WELCOME TO THE CHRISTMAS FICTION SCAVENGER HUNT
If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be sure to collect the clues through all the stops, in order (beginning here at Stop #1), so you can enter to win our grand prize!
The hunt begins on Friday, 12/8 right here on this page!
There is NO RUSH to complete the hunt–you have all weekend. So take your time, reading the unique posts along the way; we hope that you discover new authors/new books and learn new things about them. The hunt ends on Monday, 12/11 at midnight EST. I’m stop 7 along the way. My clue is “peace and goodwill.”
Submit your entry for the grand prizes by collecting the CLUE on each author’s scavenger hunt post and submitting your answer in the Rafflecopter form at the final stop. Many authors are offering additional prizes along the way!
I’m Rebecca Price Janney, historian and multi-award-winning author of American-history-inspired non-fiction and fiction, including Easton at Christmastide, book five in my Easton Series with Elk Lake Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/Easton-Christmastide-Rebecca-Price-Janney/dp/1649494114/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MHG9O0C03MU0&keywords=Easton+at+Christmastide+Janney&qid=1701792787&s=books&sprefix=easton+at+christmastide+janney%2Cstripbooks%2C94&sr=1-1
I’m also a history geek. When I saw a man wearing a tee shirt saying, “I’d find you more interesting if you were dead,” I knew he was a kindred spirit. I majored in history in college and ended up with a doctorate focusing on the role of women in the American Protestant Church and society through the centuries. If you asked me about any major date in our history, I would tell you what it was before you finished your question. And yet—I didn’t know my family’s history.
I often asked my grandmother, “Where are we from?” My dad’s family were recent Italian immigrants, but all Grammy would say was, “We’re from Easton.” (As in Pennsylvania.) “I know your parents were from Easton, but what about their parents? Aren’t we some kind of Pennsylvania Dutch?” Poor Grammy. She didn’t even know her own grandmother’s name!
In 2011, as a present for my mom’s birthday, I decided to research our family history. What I discovered staggered me, making all the pieces of my life, especially my love of American history, come together. It turns out Grammy was right. We were from Easton. Way back.
I am the ninth generation of my family to live here; my ancestors helped establish the village when the Penn family carved it out of Bucks County in 1752. One ancestor
particularly stood out, Colonel Peter Kichline, one of Easton’s earliest settlers and most famous sons. Born in Germany in 1722, he emigrated with his two brothers, mother, and stepfather twenty years later and settled west of Easton. His life and times inspired me to write a series of (award-winning) novels in which he and his fictional twenty-first-century descendant, Erin Miles, share parallel experiences, over two hundred years apart.
In the first three books, I trace their lives as newly widowed people trying to find their way, Peter as Sheriff of Northampton County, and Erin as a history professor who’s not only lost her beloved husband, but her job. As she discovers Peter and realizes how much they share in common, she draws on his example, especially his strong faith.
In the fourth book, Easton at Christmastide, the village and its hero Colonel Kichline have reason to rejoice—the Revolutionary War is finally over! Against all possible odds, General Washington’s troops have prevailed against the world’s most powerful military. Peter believes the time has come to win the peace, not a simple matter when many Eastonians are clinging to bitterness and resentment over their battle scars. When a former villager, married to a missing British officer, wants to come home, the townspeople don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat.
Meanwhile, Erin is newly married and has recently moved back to Easton, relishing her new life and looking forward to a Hallmark-worthy Christmas. Collaborating with a celebrated historian and author, she’s experiencing a life most people would envy. Life is just about perfect, but getting everyone else to cooperate with her plans is like herding cats. A brash businessman blindsides her, and she is worried about losing a dear friend over it. A sudden illness threatens her holiday plans, and certain family members have very different ideas about what a perfect Christmas looks like.
Peter and Erin discover the real blessing of Christmas isn’t a striking tree—but the Perfect Gift. Easton at Christmastide is a story of epic failure and amazing grace. I think your heart will be warmed by the characters and their lives, for such a time as this..
And now, for the next stop on this scavenger hunt, go to #8, Diana Wyland. Her website is https://www.donnawyland.com/blog-posts/the-best-gift-of-all-is-you, and your clue is “peace and goodwill.”
[…] #7 Rebecca Price Janey […]