What The Valley Knows by Heather ChristiePublication date: January 25th, 2018
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
Millington Valley is a quintessential small Pennsylvania town: families go back generations. Football rules. Kids drink while adults look the other way. High school is a whirlwind of aspiration and rivalry, friendship and jealousy.
When smart and pretty Molly Hanover moves to town and attracts the attention of the football team’s hero, Wade Thornton — a nice guy with a bad drinking habit — longtime friendships are threatened and a popular cheerleader tries to turn the school against Molly.
The young couple’s future is shattered when Wade, drunk, wrecks his truck and Molly is thrown through the windshield. She wakes from a coma to find her beauty marred and her memory full of holes. As she struggles to heal, she becomes sure that something terrible happened before the accident. And there is somebody in the valley who doesn’t want her to remember.
~AUTHOR INTERVIEW with Heather Christie~
1) What gave you the
inspiration for the storyline?
The inspiration for WHAT THE
VALLEY KNOWS came to me in a single scene: An automobile accident on a wet,
rainy night and an injured girl (my main character Molly), who had been thrown
from the vehicle into the adjacent cornfield. I knew Molly was losing
consciousness and struggling to stay alert. She had a desperate secret she
needed to tell her boyfriend (Wade). I had this scene and nothing else (it
later became the prologue). On the first draft, I worked the story from this
point forward. The second draft forced me to build Molly’s life pre-accident.
On the third draft, I tied it all together.
2) Are there any hidden
themes in the book that you hope readers will discover?
My hope is that people will
understand the characters as they are and not how they want them to
be... especially Wade. He’s a seventeen year old jock who isn’t very
introspective, has a problem with alcohol, and like a lot of good athletes, he
posses a pretty big ego. He acts like a kid from a rural, football town. He’s
not always politically correct, but he falls in love with Molly and wants to
protect her. Despite the facial injuries Molly suffers, Wade sees beyond that
and loves her for who she is. He won’t give up in trying to get her back. So
one of the hidden themes is that love, at any age, can be deep and transcend
the physical.
3) Are any of the characters
based on real people you know?
In the book, there’s a mean
girl, Missy, who bullies Molly. I drew a lot of her character from a very
similar, nasty high school classmate.
4) Who has influenced you
most as a writer?
John Steinbeck, Stephen King,
Colum McCann, Karen Thompson Walker.
5) If you could have any
three literary characters over to your place for game night, who would you
invite, what would you play, what would you serve, and why?
Wow! This is a tough question!
There are so many fascinating characters. Maybe I’d create a Facebook event and
send it to the characters in my top twenty books: Literary Characters’ Potluck
Popover at Heather’s House. It’s
Scrabble Tournament. Pizza and wings served, but bring your best dish for us to
enjoy! It’d be fun to see who’d show and what they’d bring.
6) Do you feel that you can
ever have too many books?
No, but my husband might
disagree as my bedside table is piled high with at least ten books, the family
bookshelves are overflowing, and Amazon is always making a new delivery!
Author Bio:Heather Christie grew up in rural Pennsylvania and, at age seventeen, took off for New York City in hopes of becoming a movie star. Flash forward several decades, a couple degrees, a bunch of cats, two kids and one husband later, she's back in Pennsylvania writing her heart out and chasing dreams again. She loves to read, run, drink tea, and make Sunday dinner. Follow her blog at www.HeatherChristieBooks.com and say “hello” on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Thanks for being on the tour! :)
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