Beauty in the Binding: Author Interview: Even If Nothing Else Is Certain by Amy Willoughby-Burle

Even if Nothing Else is Certain JustRead Blog Tour

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Even If Nothing Else Is Certain by Amy Willoughby-Burle, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

About the Book

Title: Even If Nothing Else Is Certain
Series: Love for Certain #2
Author: Amy Willoughby-Burle
Publisher: Fireship Press
Release Date: March 27, 2024
Genre: Historical Romance (clean)

Even if nothing else is certain … love still is.

Ruby Foster loves her job as a Pack Horse librarian, but secretly she dreams of being a nurse. Since there are no schools for nursing in the hills of rural Kentucky in 1937, Ruby contents herself with harvesting medicinal plants, delivering her beloved library books, and dreaming. Dreaming mostly of a life that doesn’t leave her living in the past. Until one day she discovers that “past” camped out by the Hell for Certain creek. Could it really be Cole, the one who left her heartbroken so many years ago? Just when she starts to believe in her dreams and hope for love again, Cole reveals his true colors. Or is the truth she sees only another illusion? When nothing else in the world seems certain, can the bonds of friendship bring one searching heart and one lost soul together again?

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More Books In This Series

Excerpt

Cole

Love makes all the decisions where it counts. The want of it. The need of it. That longing in the heart. But sometimes the heart is a haunted house. Filled with dark corridors and tightly closed doors, cracked glass windows covered in cobwebs. The grass is overgrown and there’s a faint whispering of something rusty and squeaky off in the distance. Fear has its name on the mailbox. It’s scary in the heart. All our ugliness, our shame, our despair. It’s all there.

And for me, it was all there in Certain, Ky. Why on earth had I come back to the town that had run my family out on the rails fifteen years ago. Well, there were no rails, just a long and winding road out of town. I think my father would have ridden off and left me here had it not been for my mother. I wished now that she’d let him.

With nothing left and nowhere else to go, I’d come back to the only place that had ever felt like home to me. I’d been living along the Hell for Certain Creek for near about a week. Mostly my stay had gone well, but a storm was rolling in.

About the Author

Amy Willoughy-Burle

Amy Willoughby-Burle is an award winning fiction author living in Asheville, NC with her husband and five children. Her fiction focuses on the importance of family and friends and centers on the themes of forgiveness, second chances, and finding the beauty in the world around us. She is the author of the novels The Lemonade Year, The Year of Thorns and Honey, The Other Side of Certain and Even if Nothing Else Is Certain. Her short fiction has been published in numerous journals and in her collection, Out Across the Nowhere.

Connect with Amy by visiting amywilloughbyburle.com to follow her on social media and sign up for email updates.

Author Interview with Amy

Q: What was the inspiration behind Even if Nothing Else Is Certain?

Amy: For this book I was revisiting the Packhorse Librarians from my novel The Other Side of Certain (these are stand alones in the same world) exploring more of their history and telling more of their stories. This time I also got to explore the history of the Frontier Nursing Service which was also operating in the same area at the same time–the 1930s. This small area of rural Kentucky was doing some amazing things, led by amazing women.

Q: How long did it take you to write this story?

Amy: I think the whole process of planning, drafting, revising, and final editing was about a year.

Q: Do you have a favorite quote from this book?

Amy: I love this idea from our main character Ruby. I agree wholeheartedly! The next time you’re in a library just think of all the writers writing all the stories through time.

It was a gift that our little library here in Certain was filled with cast-offs and donations of well-worn old books read so many times the words were a little lighter on the page somehow. And shouldn’t that be what a library was anyway, the preservation of imagination across time? –Ruby

Q: What do you hope readers take away from Even if Nothing Else Is Certain?

Amy: My two main characters Ruby and Cole are each trying to find their true selves. True to what God intended for them.

Through Ruby I hope that readers will see that God has a plan for them. Ruby wants to be a nurse at a time when there are no nursing schools in her area. She also doesn’t believe that someone like her (poor, from a small town, etc) could be someone of importance. I hope that people also see that God has important roles for us all and that those roles whether we think they are big or small are all important and that God has given us the gifts that we need to follow His dreams for us.

Through Cole I hope that people will see that it’s not too late to “come back home.” That God is always waiting with open arms to welcome them back no matter how long they’ve been gone or how far they’ve strayed. Cole gets caught up in a tall tale he tells when he comes back to Certain after being away for a long time and things snowball into a big mess. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of forgiveness even though he desperately wants it. I hope people will see that God knows our true hearts and that if we will open them to Him and to each other, there are new beginnings to be had.

Q: Would you share something about yourself that most readers would not know?

Amy: I don’t know the “correct” way to type. Yep… I’ve got a very developed hunt and peck that has picked up speed over the years. I’m quick, but not correct. Sometimes I have to glance down at the keyboard to get myself back in line. There’s some symbolism in there somewhere, I’m sure.

Q: How long ago did you start writing?

Amy: I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was about 10. I used my diary to write stories about other little girls and all the adventures they went on. I had a lovely childhood, so it wasn’t that I didn’t want to write about my own day; it was more that my own day got me thinking about all the “what ifs” and “just imagines” and off I’d go into a new tale.

Q:What is your favorite thing about being a writer?

Amy: I love getting to share my stories with other people, but I think my favorite thing is actually getting to meet other writers and readers at book events and tours whether online or in person. I love talking about how books, and not just mine–but all of them, have been such a powerful influence in our lives. To be part of that at all is just amazing.

Q: Do you prefer to read ebooks or physical copies?

Amy:I prefer physical books. I think that just harkens back to being a kid pre-allthetechnology and loving the smell of book pages, going into the library and choosing my next best friends for the week, carrying the book around like a prize. I suppose I could do some of those things with a Kindle. LOL. Recently I’ve also been listening to audiobooks on my drive to and from work. I’d never really been an audio book person either, but I’m loving it so much!

Q: How many bookcases are in your home?

Amy: Not enough! There are currently five smallish ones. I long to have one of those bookshelf walls like see on Instagram where the whole wall is nothing but bookshelves!

Q: What do you like to do when you are not writing?

Amy: I love being outside talking to my children and my chickens and working in the garden. I love to read, of course, but if my family sees me sitting down it evidently means I’m not busy and therefore should make them a snack. LOL. I also love eating snacks, so that still works out well.

Tour Giveaway

(1) winner will win a $25 Amazon Gift Card, signed copies of The Other Side of Certain and Even if Nothing Else is Certain, and librarian & plant themed bookmarks, stickers and postcards!

(1) additional winner will win a signed copy of Even if Nothing Else is Certain!

Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight April 1, 2024 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on April 8, 2024. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.

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