Thank you for your encouragement to bring this book into being! Now That I Know You happened because so many of you took the time to drop me an email or a message on Facebook asking when the next book in the Tree of Life series would come out. Your enthusiasm stirred up my enthusiasm that I was not finished with Jillian and Nolan and Canyon Mines.

Genealogy threads that have been simmering throughout several previous books were asking for a reason to come forth, and I so much appreciate every single inquiry about another story that encouraged me during this last year to lean into this story.

Cate Butler is the distant cousin genealogist Jillian was so certain she wanted to find—and the only connection she has to her deceased mother’s Parisi family tree. So why does she wish Cate would stop pestering her? And why can’t Jillian find a paper trail proving Cate is who she says she is?

Cate wants something for her own career that Jillian can’t give, but she also holds the key to family history Jillian can’t bring herself to walk away from. Nolan, Jillian’s father, steps in when Cate’s chronic career chaos requires legal rescue. Drew, the man who holds Jillian’s heart, has a surprising past with Cate. The truths Jillian, Cate, and Drew find while untangling these knotted threads tie them back together in remarkable ways none of them ever would have imagined.

Now That I Know You is Book 5 in the Tree of Life series, exploring and celebrating unforgettable family stories in Canyon Mines, the mountain town that invites you back again and again.

Go here to learn more about this book and the entire series.

The post New Book! Now That I Know You appeared first on Olivia Newport.

The first sunflower of the season greets visitors in my driveway.

I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, it seemed like we waited an unfair length of time this year to truly get past that last blast of winter. Some of my flowers paid the price. We had the promises of spring, the onslaught of more winter, rinse and repeat for several cycles. Some, like the larkspur that always start creeping out of the earth with the first warm day in February, just carried on as if spring actually happened while others stalled. My poor irises. We just won’t talk about them and will hope for better things next year.

But I am READY! Hammocks hung, Adirondack chairs out. A second umbrella added this year. The Virginia creeper and day lilies are taking over the back patio in that wonderful way they do. The first sunflower bloom in a most delightfully surprising location.

Naturally I haven’t had as much time to laze around the patio as I dream of, and sometimes the rain means a wet hammock is a little less welcoming than desirable. But it’s there, and I get out there a bit each day. I’ve been digging out my overabundance of plants to share with a friend who would love to have more than mud and weeds in her yard. And that makes me happy.

The other fun piece in my life is trying to apply myself to learning some proper Portuguese, my father’s language. We kids learned some corrupted bits here and there that allowed us to respond to parental requests to close the door or pass the bread. And we were really good at telling each other to shut up in Portuguese. But one of my wonderful cousins in Rio de Janeiro, who is a language teacher, has taken pity on the American cousins and organized a class by Zoom. And she gives homework!

I’ve written a few other times about having chronic migraine disease, which first strangled me five years ago. Honestly, this is the first summer since then that I’ve felt remotely like myself and able to enjoy the season that I look forward to so much, rather than crawling away from its brightness, exhausted, behind closed curtains.

As I write, the Pacific Northwest is enduring hideous heat. The headlines are full of suffering. A friend just lost his wife after a few months of illness. My husband lost a friend unexpectedly. The past year and a half has brought so much loss in so many ways to so many people, and we’ll all be feeling it for a long time.

Wherever you are, whether reveling in summer or cursing the heat, whether celebrating joys or cradling sorrow, may you know that you are not alone, that others are companions on the way with you. And may we bear one another up.

The post I Love Summer appeared first on Olivia Newport.

Photo by Lorri Nussbaum

Lately in the mornings, when I come downstairs and push open the living room curtains to greet the day, I realize an instant too late that chickadees or sparrows or wrens or even an occasional grosbeak were breakfasting at the feeder outside the picture window, and my rushed movement scatters them.

Nuts. I would have stilled myself to watch them. So I learn to peak through the weave of the fabric, looking for visitors, before my morning efficiency chases them off.

Yesterday I walked through to the dining room, where I had finished an ambitious project but not quite put it all away. The severity of the thud against the patio door jolted me, and I honestly expected a rock. What I saw was a mass of feathers and escaping ascending doves. Bits of gray stuck to the glass, and I approached.

