Please join me in welcoming Laura DeNooyer-Moore to the blog today to chat about her novel, All That is Hidden!
Laura DeNooyer thrives on creativity and encouraging it in others. A Calvin College graduate, she has decades of experience teaching art and writing to middle school and high school students. She and her husband raised four kids. An award-winning author of heart-warming historical and contemporary fiction, she is president of her American Christian Fiction Writers chapter. When not writing, you’ll find her reading, walking, drinking tea with friends, or taking a road trip. Visit Laura at https://lauradenooyer-author.com, featuring book reviews and author interviews. For a FREE prequel, giveaways, and updates, join her monthly newsletter: www.StandoutStoriesNewsletter.com.
You can also connect with Laura on Facebook.
ALL THAT IS HIDDEN
GENRE: Inspirational Fiction
PUBLISHER: Lighthouse Publishing
RELEASE DATE: December 14, 2012
PAGES: 323
Are secrets worth the price they cost to keep?
Ten-year-old Tina Hamilton finds out the hard way.
She always knew her father had a secret. But all of God’s earth to Tina are the streams for fishing, the fields for romping, a world snugly enclosed by the blue-misted Smokies. Nothing ever changed.
Until the summer of 1968. Trouble erupts when northern exploitation threatens her tiny southern Appalachian town. Some folks blame the trouble on progress, some blame the space race and men meddling with the moon’s cycles, and some blame Tina’s father.
A past he has hidden catches up to him as his secret settles in like an unwelcome guest. The clash of progressive ideas and small town values escalates the collision of a father’s past and present.
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Hi Laura! Welcome to the blog!
Laura: Summer’s the best. I love living in a place with all 4 seasons, but each year I’m getting less enamored of cold and snow.
Carrie: Well… I won’t hold that against you 😉 LOL <hums ‘Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow’>
Laura: Tea. The fruitier, the better. With lemon, of course.
Carrie: of course!
Laura: I enjoy my Spotify list that harkens back to the hold days—popular tunes of the 1970s, and Christian music, too. Especially for road trips. I have trouble paying attention to audiobooks.
Carrie: yes! I am the same way.
Laura: The ocean—for walking the shoreline or swimming.
Carrie: I do love walking the shoreline at the ocean – or just enjoying the sound of the waves.
Q: Around here I like to say that reading is my superpower. If YOU had a superpower, what would it be?
Laura: I’d love to say listening is my superpower. Beyond just hearing the words people say—also hearing the emotions, the layers, the motivation at the root. That goes hand in hand with understanding and empathy.
Carrie: i love that! We definitely need more people with a listening/understand/empathy superpower in today’s world ♥
Q: Tell me some good books you’ve read recently.
Laura: So many good ones! The Finder of Forgotten Things by Sarah Loudin Thomas, The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery (Amanda Cox), My Dearest Dietrich (Amanda Barrett), Defending David (Barbara Britton), Afraid of the Light (Cynthia Ruchti), A Piece of the Moon (Chris Fabry) . . . and more. I’ve featured (or will be featuring) these novels on my Standout Stories blog with my reviews and author interviews.
Carrie: so many of my fave people in your list!
Q: If I asked your characters to describe YOU as an author, what would they say?
Laura: They would say I’m very fond of them, but sometimes wishy-washy in wondering what to have them do next, and would I please make up my mind?
Carrie: haha 🙂
Q: Which character in All That is Hidden was the most difficult to write?
Laura: At first I had difficulty deciding on the personality of Jennie (the mom). The story focuses more on her husband and daughter, but her character is vital, too. I stumbled through each scene she was in, until one day, my friends and I met for lunch. The waitress’s face grabbed my attention. That was Jennie! I hadn’t been able to visualize her before. But this waitress comprised all that I had in mind for Jennie. Even her personality resembled what I’d been trying to convey. Seeing this woman and now having the visual image in my head made her entire character come alive for me. Moral of the story (for me anyhow): find pictures of my characters before I start writing about them.
Carrie: i always love seeing the visual inspirations authors use for their characters!
Q: Did you have the whole plot outlined before you started writing, or did you let the characters dictate what came next?
Laura: I started with an outline but soon learned to be flexible. I experienced firsthand what it means to have characters take over the story.
Carrie: my blog-readers know that it fascinates me how that happens to so many authors – i don’t get it at all but i think it’s really cool 🙂
Q: What is one of your favorite quotes from All That is Hidden & why do you love it?
Laura: Tough choice, but I’ll go with this one: “See, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Who needs silk anyway? Sometimes all a body needs in order to get by in this life is a little mercy.” This gets to the heart of the themes I love writing about—second chances and “redeeming the years the locusts ate.”
Carrie: That Biblical concept of God restoring the wasted years, the years of loss, is one of my favorites. His grace is so amazing!!
Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me! 🙂 Before we say goodbye for today, tell us what‘s coming up next for you.
Laura: Two things, mainly. Continue to host authors on my Standout Stories blog (launched in November), and find a home for at least two of my unpublished novels, both more historical fiction. One is Biblical fiction, set in the time of Christ, and the other is a split-time story (1980 and early 1900s) with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author, L. Frank Baum, as a main character. Not southern fiction this time, but set in a small town in Michigan where Baum’s family spent their summers (near Lake Macatawa). I gravitate toward small towns and bygone eras, wherever they happen to be.
I have many irons in the fire. With my kids all grown up, I finally have time to fine-tune a plethora of manuscripts and seek publication.
Laura DeNooyer-Moore is offering an ebook copy of All That is Hidden to one of my readers. (Delivery will be made via Bookfunnel. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.
What about you? What makes you want to read All That is Hidden by Laura DeNooyer-Moore?
What a wonderful interview, Laura’s book sounds so very good!
thanks, Stacy! Glad you enjoyed the interview 🙂
Sounds like a good read!
Thank you for having me on your blog, Carrie!
I want to know what secrets the father is keeping and why he is keeping them. The setting of a tiny southern Appalachian town and the picture of the young girl on the cover makes me think she’s going to have many adventures. I’ve always enjoyed books by Laura Ingalls Wilder but the added mystery of the father’s secret in All that is Hidden intrigues me as an adult reader. Your interview with Laura DeNooyer-Moore was fun, too.
It sounds interesting.