Patrick, welcome to the Diamond Mine. I'm interested in your Amish series, which brings history to life from the 1500's to early America. Please tell us about your newest creation in the ongoing saga of the Hershberger family.
The Amish Princess is scheduled for a late fall release. It is the story
of Opahtuhwe, The White Deer, the
beautiful daughter of the most powerful Chief of the Delaware tribe. She is
revered by her people as a true Indian Princess. Everything in her life changes when the
murderous rengade known as Scar brings three Amish prisoners to the Delaware
camp. Jonathan and Joshua Hershberger
are twin brothers, the only survivors of the brutal massacre of most of the
Hershberger family. Scar has made them captives and is determined to adopt them
and teach them the Indian way. The third
prisoner is Jonas Hershberger, who was made a slave when he would not defend
his family because of his Amish faith and his stand against violence. When the brothers arrive, White Deer is drawn
to Jonathan but his hatred of the Indians causes him to push her away. Joshua's gentle heart and steadfast refusal
to abandon the Amish faith ultimately lead White Deer to a life-changing
decision and rejection by her people. In
the end, White Deer must choose between the ways of her people and her
new-found faith. And complicating it all
is her undying love for the man who can only hate her.
Your prototype cover sets us up to think Colonial times, as in The Last Mohican.
How did the story for the Amish Princess develop
in your mind?
I've been writing about the Hershberger family
since my first Amish book, A Quilt For
Jenna. Early in that story Jerusha Hershberger learns about her
great-great-great-grandfather, Joshua Hershberger from her grandmother, Hannah.
It happens like this:
Hannah handed the second book to
Jerusha. It was small with a plain
leather cover.
"What's
this, Grandmother?" she asked.
"This
is the story of Jonathan and Joshua Hershberger," said Hannah. "It tells of the choices the twin
brothers made after Indians massacred their family near Fort Henry on the Ohio,
and what effect those decisions had on generations of Hershbergers. One brother, Jonathan, forsook the Amish
church and he and all his descendants went out into the world. The other brother, Joshua, stayed in the
church and remained faithful, even under the most difficult conditions. Joshua was your great-great-great grandfather. It was his grandson, my father, who came to
Apple Creek in 1860 as a boy. It is
because Joshua stayed true, that you are here today."
Once
that seed was planted I had in mind to write the story of the twin Hershberger
brothers somewhere down the line. So, in my second Amish book, The Road Home, Jerusha's adopted
daughter, Jenny Springer, meets Jonathan Hershberger who she discovers is the
great-great-great-great-grandson of Jonathan Hershberger, the twin who married the
Indian princess White Deer and left the Amish faith. After The Road Home I wrote two more books about the Hershberger women, Jenny's Choice and The Amish Heiress. And in my mind, all those stories were pointing
to The Amish Princess. Having laid
the groundwork in the previous four books, I went back to Joshua and Jonathan to
tell the story of the twin brothers and their relationship to White Deer, the Deleware
maiden who became known as The Amish Princess, and tie it into the story of the
women of the family that is the centerpiece of both the Apple Creek Dreams
series and The Paradise Chronicles series.
What are your goals for these characters?
If
you have read Jenny's Choice and The Amish Heiress, you know that in my
epilogues for those books, I used a literary device where Jenny Hershberger,
the protagonist of The Road Home and Jenny's Choice is revealed to be the
actual writer of all the Apple Creek Dream books and The Amish Heiress. Since she is Amish she cannot publish them herself
so she turns the manuscripts over to a "writer" from California who
puts the books out under his own name. As the "author" of the books,
the fictional character of Jenny has set about to tell the story of all the
strong women of her family–her mother, her daughter, her husband's
great-great-great-grandmother and even the founding matriarch of the family,
the Princess Isabella of Hungary, who in the turbulent days of the Anabaptist
rebellion of 1534, becomes involved with one of the first Hershberger men,
marries him and is the mother of the Hershberger line all the way down to
Rachel Hershberger. That story will be told in the last book of The Paradise
Chronicles, The Mennonite Queen. So all along I have wanted to develop a set of
women characters that have history, strength, and an enduring nobility that
presents their relationship with Christ in a way that reaches the hearts of my
readers through a great span of literary time.
How has writing these stories affected you?
As
I have been writing the Apple Creek Dreams books and The Paradise Chronicles
series, I have come to love the characters in these books. I feel like I know
them. They are so real to me I think sometimes that I see them walking down the
street, and my readers agree with me which is extremely gratifying. Actually
when I finish the Paradise Chronicles series and wrap up the stories of the
Hershberger women, it is my hope that my future books will birth characters
that become known and loved by my readers, the same way I have come to know and
love Jerusha and Reuben Springer, Bobby Halverson, Jenny and Jonathan
Hershberger, Rachel and Daniel King, and now, Jonathan and Joshua Hershberger
and White Deer, the Amish Princess.
What else do you have in the works?
I
just released a new edition of the first book in my YA mystery series, The Mystery of Ghost Dancer Ranch and
will be following that up with a new edition of The Lost Coast, book two in that same series. (Visualize Frank
Peretti mixed with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and you will get an idea of
what the books are like.) I have a new thriller in mind called Scars on Heaven and a Historical Romance
set during the War of the Roses in England titled Amour Mi Tien, Love Keep Me. I also want to write some western
books and more Amish romance.
Best-selling
author Patrick E. Craig is a lifelong writer and musician who left a successful
songwriting and performance career in the music industry to follow Christ in
1984. He spent the next 26 years as a worship leader, seminar speaker, and
pastor in churches, and at retreats, seminars and conferences all across the
western United States. In 2011 he signed a three-book deal with Harvest House
Publishers to publish his Apple Creek
Dreams series. His current series is The
Paradise Chronicles and the first book in the series, The Amish Heiress, was published by P&J Publishing in August of
2015 and remained on the Amazon bestseller lists for seven months. The second
book in the Series, The Amish Princess,
will be released in the fall of 2016, followed by The Mennonite Queen. Patrick and his wife Judy make their home in
Idaho and are the parents of two adult children and have five grandchildren.
Patrick is represented by the Steve Laube Agency.
Find Patrick online:
Purchase Patrick's books:
The Amish Heiress and all the Apple Creek Dreams books are available
in on Amazon, B&N and all your favorite online stores. You can also find The Amish Heiress on my website
at http://www.patrickecraig.com/my-book-store/
You can also find The Mystery of Ghost Dancer Ranch on
Amazon. Look for The Amish Princess in late September, 2016.
Thank you, Patrick for agreeing to a Giveaway, one signed copy of The Amish Heiress. One fortunate commenter will receive this novel, postpaid!