And there it was. While the other birds flew off, a robin had dropped to the patio stone twelve inches from my door, on its back, feet up.

As much as I crave close-up encounters with birds, this is not what I have in mind. I want birds to come close, but not this close, and not this fast, not with this consequence. Stunned? Injured? Dead?

When I’m out walking and come across a deceased bird in the street, usually already dirt-covered and shriveling, I feel a pang of “poor thing” and a moment of wondering what happened, but I don’t feel the responsibility to give it a proper burial. This was different. I didn’t really know what to do.

The interwebs told me it could take two or three hours for a stunned bird to recover. The interwebs also said hypothermia was dangerous, and we’d just had snow the night before and the temperature was barely above freezing.

My sister was texting me about the delight of her daughter having chosen her wedding dress. My husband told me what time the Cubs game was going to start. I got an alert from the grocery store about the status of my delivery. Life was going on while I was watching this bird and Googling.

Then the robin moved. While I had been looking at my phone, it had turned over and was no longer on it back in the death pose. A good sign, surely! The head lifted a few times. The wings twitched. More good signs. A few minutes later, while I was on the phone with a birdwatching friend, it rotated 90 degrees. I held off on finding gloves and a box to shelter it. Then it laid its head down in an odd position and stopped breathing.

Eventually I did find gloves, a small shovel, and a couple of bags. I certainly had the closest look at a robin I’ve ever had. I also saw that at least one leg was so mangled it would have been beyond my care, and something was wrong with the neck. I don’t think the poor thing ever had a chance.

Robins in my yard, both front and back, has been a new thing this year. I saw a few more later in the day. Were they looking for their friend? While I am no expert birdwatcher, seeing birds at my feeders or darting around the yard, and hearing them chirping and singing when I’m outdoors, buoys my spirit.

Birds hit windows all the time. I know that. They die in yards and streets all the time. I know that too. Yet my rollercoaster of feelings, from being startled by the sound of this one crashing against my glass, to the anxiety about whether this would be the time the bird recovered, to the sadness of gently scooping it up on a shovel and sliding it into a bag while also in wonderment at its creation, dazed me.

I also couldn’t help thinking about how we ride the same rollercoaster in our relationships with people. Come close—but not that close, and not that fast.

We seek connection because we are created for connection. Yet when the connections get complicated or distraught, we find ourselves up close with the hard stuff in startling ways we don’t feel prepared for. We may “glove up” in case there is something oozing that we shouldn’t touch—protecting ourselves from the woundedness the world bears. In the end, we may do what we know we need to do and carry on, but we also harbor pains, both small and large, of knowing that something that was meant to be beautiful is no more.

I can’t control the God-given instinct of birds to skitter off if I approach a window too quickly. Yet having witnessed this one beautiful robin’s demise, now as I still myself to watch the birds and listen to their calls, I hope I will also remind myself to still enough to watch and listen to the humans in my life, no matter how close and fast and terrible their stories.

The post Come Close. But Not That Close. appeared first on Olivia Newport.

I wish I had a better picture. But it’s been blooming for quite some time and it’s about to be finished for this time around, so it looks bedraggled. (True confession: I am also not a very good waterer.)

Because this plant lives on the path between my kitchen and my office, I walk past it more times a day than I count. Coming and going, two dozen at least. But in all the months the lily has been blooming, it has faithfully encouraged me, because this is the view from another angle.

This year, the plant has been determined to grow toward the light that come through the big dining room window in a way I have never seen before in all the years I’ve had this plant. That long single stem that marks a peace lily, yearning for what gives it life and peeks around the corner into my office in a way that made me notice it every time. I would have hated to accidentally knock off the bloom.

The bloom will finish soon, having given me its service, and I will await next year.

But in this moment, with the peace flower past its peak and looking bedraggled, I find myself thinking of that juxtaposition: bedraggled peace.

Sometimes I strive to get everything in order and then I will have peace. Peace at the end of the day. Peace at the end of the week. Peace at the end of the to-do list, the empty inbox, the accomplished calendar. I’m sure I’m not alone.

And of course something else always goes on the list. At my house in the last few days, we barely got the light fixture in the laundry room changed so we weren’t doing loads in the dark before the kitchen faucet was leaking all over the place. And there is also the cracked pipe in the shower drain from the minus 15-degree night a few weeks ago that still needs a final repair.

