Help me welcome author Karin Beery as she shares the inspiration behind her latest release, Finally Forever.

Finally Forever: For Aunt Linda

Where do you get your inspiration?

Readers love to know what inspires their favorite novelists. The list of inspirations is endless—everything from their lives, their friends’ lives, the news, and their imaginations.

I’ve tapped into everything from local events and locations to bizarre snippets from my dreams. My favorite inspiration, though, is my family. As the middle of three daughters all born within 3.5 years, my sisters and I are close—we text daily, send too many reels to each other, and watch Michigan football together from three different states on a three-way phone call.

Finally Forever is my first book to include a trio of sisters, and it’s been wonderfully easy to imagine how Caroline, Carmen, and Christine would interact. As much fun as it was to write about the sisters, however, this book really is a tribute to one of our favorite people: Aunt Linda.

Our special-needs aunt spent most of her adult life living in a wonderful facility with a nurturing caregiver until she moved in with my husband and me more than a decade ago. Life outside of assisted living literally opened a whole new world up to Linda. One of her favorite aspects of life with family has been having her own television. For the first time in decades, she got to pick which shows to watch.

I don’t remember why we started watching Dancing with the Stars, but it become a Monday-night routine for Linda and me. She’d get mad at the judges for criticizing the dancers, then tell me who she wanted to vote for that week. We watched every season for the three years that she lived with us.

After finishing my last novel, I knew I wanted to write about a football player and a reluctant love interest. I’m not sure why, but my mind went to Dancing with the Stars. That led to a local fundraiser (Swingshift and the Stars Dance-Off for Charity). And that led to a story inspired by one of Linda’s favorite shows and an inspired-by-real-events fundraiser supporting a home for women like Linda.

Linda lives with her sister now (my mom), but we still get together several times a year (though the Food Network’s baking championships have taken over as our Monday-night treat). Having a special-needs aunt has been an amazing blessing, and those years we lived together will always hold a special place in my heart.

About Karin:

Author of hopeful fiction with a healthy dose of romance, Karin Beery lives in northern Michigan with her husband and pets. They drink too much (decaf) coffee, put up their Christmas tree the first weekend in November, and do their best to live every day for the Lord.

Buy Link: https://amzn.to/48n7nHZ

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