Lori Benton

Welcome...

To Hope-Inspired Stories, for anyone who'd like to discover more about books and stories that uplift and encourage.

Several years ago, while teaching high school art, I was as thrilled as my students when they won awards or were acknowledged for their accomplishments, and that encouraging other people's good works was very gratifying. 

So it is my hope you are blessed with a message of grace as I was, through the words of authors featured here. Please join me in welcoming writers of fiction, nonfiction, and devotionals; of romance, mystery, historical and contemporary stories as they share their work. 

For the final week of August and this month of historical romances, I'd like to present Lori Benton's soon-to-be released, "Mountain Laurel"...

• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (September 1, 2020)

“A fascinating story, rich in emotion.” ―Diana Gabaldon, New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series

North Carolina, 1793
Ian Cameron, a Boston cabinetmaker turned frontier trapper, has come to Mountain Laurel hoping to remake himself yet again―into his planter uncle’s heir. No matter how uneasily the role of slave owner rests upon his shoulders. Then he meets Seona―beautiful, artistic, and enslaved to his kin.

Seona has a secret: she’s been drawing for years, ever since that day she picked up a broken slate to sketch a portrait. When Ian catches her at it, he offers her an opportunity to let her talent flourish, still secretly, in his cabinetmaking shop. Taking a frightening leap of faith, Seona puts her trust in Ian. A trust that leads to a deeper, more complicated bond.

As fascination with Seona turns to love, Ian can no longer be the man others have wished him to be. Though his own heart might prove just as untrustworthy a guide, he cannot simply walk away from those his kin enslaves. With more lives than his and Seona’s in the balance, the path Ian chooses now will set the course for generations of Camerons to come.

A story of choice and consequence, of bondage and freedom, of faith and family.

Author: Lori Benton

An excerpt from "Mountain Laurel"... 

             Mama was the first of Mountain Laurel’s slaves to know about the letter. Before Master Hugh posted it away north, he called Mama from her spinning and read that letter to her. You could’ve knocked me over with duck’s down when it happened, but that’s how we came to know early on that Master Hugh was asking his half-brother, up Boston-way, to send his youngest son back to North Carolina.

            Master Hugh’s nephew came here once before, but he never paid me no mind that I can recall. He was twelve years old then, the age a boy, whatever color his skin, gets to fancying himself a man. Me, I was half his years and, what was surely worse, a girl. I was nothing to the master’s kin. But he was something to me.

            Even now I can close my eyes and see him as he was then. Tall for his age. Skinny as a fence rail. Eyes the blue of a jaybird’s wing and hair like Mama’s spinning flax. It was on account of that flax-pale hair I made my first picture, hunkered under the kitchen lilacs so he wouldn’t spy me scratching his likeness on a piece of broken slate.

            Rubbing out that drawing lest I get caught with it came hard, but it was only the first. I’ve made many pictures since then but only one other of him—on a scrap of old paper we was made to strip off the parlor walls, that summer Master Hugh up and married again. It shows his nephew looking off to the side, with that moonbeam hair curling over his brow like the halo of an angel. No one has laid eyes on it but me. Not even Mama.

            Every slave keeps to their heart a secret. This one is mine.

Reminder: The authors presented here value your insights, so don't forget to leave a comment to be included in a drawing for a signed copy of a book by this week's featured author. 

• ...And if you become a Follower of Hope-Inspired Stories, your name will be added to a prize drawing at the end of this month: A 25.00 gift card and your choice of one of the books featured this month! (Drawing for U.S. addresses only, please).
  
  Hope-Inspired Stories Photo:  The beautiful photo of Sodus Bay, N.Y. during a particularly harsh storm on Lake Ontario earlier this year was taken by photographer and sister in Christ, Ginger Strom. Note the courageous lone seagull taking flight in the upper right corner of the photo. 
  
  
  “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8).
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                                                   Thank you...May you all be blessed and inspired!