Getting the repairs under control and doctor’s appointments done and work meetings checked off and writing days scheduled won’t add up to peace. Those things are bedraggling, certainly. But I am far more likely to find peace by faithfully stretching and growing toward the light that gives life even in the midst of bedraggling.

Whatever your bedraggled season is right now, may you grow toward the light and bloom in peace.

Grace and peace to you, my friends. 

The post Our Bedraggled Peace appeared first on Olivia Newport.

I received this cheery holiday card and liked it so much it’s still in my office reminding me to greet 2021 with a positive attitude, whatever it brings.

In these last few weeks, while we’ve transitioned from 2020 to 2021 but the pandemic wears on and it’s harder than most years to set certain kinds of goals, I’ve found myself reflecting on the surprising ways I grew during 2020 that I might not have if the pandemic hadn’t happened.

Don’t get me wrong. I miss the things that stopped. Going to the gym and the community I had there (and the gym is permanently closed now). Church with choir and rich worship. My 16-year-old book club where Zooming is just not the same as hugs, food, and lively book chatter in a living room. Coffee and lunch dates with friends to break up my longstanding work-from-home life.

But the pandemic brought opportunities to say “Yes.”

When my church organized shepherding groups to meet by Zoom to make sure members of the congregation stayed connected by Zoom, it sounded great to me. When they asked if I’d lead one, I blinked a couple of times but said yes. Because our pastor has had an ongoing very serious illness for most of the year, they needed someone to step in a teach a fall midweek adult class that he normally teaches, by Zoom. A class on spiritual resilience quickly sprang up in my mind. More recently, the leader of the Sunday adult class deviated from the regular format to an exploration of Christian community and recruited my help. I jumped in with some ideas to discuss.

Yes, yes, yes. And there were other opportunities.

Yes to making lots and lots of well-constructed masks for family and friends. Lots.

Yes to helping to pilot a virtual cooking class.

Yes to adapting to exercise classes by Zoom.

Yes to sending texts and notes to people I can’t see in person.

Yes to cultivating an attitude of gratefulness.

Yes to being determined to be generous.

Even as this year brings hope that we see our way out of the pandemic tunnel, I hope that along with me you can look back and see the ways you’ve said “Yes” to opportunities you didn’t expect. And you don’t have to achieve perfection or sustain every triumph without setback.

Just start with tomorrow.

The post Start with Tomorrow appeared first on Olivia Newport.

Image by silviarita from Pixabay

For years I’ve arranged my schedule to take a break between Christmas and New Year’s. It started when my kids were young and I tried to coordinate time off from my job in an office with their school breaks. Later I ran a full-time free lance business for a few years and I still shut down. The kids were older and didn’t require looking after, but the downtime was nice. Now my kids are adults and I’m employed again but working from home, in addition to writing books, so I really need the break!

I almost always over-schedule. It turns out I’m not that great at breaks!

This year I kept my expectations reasonable. I did some writing, but I didn’t go crazy. I did some sorting and decluttering, but only in my office. I took some Zoom exercise classes and some neighborhood walks with my son. I did not set my alarm and was surprised by how much I craved sleep. Our Christmas gathering was just the three of us in this household, so we treated ourselves to a curbside meal from a favorite restaurant. Thanks to Lutheran Public Radio, we had a steady stream of sacred choral Christmas music going.

And in my church’s recorded service, I got to hear my favorite Bible passage, which comes around every Christmas Day and every Second Sunday of Christmas: John 1:1–14, ending with these wondrous words:

And the Word became flesh

and lived among us,

and we have seen his glory,

the glory as of a father’s only son,

full of grace and truth.

As we finished out 2020 and begin 2021, these words are words or promise. There is no question that 2020 was a rough year, and 2021 is not “miraculously” better, but we see some light through the tunnel. Whether in darkness or light, the Word who entered our human existence still reveals God’s glory to us. Perhaps this yearly transition is an especially good time to remember that we are not alone. We are not abandoned. We are not in darkness. The incarnation of Jesus lights our way with the glory of God. Grace and truth fill our lives.

