In April I have a novella releasing in a new collection Across the Shores. But the germ of this story came to me years ago. I was trying to find the original proposal idea and I’m going to guess it was about 2011 or 2012. I’d written two series of WWII novels for Barbour — Cornhusker Dreams set in Nebraska and the Ohio Brides set in Ohio. Stars in the Night was about to release, and Shadowed by Grace was an idea that I had just had or was still on the way. I was in the middle of generating lots of ideas.
One of those revolved around what happened on the Outer Banks during the early days of WWII. The novella was originally called Lauren’s Song and was submitted with a collection that nothing happened with. I almost forgot about it until I was asked by my friend Caroline Miller if I would like to be part of a collection proposal she was putting together that would follow a gold necklace through four generations. I could write a story set during WWII — really in any context, and this germ of an idea came back to me.
I’d never forgotten the idea of the U-boats bringing the Battle of the Atlantic to the shores of the East Coast, and it was time to see if that story would find a home.
It’s one thing to have the story and a completely different thing to create the book. I knew the book had to occur on the Outer Banks. The question became which one. That was a much more difficult question than I antcipated. Crazy difficult in fact! I probably changed the location three times before I settled on Ocracoke Island — a place I now want to visit because it sounds so peaceful. If you’ve been and it isn’t, I don’t want to know! You can peek at a lot of my ideas here on Pinterest. I can’t tell you how often I’ll come back to the images I pin and hope they are interesting to you, too.
One of the details that I found so interesting about life on Ocracoke. Those who lived on the island had their own language — a few people still speak it today. It’s heavy with Scottish. If you want to learn more about it, you can check out the video below. They also had only had electricty for a few years thanks to a generator that fed electricity to the homes in the village. It was so fun to dig into what made this tiny island so unique and incorporate that into the story.
Did you know that U-boats attacked and sunk boats along the coast of North Carolina? When a new book is releasing what do you love to learn about the process or the book?
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Yes, I did know that. I have lived in Virginia Beach since 1975, when my husband was sent here for his last two duty stations before retiring from the Marine Corps. The house behind our first home was different from all of the others in the neighborhood. It was a long, one story with a large yard. We later learned it was left from a POW camp that housed German POWs from 1944 – 1946, called Camp Ashby. The Virginian Pilot newspaper did a story on it in 1995.
Have been to Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, but not Ocracoke. Have heard wonderful things about it. I have read your story in Where Treetops Glisten. Looking forward to this.
Betty, this is so fascinating! I want to get to Ocracoke, but it sounds like you lived on a part of history too.
This sounds very similar to the plot line of Roseanna M White’s novel, Yesterday’s Tides–which I have only read a preview of–although hers has a dual timeline. I can’t wait to read both novels–yours and hers!
Oh! I love Roseanna’s writing. I’ll have to look for her book.
“Did you know that U-boats attacked and sunk boats along the coast of North Carolina?” I did not! What a fascinating piece of history to explore through story.
It has been so interesting to dig into.
The language/dialect part in the video is fascinating! I just love learning how accents and language evolve or remain when a people are in isolation. Glad you’re giving this idea life as a book!
I think the language is so interesting! I want to go hear it for myself!