Beulah, Michigan: A Place Where Stories Live
Beulah is a small village in Benzie County, Michigan, resting on the sandy shore of Crystal Lake and just a few miles from Lake Michigan. It’s the kind of place where the same families have lived for generations, where everyone knows everyone, and where history lingers in quiet ways — in an old photograph, in the walls of a church, in the names carved into headstones.
For me, Beulah is more than a dot on a map. It’s the heart of my novels — a setting that shapes the people who live there and the stories they tell. I’ve walked its streets, visited its archives, waded in Crystal Lake, and eaten more than one slice of Cherry Hut pie while imagining the lives of my characters.
In the Home to Beulah Series, real history and fictional lives intertwine. Some details come from my own family history, others from hours of genealogical research, but all of them are inspired by this lakeside town and its enduring sense of community.
The Home to Beulah Series at a Glance
The Home to Beulah Series is a collection of standalone novels connected by place, history, and the threads of genealogy. Each book introduces new characters (and sometimes revisits familiar ones!) as they uncover long-buried secrets, navigate family mysteries, and reckon with the past.
These are stories about ordinary people whose lives are shaped by the events and choices of generations before them. You can read the series in order or start with any book. Each one is its own complete story, but together they paint a richer picture of Beulah and the people who call it home.
Once I (mostly) retired, my thoughts turned more to writing. I had the idea for a genealogy mystery rattling around in my brain for at least two years, and it started coming together in September 2023, when I attended a virtual writer's conference led by Anne Lamott. In her keynote address, she gave all of us a writing prompt: "There was a tree." Challenge accepted!” Grace, admiring the clear blue water of Crystal Lake in 1923, appeared.
Why I Wrote These Stories
When I was a little girl growing up in Forest Park, a suburb of Cincinnati, we went to Michigan every chance we could get. Both my parents were born and raised there — Dad in Lansing, Mom in Detroit — and we still had extended family all over the state.
My favorite place was the tiny village of Beulah, on the shore of beautiful Crystal Lake. I have fond memories of sleeping in the attic of my grandparents’ cottage, exploring the big red barn that was my grandfather’s weaving shop, swimming in Crystal Lake, and searching for Petoskey stones. These memories are part of my DNA — and they’ve become the heart of my novels.
Home to Beulah (2024)
While I was researching my nonfiction book From Pie Stand to Icon: The 100 Year History of the Cherry Hut, I began wondering: What was life like here in 1922, when the Cherry Hut was just a whitewashed chicken coop selling pies for 25 cents? When Crystal Drive was a dirt and gravel road, and cottages had no electricity or running water? And what was it like to do family history research before the internet or DNA testing?
Several pieces of my own family history made their way into the novel — including my great-grandmother, Claudia Grace Thompson, and my grandmother, Bessie Blanche Randall, who died tragically at 33 when my mother was just five months old.
When Grace receives an unexpected bequest of a cottage on Crystal Lake, she uncovers more than old family photographs. Together with Allan, the Benzie County Clerk, she digs deep into her own family's truth and finds a forgotten connection, a hidden past, and a long-standing mystery that pull her deep into genealogical research.
“As a lifetime Michigander, I loved the story that involved the famous Cherry Hut, Crystal Lake and Beulah.”
— Amazon review
North to Naubinway (2024)
This story took me north to another beloved place in Michigan: the Hiawatha Sportsman’s Club in the Upper Peninsula, between Naubinway and Engadine. I wanted to continue Grace’s story, explore Hannah’s childhood in the U.P., and bring Grace’s stepparents, Herman and Maude Dorsch, to Beulah. An unexpected wedding and a honeymoon on Mackinac Island made this book especially fun to write.
It was also my first dual-timeline novel — set in both 1924 and 1974 — and in many ways, Sophie became my alter ego.
Set against the backdrop of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, North to Naubinway follows Grace and her good friends, Hannah and Chloe, in 1924 as they chase threads of history across time and place. From the shores of Lake Michigan to archives and cemeteries, each discovery brings new questions, and sometimes, unexpected answers.
“Reading Claudia Breland is like sitting down with a friend for a lively and interesting conversation.”
— Amazon review
The Murder of Rhoda Jones (2025)
This book is based on almost forty years of research into my great-great-grandmother, Rhoda Prosser Jones. Though newspapers at the time called her death a suicide, details never added up — clean stockings, no shoes, bedridden for days yet found by the railroad tracks.
I wove her story together with two pieces of Florida family history: my family’s time on Merritt Island in the 1970s, and the story of Mary Ellen (Curtis) Reed, another 2nd great-grandmother who died after traveling to care for her daughter in 1896.
Three women. Three timelines. One unsolved death. In 1887, Rhoda Jones was found beside the railroad tracks, the papers calling it suicide. Decades later, her great-niece Grace — and later still, her granddaughter Sophie — begin asking questions that lead to more than they bargained for. Inspired by true events, this novel weaves family secrets, local history, and the relentless pursuit of truth.
“I have been drawn in since the first book and this installment did not disappoint! The story is compelling, and the main characters are charming and fun… I can’t wait for the next one!”
— Amazon review
Snoqualmie Bound (coming soon!)
In this upcoming story, I’m bringing Grace and Allan west to Washington State in 1936. The roads were dirt and gravel, gas was 25 cents a gallon, and laundry meant boiling water over a campfire. Along the way, they search for a long-lost uncle — and I drew directly from my grandfather’s journals for inspiration. This story will also explore a family secret from World War II: an adoption before the days of DNA testing, and a reunion that unfolds in surprising ways.
Start Your Journey to Beulah
Whether you begin with Home to Beulah, venture North to Naubinway, or dive straight into The Murder of Rhoda Jones, each book will take you deep into Michigan’s landscapes and family histories with stories that linger long after the last page.