Sometimes, no matter how determined you are, no matter how strong, or how much you insist on controlling everything in your world – things happen without your permission. They happen around you. They happen in spite of you. They might even happen to you. At that point, the true test of character, is how you handle those things.

The Promise He Made Her came about when this conundrum presented itself to me. That question that was very clear in my mind was, what do you do? You’ve made a promise and circumstances beyond your control prevents you from keeping that promise. That alone is bad enough. You won’t be so easily trusted now. But what if that broken promise puts the life of an innocent woman at risk? How would you live with yourself?

I didn’t have the answers. (If I had, the book probably wouldn’t have been born because if I know the answers, I don’t see a story!) But I trusted Sam Larson to figure it out on the page. He took a while. Gave me some sleepless nights and stressful days. He was so determined, and yet…I didn’t completely trust him. His determination had blinded him once before to dangers beyond his control.

As I write this, it sounds kind of ludicrous. Or at the very least, tongue in cheek. It is not. This is my process. This is how my stories come to life. I don’t have a plot, or a structure. I don’t have maps or even ideas of how things are going to work out. I’ve never read a book on how to write. They’d probably convince me I don’t know how. I just trust the story to come. I trust the people to tell me their stories. And somehow…75 times in a row now…they always do.

I hope you give Sam a read. He’s worth it.

—TTQ