Author Becky Wade

Inspiration for My Stubborn Heart

Several years ago, my sisters and I visited the quaint sister towns of New Hope, Pennsylvania and Lambertville, New Jersey. While there, the three of us stayed at a bed and breakfast called Chimney Hill Estate in a cozy second floor bedroom with dormer windows that overlooked the property. I love old houses, and the old house at Chimney Hill struck me as particularly wonderful.

My sisters and I had a lovely time together that weekend; shopping, eating out, driving through the wooded and rolling landscape bright with fall foliage.

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I was thoroughly charmed by the history, character, and tasteful beauty of the towns, the land, and our B&B. All of the above stayed alive in my memory, and later, inspired the setting of My Stubborn Heart.

It gives me more freedom as an author to set my books in fictional towns, so I changed Lambertville’s name to Redbud (a tree native to that part of the country that has a heart-shaped leaf). And I re-imagined the house where we’d stayed as Chapel Bluff — the beloved old home that had been passed down through Kate’s family for generations.