A Matter of Continuity
When I began writing Home to Beulah in the fall of 2023, I had no idea that it would morph into a series. Yet, here I am, less than three years later, putting the finishing touches on the fourth title, which I’m calling Snoqualmie Bound. In writing this particular book, I find that I’m constrained by facts, names, dates, and events I’ve mentioned in previous books.
A good example occurs at the beginning of my most recent novel, The Murder of Rhoda Jones. In it a character discovers a wartime letter published in the January 1940 issue of The Benzie Banner. Here it is, as written:
January 1940
The Benzie Banner
Mrs. Allen Hopkins has shared the following letter from her friend Miss Chloe McGrath, who is working as a nurse in the southeast of England.
Dear Grace,
I’m snatching a few moments between shifts to write. If you think that nursing in a once-medieval castle was at all romantic, you can think again! Laundry is laundry anywhere you go. Deep down, the other nurses and I know we’re making a difference, but when we’re coming off a double shift, too tired to move, it’s hard to realize that.
Being where we are [redacted] we’re especially vulnerable to the ever more frequent bombing raids by the Germans. I think their pilots must need glasses; the bombs usually go far astray.
Thank you for the Christmas box you sent. I shared the goodies with the other nurses but did keep the chocolate and the dried cherries for myself. I am beyond grateful to you for sending me my copy of Mary Poppins – I can tell, this is a book I can get lost in, which is badly needed nowadays.
Grace, do you remember the run-in we had with the bear in the U.P. twenty years ago? I could wish for such a fright again; it pales compared to the daily terrors we face here. But I survived that terror, and I’ll survive this one, too.
I hesitate to mention it, for fear of jinxing something, but I’ve met someone I fancy. I’ll tell you more in my next letter, but I vow I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. He’s an English fighter pilot who was here recuperating and has since gone back to his unit.
How I long for a glimpse of Crystal Lake, or a piece of pie from the Cherry Hut!
Gotta go, Love always,
Hugs to you and your family,
Chloe
This letter introduces the information that Chloe McGrath, Grace Hopkins’ best friend, worked overseas as a nurse during World War II. I’ve had to work around that letter in several ways:
Chloe actually meets this “someone” on the ship voyage to England in 1935. As someone suggested to me, meeting him at the hospital does NOT mean she met him for the first time there!
I’m also bound in what I write about what happened in the southeast of England during the years 1935 to 1940. For example, I wanted a certain cottage bombed in 1938, but had to change it to 1940 to fit historic facts.
At the end of my second novel, North to Naubinway, I have several family members visiting the Benzonia Township Cemetery, and so I am bound to work around the names and dates I’ve already established.
The next book in the series, tentatively titled Journey to Benzonia is a fictional account of the Congregationalists and their settlement of Benzie County, Michigan. I’m going to (finally!) spice it up with a DNA mystery or two!