wrote two chapters. I really liked the scenes I wrote, but the overall story felt very shallow and too simple. I quickly realized that I really didn’t have a story at all, and once again felt frustrated with the whole thing.
I knew I either had to rework this story idea or find a different one. But this raised another question. Should I go with a non-retelling story idea, and therefore not do any other retellings in the series. Or should I stick with my original desire to have all of the stories be Biblical retellings?
Fast forward to July 2021, when my author friend, B. R. Goodwin (go look up her amazing books and BUY THEM!) messaged me after reading TPQ and asked about sequels. I shared my quandary with her and she said she totally loved the idea of Adelaide’s story being a Ruth retelling, along with my retelling idea for the oldest son’s story. After our brief conversation, I thought, “You know, when was the last time I really put my mind to making Adelaide’s story and Ruth retelling?”
I immediately pulled out my laptop and looked up a YouTube video I’d seen before from the Bible Project, breaking down the Book of Ruth. When it got to the part about the relative that technically had first claim to Ruth before Boaz, it was like a lightbulb came on in my brain.
I didn’t even finish watching the video. I paused it and immediately started writing out a story idea, just going with my flow of consciousness. It was only a page long, but the story came alive in my brain and I had to write it.
I took the same opening line I’d used for my other version of Adie’s story and just wrote. And wrote. And wrote.
In this new version, Adie was still betrothed to the Crown Prince of Trilaria, except his name was Miles and I had to kill him off—poor guy. Then entered twin noblemen, Nicholas and Mericus of Aguilar, one the Boaz character and the other this second relative that could possibly marry our Ruth.
I couldn’t stop writing this story. I found every chance I could to add words to the manuscript and for once in my writing life, quickly pushed past any blockages I ran into. For most of the book, I wrote by faith and not by sight—LOL! I wasn’t sure until almost halfway through how the story would end, but each scene came to me as I went and I just rolled with it. I did have to pause to plot out the second half of the story and actually figure out the climax/ending, but even with that, I managed to type THE END on the first draft in the wee hours of the morning on Oct. 1st. Just under three months from the day I started writing it.
I have never written that fast, even when I was a homeschooled teenager with no job who stayed up all hours of the night, pouring her heart onto the page. The fastest I’d ever written a book was in seven months, and I obviously beat that record by a lot, despite the fact that I haven’t been able to finish a novel manuscript in nearly six years.
I’m not sure how I did it other than with God’s help. I know He placed this story in my heart and helped me get it onto the page. He knew now was the time for this story.
In fact, there’s no way I would have been able to write this exact book before now. I needed to learn a lot of things in the last six years to write this. I needed to learn what it’s actually like to love someone, even during hard times, and not just imagine what that’s like. I needed to experience some heartbreak and tragedy so I could write about it authentically.
After writing the first few chapters, I realized how much of our recent world events and my personal experiences were leaking on the page. I was writing about an epidemic that could be likened to our current world pandemic. My grief over the loss of my maternal grandfather was coming through in my characters as they experienced the loss of their own loved ones. Halfway through writing, my paternal grandfather died as well, further linking my life to the story with this continued theme of loss and finding joy in the midst of it. Eventually, I embraced these facts and let the story be what it needed to be, what I apparently needed it to be as well.
In all seriousness, eighteen year old Ashton wasn’t ready for this book.
But twenty three year old Ashton was.
I’m not gonna lie, there’s a lot of heaviness in this story. At times I feared too much so. But in the midst of the heaviness, Adie and her “Boaz” find light and hope, because God is still there, even in the deepest dark. He promises light on the other of the night, joy on the other side of mourning. My prayer as you read the book is that you will be reminded of this truth, and that the story will encourage your heart as it did mine.