Let’s live in the light even as some of the hard stuff of 2020 follows us into 2021. Grace and peace to you.

The post A Breather in Between appeared first on Olivia Newport.

Along the way in the last four years, I’ve met some amazing people with chronic pain or illness stories of their own, and I’ve been so grateful for the honesty with which they enter their own stories and open themselves up to what there is to learn from the experience of a body that has stopped working, perhaps abruptly, in ways that interfere with daily life and perhaps without expectation that it’s ever really going to be the same again.

(That certainly has been my reality. At the moment, my disease is much better managed than it was even a year ago, but it’s still a presence in my life.)

When people can speak transparently about chronic pain or chronic illness in ways that demonstrate they are nevertheless pursuing wholeness of life, they also bring a message of hope and encouragement.

Others who may be struggling with their own relationship with pain or illness need to hear that word of hope and encouragement.

One of the people I met a couple years ago is writer Liuan Huska, who has a new book, Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness.  It’s coming out in a few weeks from InterVarsity Press, and I’ve had the privilege of reading an early copy. Since this is a topic that intersects with my own journey that I’ve written about here, I wanted to recommend it to any of you who may be living with chronic pain or illness—or who may have a friend or family member who is. Liuan takes on the topic by telling her own story and weaving in substantive faith reflections and stories from others with personal experience. Multiple thought-provoking angles make for worthwhile reading, and her writing style is smooth and careful and well-connected.

Grace and peace.

The post A Story of Pain and Hope appeared first on Olivia Newport.

Book 4 in the Tree of Life series has released!

When 15-year-old Tisha Crowder gets caught shoplifting, attorney Nolan Duffy tries to protect her from consequences that could rattle her already troubled life. His daughter, Jillian, feels like she’s the one being punished instead—by having Tisha assigned to work with her on a backlog of genealogy files. Tisha doesn’t seem interested in taking the job seriously, and Jillian’s patience wears thin. Besides, everyone in Canyon Mines knows the Crowder family has experienced generations of brokenness. Then a sliver of hope turns up in long-ago words in plain sight, challenging shrouded assumptions about Tisha’s family. Now Jillian is the one who can walk with Tisha back to 1893 and uncover where everything went wrong in the first place—and save her from the past.

Here’s what people are saying:

“As her Tree of Life series continues, Oliva Newport once again delivers complex characters and cross-generational storylines that show us how words can wound … and yet can also heal. In What You Said to Me, Newport examines the depth of human frailties at any age, reminding us that truth has a way of coming to the surface and that what we choose to do with it will make all the difference. Add the fascinating historical threads of the nineteenth century collapse of the US silver market, and readers will enjoy this well-crafted story.”

—Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials

“So few of us truly know our ancestors—their dreams, their challenges, their disappointments, their secrets. In fact, we often don’t know those important things about the living because we are experts at hiding, deflecting, and stoically carrying on. In What You Said to Me, Olivia Newport unfolds the story of a family nearly lost to the ravages of time and forgetfulness. The result is a tender tale of a troubled girl discovering her unique past and finding hope for a better future. Perfect for fans of historical fiction, genealogy buffs, and anyone who wishes they knew who the people in all those old family photos were.”

—Erin Bartels, award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things

“Olivia Newport’s storytelling is smart, smooth, and sassy in What You Said to Me. A cast of endearing characters, a small-town setting, and perfectly woven contemporary and historical threads make for a fast-paced read that ties time and family together. Thank you, Olivia! I couldn’t put What You Said to Me down!”

—Leslie Gould, Christy-award winning and #1 best-selling author

If you want to know more about where you can find the books in the Tree of Life series, go here. In the meantime, please celebrate with me that this fourth book is out in the world!

The post Book Birthday! appeared first on Olivia Newport.

Welcome to the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be sure to start at Stop #1, and collect the clues through all the stops, in order, so you can enter to win one of our top 5 grand prizes!

• The hunt BEGINS on 10/15 at noon MST with Stop #1 at Lisa Tawn Bergren’s site.

• Hunt through our loop using Chrome or Firefox as your browser (not Explorer).

• There is NO RUSH to complete the hunt—you have all weekend (until Sunday, 10/18 at midnight MST)! So take your time, reading the unique posts along the way; our hope is that you discover new authors/new books and learn new things about them.

