Author Interview: Sarah Anne Crouch

I don't know if you believe God puts certain people in your life or not, but to me, Sarah Anne Crouch is living proof. She and I became fast friends when my family moved to TN, and we've stayed close despite her family moving to Arkansas a few years ago. Now, not only are we good friends, we're co-authors in several novella collections. And, just recently I blessed to become her content editor. Needless to say, she's pretty special, and I'm thrilled to share her with you today in this author interview.

Sarah, congratulations on a new release coming soon. I know your series was hung up in some red tape for a while. How does it feel to finally have more books coming out in this series?
It's such a relief! I have a few kind friends who ask me almost every time they see me “When is your next novel coming out?” For the longest time I didn’t have a good answer to that question. And then, for a few months, I had no novels out because the first one was out of print. Now I can tell everyone to hop on over to Amazon!

Shady Springs is a town you've made up to base these stories in. Did you base it on any real towns? What inspired you to make it how you did?
Growing up in Arkansas, I always felt the state was underrepresented in fiction. I don’t know if that’s true or just my personal bias. From the time I was 12 until I graduated college and got married, my hometown was Prairie Grove, Arkansas. It’s a growing community now, but had fewer than 3,000 residents when we first moved there. Shady Springs is very much the Prairie Grove of my childhood with a few tweaks. 
I loved my hometown so much—I still do. It was my first experience with living in a tiny place where everyone knew each other. That dynamic makes for really interesting fiction, I think. Plus, Northwest Arkansas is a beautiful setting.​

Are any of your characters more like you than another? In what way?
The character most like me in all the stories I’ve ever written is Isaac from “A Sweet Dream Come True,” part of our Love in Any Season novella collection. I gave him an intense fear of confrontation and a strong desire to please people (just like me!).  But every character I write has something about them I can relate to.
I think Madeleine Mullins (from A Summer in Shady Springs) behaves how I would if I had all of her same life experiences.​

As we move forward with this series, can you give us a sneak peek on what to expect? What are you working on next?
Yes! This first book, A Summer in Shady Springs, is a republication and focuses on Madeleine’s faith journey. A Homecoming in Shady Springs is all about her parents, Henry and Catherine—their story of falling in love for the first time and reconnecting in the present day. 
Right now, I’m finishing A Christmas in Shady Springs, all about a wedding. I’m really working to make it difficult for my main characters which leads to a fun, festive, and slightly chaotic story! 

Your book that releases in March goes between present day and the nineties. How crazy was it to have your characters college students back then? Was there anything you discovered about the 90s that you had misremembered from your own childhood?
I had so much fun researching this book! My alma mater, Harding University, has done a great job of preserving back issues of the campus newspaper (shout out to librarians!). I also interviewed friends who were on campus in the early nineties.
I like to think I have a pretty decent memory of the nineties, but I hadn’t realized how important the campus newspaper was to social life at a university. We didn’t have social media back then, and people would get most of their information about what was happening and what had happened from the paper. So instead of checking Facebook the next day, students were checking the newsstands for pictures of themselves and their friends. 

Any real-life experiences from your own life that you've woven into your stories? In what way?
Sure! We used to kayak and canoe occasionally growing up, so I threw some of that into the first book. And a lot of the college experiences I had, borrowing cars from friends to go on dates or participating in goofy campus activities, I put in the second book. I have Henry and Catherine form a strong bond with a professor and his wife, which is based on many relationships I cherish with my own college professors.

It's been a while since your first book in this series first released and now when it's re-releasing right before the release of the new book. Do you think you've changed a lot between then and now? How?
Not a whole lot. I’m still completely blown away by the fact that God led me here. I never thought I’d get one book published, let alone five (soon to be seven!). And I still have a hard time self-promoting my books. So thank you for helping me out!

Last but not least, can you leave us with one fact about yourself that very few people already know?
I have seen every Oscar Best Picture winning movie. My husband and I spent quite a bit of time hunting down old VHS tapes of films from the 20s and 30s while we lived in Southern California. Now we just have to watch one movie a year to keep up!

That sounds like a lot of movies! Wow. Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Sarah.

Readers, keep going because you're going to love this sweet series she's writing!

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A Summer in Shady Springs

​The last place Madeleine Mullins wants to be is back in Shady Springs, Arkansas—the town where her whole world fell apart. But when her beloved Aunt Clara begs her for help, Madeleine reluctantly takes a job painting a mural at her aunt's church. Her plan is to finish quickly and leave her bad memories behind. But the more time she spends with the handsome youth minister and the more she reads her Bible, the more she wonders if she has been wrong about God and the Church all along.
Three years out of college, and A.J. Young still doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up. He knows he wants to settle down and build a family but hasn't found the wife he'd like to share his life with. Then Madeleine comes to town. Their friendship buds quickly, although it can never be anything more as long as she isn't a Christian.
An undeniable attraction grows between A.J. and Madeleine, but she's only in town for a few weeks, and he can't date someone who doesn't share his beliefs. How can Madeleine help A.J. discover a passion for the career he's always wanted? And how can A.J. convince Madeleine to give God and Shady Springs a second chance?

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Sarah Anne Crouch lives in Arkansas with her husband, three children, and thousands of books. She always wanted to be an author, but spent some time as a teacher, earned a degree in library science, and makes feeble attempts to corral her small children as a stay-at-home mom. Sarah loves reading books, recipes, piano music, and emails from readers.
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