“What doesn’t kill you….

The disaster fascinated me.

Actually, it wasn’t San Francisco 1906 earthquake and fires themselves, but the aftermath. The challenge of rebuilding a city from scratch. Things had been wiped out to the point you could stand on a street corner and not be able to tell which corner it was (by the way, if you ever wondered why the street names are embedded in the San Francisco sidewalks, that’s why). How does one rebuild a life on such a monumental scale? Over months? Surrounded by thousands of other people in the same catastrophic situation?

In the children’s hospital where I spend way too much of my time, there is a sign that reads: “You don’t know how strong you can be until strong is the only choice you have.” I believe this. I’ve lived it, granted on a slightly smaller scale than the all-out destruction of a city, but nothing shows you who you really are like a major disaster. You learn things about yourself you can’t learn any other way. Hard things. Valuable things.

Nora Longstreet doesn’t realize her own inner strength until the earthquake asks more of her than she thinks she can give. Still, God works best in those kinds of desperate places. Nora learns the difference between genuine compassion and polite charity. She learns to see people in ways she’s never seen before. She learns that lines we “think” exist in the world often don’t–and that deeper lines show up in places we didn’t expect. She learns to love in the deepest, most Christ-like sense of the word.

Tragedy has a way of strengthening our ability to love. I love the image of the potter from the Bible; the pot is formed from dual pressure on both the inside and the outside of the pot. As uncomfortable as that tension feels, it is the necessary process of growth. You can’t make a pot without it. Talk to the strongest woman you know, and I guarantee you she will tell you stories of incredible strife and challenge.

Maybe that’s what fascinated me most about the 1906 San Francisco disaster. The aftermath of the soul, not the rubble of the city. I made Nora the kind of woman who would look back on her disaster as a turning point in her life, essential to the woman she became.

MISSION OF HOPE

by Allie Pleiter

Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historical

August 2010

ISBN#: 978-0-373-82842-5

BACK COVER COPY:

No one knows who he is or where he’s from. But witnesses throughout San Francisco report a masked man in black is bringing supplies–and badly needed hope–to homeless earthquake survivors. Some believe that the city’s gallant rescuer is a gentleman of wealth. But others whisper that he is a working class man with courage as great as his faith. And rumor has it that one of the city’s most spirited society belles is helping him against her family’s wishes. What can be confirmed is that the masked messenger will need more than a miracle to escape those on his trail–and win the woman risking everything to save him…

ONE SENTENCE BOOK DESCRIPTION:

The gallant sequel to Pleiter’s San Francisco historical, “Masked by Moonlight,” MISSION OF HOPE follows an unlikely hero and his surprising young love as the pair help the city heal from it’s massive 1906 earthquake.

EXCERPT:

She looked right into his eyes, and Quinn felt his stomach drop out through what was left of the soles of his shoes. “You’ll probably think it’s silly, but you’ve been such an encouragement to me. Here I was thinking God had left me alone, and you do all those things—those little but very big things—that let me know He’s still minding my path. You’re an answer to my prayers, Quinn Freeman. How does that make you feel?”

He knew the exact moment his heart left his body. The exact instant it disobeyed all the good and solid reasons he had for not pining over Nora Longstreet and left to follow her of its own accord. He stared at her, knowing his affections had just overstepped all kinds of bounds and not caring. He no longer had any choice in the matter. “I’m thinking it might not be wise to answer that, Miss Longstreet.”

AUTHOR BIO:

An avid knitter, coffee junkie, and devoted chocoholic, Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and non-fiction. The enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, Allie spends her days writing books, buying yarn, and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie hails from Connecticut, moved to the midwest to attend Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois. The “dare from a friend” to begin writing has produced two parenting books, twelve novels, and various national speaking engagements on faith, women’s issues, and writing. Visit her website at www.alliepleiter.com or her knitting blog at www.DestiKNITions.blogspot.com