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Today, we have author Shawna K. Williams featured on the blog’s ‘Indie Saturday‘ for her book “Orphaned Hearts” – an inspirational and heartwarming story set during the Great Depression (Available on Amazon). Sadie, David and Caleb’s story will steal your hearts!

Shawna K. Williams writes :

Here’s a book description of “Orphaned Hearts“:

I never intended to be a writer, but life took a funny turn shortly after my 32nd birthday while visiting my parents for the Thanksgiving holidays. It began with a vivid dream. I woke up on the sleeper sofa in my parents’ den feeling like I’d just experienced key moments in someone else’s life.

I was so intrigued by this dream that I spent the next six months pondering on it and trying to fill in details. It eventually became too big to keep straight in my head so I had to start writing. At first, my writing was just to satisfy my own curiosity, but as the story unfolded, I discovered that I’d not only fallen in love with the characters and their journey within the pages, but with writing itself.

That dream served as the inspiration for my debut novel, No Other, and its sequel, In All Things. I’ve now have four novels published and a fifth under contract. The sequel to Orphaned Hearts, A Hand to Hold, releases in December 2012.

Orphaned Hearts is a story that is dear to my heart. It isn’t my grandparents’ story, but it was written because of them. My grandfather grew up in the same orphanage the one in this story is based upon. My great-grandfather was hired to work the orphanage’s dairy during The Great Depression. He brought his young family with him to Arkansas, and they lived in the accommodations provided for them on the orphanage grounds. That is how my grandparents met.

My grandparents served as foster parents for many years, and I firmly believe the seeds for this were planted because of their childhood experiences. At my granddad’s funeral, I sat in the pew marveling at the fullness of his life, but also thinking how unfair it was for him to have been orphaned as a young boy. Then I remembered a story my grandmother told me about one of the many children who came to live with them through Child Welfare.

She was a young girl, about fifteen or sixteen years of age, pregnant, and she’d been cast from her home. The social worker told my grandmother she would be a problem, but that turned out not to be the case at all. She was sweet, appreciative, and longing. For a few short months she got to experience a home — a real, loving home. When she gave birth, she decided that sort of home was what she wanted for her child, and chose to give her baby up for adoption to a family in the area. The girl left my grandparents’ house not long after and my grandparents moved away later that year. Life went on.

Many years later my grandmother ran into an old friend who went to church with the family who had adopted that baby. She learned that the little girl had grown into a lovely young Christian woman; compassionate and kind-hearted. She was attending a university and had a bright future ahead. I can’t help but wonder, had my granddad not been an orphan, had that empathy for hurting children not been embedded deep within my grandparents’ hearts, what would have happened to that young woman and her baby, and so many others they took into their home? How many lives did they affect because of their experience?

While the story above is not the one you will read in Orphaned Hearts, I was able to incorporate many of the memories my grandmother shared with me from her and my grandfather’s days at the orphanage. Sadly, most were not good, but from them came a heart of compassion. I tried to bring this same spirit into the pages of the Sadie, David and Caleb’s story. It’s my pleasure to share it with you.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27 NIV

Shawna K. Williams is an inspirational novelist who loves telling a story through flawed characters – the only kind she can relate to. She also likes a good dose of nostalgia, which is why many of her stories are set in rural America during the first half of the 20th Century. However, being a fan of other genres, including Science Fiction and Suspense, she has a few surprises planned for future works.

When not writing, Shawna spends time with her husband and three children enjoying life on their ranch. She’s also an avid reader, book reviewer, blogger and jewelry designer.

Orphaned Hearts by Shawna K. Williams (Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc.) is available at Amazon in Kindle format. The eBook is also available at Barnes & Noble and Christian Book. Check out her Amazon author’s page for a listing off all her books!

To learn more about Shawna K. Williams, follow Shawna on her website: Shawna K. Williams, Twitter: @shawnakwilliams, Facebook: Shawna-K-Williams. Shawna also blogs at shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com. Drop by and say hi!

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Do you want to be a featured ‘Indie Saturday’ author too? Go here for more info!

Read an embedded sample of “Orphaned Hearts” after the jump!

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