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Kathy Herman— Suspense Winner Plaque	Fiction Day at LifeWay
I was surprised and humbled to be the 2008 recipient of the St. Matthew Suspense Contest. St. Matthew's United Methodist Church in Midwest City, Oklahoma sponsors the contest every year, and Ever Present Danger was this year's favorite of their library judges. What an honor!	The LifeWay chain held a nationwide Fiction Day, and I had the pleasure of signing the Phantom Hollow Series at the Longview and Tyler, Texas stores that day. Here I am in the company of two special friends, Wanda Hobbs (left), and Virginia Rainwater

New Series in the Making

I chose East Tennessee (in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains) as the setting for my new series, the Sophie Trace Trilogy. For me, the most enjoyable aspect of starting a new series is picturing the setting. Once I've decided on the location, I visit the area and try to envision where I want to place my fictitious town. My husband Paul and I drove through numerous towns in East Tennessee, and I put together a mental picture with a little of this and a little of that. And then we found a beautiful valley, which seemed the perfect setting in which to place my fictitious town of Sophie Trace! Here's a composite that’ll give you a glimpse of how I picture the area:

The first book is titled, The Real Enemy, and the plot will challenge even the sharpest of sleuths. It is based on Romans 12:21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

The main character in the series is Brill Jessup, the first lady police chief in Sophie Trace, Tennessee. Brill (short for brilliant) is a nickname she picked up during her eighteen years on the Memphis police force. Brill may be a pro at solving cases, but she has a lot to learn about what it means to "Let go and let God." On the outside she's got things under control. But when she goes home and kicks off her shoes, her insecurities kick in. Her husband Kurt knows her better than anyone…and if she'd open her eyes, she’d see that he’s becoming a polished version of the man she married. But Brill’s not about to let him hurt her again—not ever. Kurt knows that. He blew it. But he also believes that every sin is redeemable, and good can come from even the stupidest mistake he ever made…if he turns it over to God.

Town History and Origin of the name (fictional): This is background only and does not give away the story: The town of Sophie Trace was named after seven-year-old, Sophie Stanton, who immigrated to Tennessee from England in 1837 with her parents and several young families. Shortly after they arrived, Sophie went missing and was found unharmed and living with the Cherokee Indians. She had wandered away from the camp and was found by the tribe, which was enthralled with her blond curls and bright blue eyes. And since seven-year-old Sophie came to the Cherokee on the seventh day of the seventh month and had seven buttons on each of her dress sleeves, and white men came looking for her seven days later, the Indians accepted her sudden appearance as a sign from the Great Spirit that the white man and the red man would coexist in peace.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Gold was discovered. And though the Stantons and those who had immigrated with them befriended the Cherokee, the very next year the U.S. Army began to finally enforce The Indian Removal Act of 1830, after which the Cherokee in this region reportedly disappeared into the Great Smoky Mountains.

The Stantons and other immigrants set up homesteads and eventually a town sprung up, which they named Sophie Trace, because it was built along the backwoods trail the searchers had followed to find the little girl.

Legend: (fiction): To this day, superstition abounds among the folks who live in this area that the angry spirits of the Cherokee, or "red shadows," still roam the countryside, seeking to drive off the descendents of those who settled their land. A number of unsolved crimes throughout the years have been blamed on the red shadows.

Watch for the first Sophie Trace release in March of 2009.