• Submit your entry for the grand prizes by collecting the CLUE on each author’s scavenger hunt post and submitting your answer in the Rafflecopter form at the final stop, back on Lisa’s site. Many authors are offering additional prizes along the way!

If you haven’t dropped by here before, I’m Olivia. My Tree of Life series includes The Inn at Hidden Run, In The Cradle Lies, When I Meet You, and What You Said to Me, releasing November 1. I’ve also written  other contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and Amish fiction. You can find out about all of that by visiting here.  You can also look for me on Facebook.

Here’s what my latest book is about: When 15-year-old Tisha Crowder gets caught shoplifting, attorney Nolan Duffy tries to protect her from consequences that could rattle her already troubled life. His daughter, Jillian, feels like she’s the one being punished instead—by having Tisha assigned to work with her on a backlog of genealogy files. Tisha doesn’t seem interested in taking the job seriously, and Jillian’s patience wears thin. Besides, everyone in Canyon Mines knows the Crowder family has experienced generations of brokenness. Then a sliver of hope turns up in long-ago words in plain sight, challenging shrouded assumptions about Tisha’s family. Now Jillian is the one who can walk with Tisha back to 1893 and uncover where everything went wrong in the first place—and save her from the past.

After writing about the same town for four books, I get some questions about what that’s like. The editor I worked with on four books in my time-slip Tree of Life series visited my city for a conference, and I had the pleasure of hosting her in my home overnight and running around for a day. Good memories!

One of her questions for me was about my process for developing a fictitious town and keeping track of where everything was over the course of a series. I ducked into my office, returned with a roll of wide paper, pushed off the rubber bands, and unfurled my map-in-progress. Without it, I’d be lost in Canyon Mines.

When I started the series, I knew I needed a cozy town, located a reasonable commuting distance from Denver, that encompassed the highlights of what Colorado is most known for—mountains, mining history, skiing, small-town charm, incredible scenery, and tourist traffic. While I did have a historic town in mind that fit the general bill for inspiration, I needed street names, shop names, geographic features, town history, annual traditions—all the things that make a town charming and memorable.

In this fourth book in the series, What You Said to Me, the historical mystery genealogist Jillian Parisi-Duffy must untangle dates back to the early years of Canyon Mines and the mining economy that was the backbone of Colorado’s history. Whenever I drive through the “real life” area where my fictional town is set, Canyon Mines will always feel true to me, and I’ll be looking for the streets and shops I know so well.

Here’s the Stop #14 Basics:

If you’re interested, you can order What You Said to Me on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com or at your local bookstore!

Clue to Write Down: scavenger

Stop #15, the Next Stop on the Loop: Pepper Basham’s site!

The post Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt Stop #14 appeared first on Olivia Newport.

You’ve probably heard variations on that question these last few months! I know I have. Whether you’re still hunkering down at home most of the time or have gone back to work, whether you’re ordering groceries or venturing forth into stores, whether you’re sending your kids back to school, getting ready for online learning, or preparing for homeschooling—let’s face it, things are looking different than a few months ago and will be for a while.

I had a great discussion—by Zoom—last week with a group of women from church. Many of us haven’t seen each other since early March. One had the blessing of a long awaited adoption right at the beginning of the pandemic. Another’s husband came through a harrowing health crisis. A third is a nurse and sees all the precautions the hospital is taking to keep staff and patients safe. Two have husbands in the military whose scheduled deployments have shifted. A couple are teachers facing returns to the classroom.

Nothing feels normal, but it was a rich time of sharing about healthy coping and resilience through change.

We talked about ordinary things we miss. Our congregational life. Going to the gym. Getting massages. Eating popcorn at the movies. Kids safely burning off energy with sports. Recreational shopping.

Nothing feels normal, but it was a rich time of acknowledging loss and discovering strengths and gifts that have come to us in this odd time.

I hope you are having these conversations with people in your life. I hope you have people who sustain you and fill your heart. I hope you are finding ways to connect with people who offer you renewal in weary days.

I need that. We all do.

I’m grateful that we’re created for connection. I’m grateful that God reaches out to connect with us no matter what the circumstances of our lives. And I pray you find the connection you need in this moment in your life.

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