Author, Center Stage: Kelly Irvin, Mountains of Grace

Kelly Irvin is back! This time she has given us a delightful romance set in an Amish community in Big Sky Country. And she's offering a print copy to one of the readers who comment below.

Let’s start with a description of Mountains of Grace. 
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Mercy is content with her life as an Amish schoolteacher. But when wildfires threaten her Montana home, everything she thought she knew turns upside down.

Mercy Yoder loves her students and her life in the tiny village of West Kootenai, nestled at the foot of Montana’s most northern mountains. And she is in no rush to get married . . . much to the disappointment of her parents. In fact, she has turned down the one marriage proposal she’s received. Her beau Caleb can’t bring himself to tell her he loves her, stoking her fears that they simply aren’t right for each other.

When a devastating wildfire threatens to destroy her beloved community, Mercy and her family evacuate to the nearby town of Eureka. There she meets Spencer McDonald, an Englisch smoke jumper. Her conversations with him are unlike any she’s ever had with a man. She finds his directness and ability to express his feelings refreshing and completely different from Caleb, who is tightlipped about his past.

But what would her family and community say if Mercy chose a relationship with an Englischer? Is Mercy willing to give up all she has known and loved for someone who finally understands her? Or can Mercy find the love she has always longed for closer to home?
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What was the inspiration for this story/what led you to write it?
I regularly read The Budget Newspaper, which is field with reports from Amish “scribes” from Amish communities across the nation. In 2017 a scribe from West Kootenai, Montana, reported on the impact of the wildfires on this tiny community near the U.S.-Canada border. I started researching the fires and found a Youtube video interview with an Amish man whose family lost their home. Another video featured an English homeowner who was rebuilding with the help of the community, including the Amish families. I found it so interesting and heartwarming who the community came together to rebuild regardless of their differences. I wanted to share these stories—albeit fictionally—with readers.

What draws you to continue your stories of the Amish?
A lot of it has to do with the readers. They are thirsty for clean, sweet romances. I have fun writing them. For the Amish of Big Sky Country my husband and I spent a week driving around Northwest Montana visiting Amish communities and doing research. I was able to talk to an Amish family from Indiana visiting a cousin in the Libby community. I found their perspectives fascinating. I never thought I would write Amish romances, but I’m glad I do.

Books about the Amish and their lifestyle choices continue to be extremely popular with readers, but not all of them accurately portray the culture. What one assumption about the Amish communities would you like to disprove?
Readers will react to something in a book they’ve read, saying the Amish don’t do that. You can’t generalize because there is no central church making the rules. Each district votes on its on set of rules called the Ordnung. Those rules can change by vote of the membership. For example, they can decide to have phones in their businesses or ride bicycles with rubber tires or change the style of prayer covering or kapp the women wear. There’s a community in Kansas that uses tractors and often rides them into town as transportation. I read recently about a community in Ohio that allows electricity in the homes. The third book in the Amish of Sky Country, entitled Peace in the Valley, features the Eagle Valley Amish Community, which is charismatic and evangelical. They dance and sing to instruments during their service, which is conducted in a church building. They have bible study, drive cars, and wear regular clothes, yet consider themselves Amish.

In what way does your faith encourage your writing?
I feel as if God gave me a talent for writing and expects me to use it for his glory. It took me a long time to recognize this. Everyone has a job to do in the mission field and mine is writing stories that make readers think about what they believe and why. It certainly makes me examine my own beliefs. The next two books in the Amish of Sky Country particularly ask questions about what Christians believe and how important is the way we worship. Do the rituals matter to God?

If Mercy were your best friend in real life, what advice about relationships would you want to share with her? How would you advise her regarding her growing affection for Spencer?
To go slowly. To examine her feelings carefully.Why would Mountains of Grace make the perfect pleasure read for late summer or early fall?The story begins Labor Day weekend in beautiful Montana. It’s not the typical Amish romance in the sense that readers will see the events through the prospective of five characters, including an English sheriff’s deputy, a smoke jumper, a young English woman trying to come to gripes with a traumatic experience in her past, an Amish carpenter, and Mercy, an Amish schoolteacher. It’s a story of community and how they come together in the face of natural disaster. Readers can enjoy not one but three romances.

What’s your next book?
I have a novella, Kisses and Cakes, that is included in the novella collection, An Amish Christmas Bakery, that debuts October 1, followed by the second book in the Montana series, The Long Bridge Home, which releases February 11, 2020.

Where can readers find you online?
www.kellyirvin.com
https://www.facebook.com/Kelly.Irvin.Author/
@Kelly_S_Irvin

Where can readers find Mountains of Grace?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310356695

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KDZX4ZC

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mountains-of-grace-kelly-irvin/1129853440

https://www.christianbook.com/mountains-of-grace-kelly-irvin/9780310356691/pd/356691

https://www.booksamillion.com/search?id=7612317829956&query=Mountains+of+Grace&filter=

Best-selling author Kelly Irvin is the author of Mountains of Grace, the first book in the Amish of Sky Country series. Her other works include the Every Amish Season series from Zondervan/ HarperCollins, including Upon a Spring Breeze, winner of the Readers’ Choice Award in the long romance category. The series follows the Amish of Bee County Series, which included The Beekeeper’s Son, subject of a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, calling it “an intricately woven masterpiece.” Among her other works are novellas in five collections. She is also the author of the Bliss Creek Amish series and the New Hope Amish series, both from Harvest House Publishing. She has also penned four romantic suspense novels, Over the Line, Tell Her No Lies, A Deadly Wilderness, and No Child of Mine.

Kelly’s novels, The Beekeeper’s Son and Love Redeemed, were finalists in the contemporary romance category of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) national Carol Awards Contest.