Welcome to the Blog Tour for Finding Juniper by Cindy Thomson, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
About the Book
Title: Finding Juniper
Author: Cindy Thomson
Publisher: Emerald Path Press
Release Date: January 2, 2025
Genre: Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction
For Patrick Doyle, the claim that time heals all wounds is a cruel lie.
In 1920, returning from WWI, Paddy finds Ireland creeping toward civil war. Invisible borders separate people, including Paddy and his pregnant girlfriend. With few prospects, Paddy sails to America. However, America is far from the land of opportunity he’d hoped for. And worse, his girl refuses to follow him because of her political involvement.
Thirty years later, Patrick has moved on with his life, building a new family. A letter arrives, suggesting the child he’d assumed died may be alive. Patrick’s American daughter Mardell pushes him to find out what happened to her sister, named Juniper. Patrick anxiously sails to Ireland.
Juniper endured a childhood in institutions, and when she’s released, she moves on without the parents who left her. Operating an apothecary out of an inherited cottage where villagers are slow to trust outsiders, Juniper finally finds a home when her grandmother arrives. Just as she feels comfortable and content, her father shows up at her door, bringing shocking news about her mother.
Finding Juniper invites readers on a journey of confronting the past, healing from old traumas, and redefining what family truly means.
PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | BookBub
Excerpt
Juniper
February 1950, Glasgleann Cottage, County Down, Northern Ireland
Pulling on her wellies, Juniper prepared to tend her plants. The smell of damp earth was as good a medicine as anything she could concoct. Michael trailed after, crisscrossing as though someone might snag him if he took a more linear path. A robin nosed the edges of her turnip field while other birds called to him from a perch in the oaks separating her property from a neighboring farm where cattle and sheep grazed lazily in the green grass. Just as when she was a girl, the earth soothed and reminded her that sorrows lasted only a moment. The sun always reappeared.
Shoving a spade into the dark soil, Juniper worked to cultivate an area for transplanting parsley. She had no trouble finding locations for the herbs that preferred cooler conditions. It was the sun-loving rosemary, thyme, and marjoram that needed transplanting the most. The tree cover had increased quite a bit since Aunt Bet first planted them.
Dragging her spade, Juniper trudged up a slight incline that was blanketed with wild daises. She loved the untouched beauty of the spot, but the herbs needed it more. She’d try to disturb only a corner. Driving her tool into the ground, she found resistance. Ah, rocks. She’d been spoiled by previously only working cultivated beds. Wiping her brow, she set to work.
A few hours later she wearily returned to the cottage to make tea. When she entered, memories flooded in again. Juniper hadn’t thought about those early years as intently as she had been lately. Perhaps rewinding the tape of her life story might help her manage today’s challenges.
Excerpt From Finding Juniper
Cindy Thomson
This material may be protected by copyright.
About the Author
Known for the inspirational Celtic theme employed in most of her books, Cindy Thomson is the author of both fiction and nonfiction. A genealogy enthusiast, she writes from her home in Ohio where she lives with her husband Tom near their three grown sons and their families.
Connect with Cindy by visiting cindyswriting.com to follow her on social media or subscribe to email newsletter updates.
Author Interview
Q: What inspired you to write Finding Juniper?
Cindy: I answer this question in my author’s note, but I don’t mind explaining it here. Hearing about how soldiers returning to Ireland after WWI were treated made me want to explore how someone might have coped. It was a tough time for them, but it was also a tough time to be an Irish immigrant in America with no connections. Prohibition offered easy money so I could imagine how someone like Paddy Doyle might have been drawn to work as a rumrunner. I was also interested in how a young girl raised in an institution might have coped once she was released. Those two story ideas sparked the writing of Finding Juniper.
Q: How did you choose the main character’s name?
Cindy: Choosing this title was very different from the process for my other books. The title popped into my head first. It was obvious to me that it would be the character’s name. It’s a bit unusual for an Irish name, though, so I explain how she got the name in the book. There are two main characters, though. Paddy (Patrick) is a very common name in Ireland and since his other daughter had an unusual name (Mardell) I didn’t want to stray from the ordinary for him.
Q: How long did it take to write this book?
Cindy: Oh, forever and a day! If I was writing full time it would have taken me about 9 months. I had to put this aside several times due to other obligations. Counting rewrites and editing I wrote the novel over a four year period.
Q: What surprised you while researching/writing this novel?
Cindy: Research is one of my favorite parts of the writing process. I love finding the lessons characters from the past learned and passing those on in fiction. As I mentioned, learning about Irish soldiers returning to an Ireland that was not the same as the one they left sent me researching for what I could find about this. As one fellow author who was born in Ireland told me, it was not talked about.
The fact that Ireland was slower to recover from the Great Depression than the U.S. was another detail I wanted to include. Not everyone was poor but it was tough to make a living. Asylums in Ireland often held people who did not need to be there. Not everyone was mistreated but many were, their only offenses being too pretty, pregnant outside of marriage, or having no family to care for them. How someone heals from this was another thread I wanted to explore.
Q: Do you have a favorite quote from Finding Juniper?
Cindy: This was a harder question than you might think!
“Whatever we’ve done in our past is wiped away when we ask God to forgive us.” She squeezed his hand. “Gone, I tell ye. Start new. Every day.”
Q: When did you first know you wanted to be an author?
Cindy: I wanted to be a teacher, and I was. I always loved making up stories though, something I started at about age 5. I didn’t consider being an author until I was in my late 30s.
Q: Would you share something about yourself that most readers wouldn’t know?
Cindy: Most readers know I live in Ohio and grew up here. What they might not know was I was not born here. I was born in Ft. Riley, Kansas, on an army post. My dad soon after deployed to Korea and I lived nearly two years in a household of women (three older sisters). When he came back, I apparently gave him the evil eye when he got behind the wheel of my mom’s car. We soon made up and he retired from the military when I was five years old. So I was an army brat but it was so long ago a lot of people don’t know that. Here’s another thing: I did not like frilly clothing when I was a kid. It was scratchy. I wanted a cowboy outfit for dress up and was very unhappy when I received a cowgirl outfit instead. I grew out of that and came to like “girly” stuff.
Q: What are you currently reading?
Cindy: Charlie Hustle by Keith O’Brien and The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees. I know, not historical, but I’ll be starting an advanced copy of Susan’s Meissner’s newest novel, A Map to Paradise soon. My reading tastes, as this illustrates, are all over the place.
Q: What is your favorite genre to read?
Cindy: Historical!
Cindy: Hiking, reading, and crafting with my Cricut machine. My kids gave me the machine a couple of Christmases ago and I’ve been having fun, mostly making things for the grandkids.
Cindy: Fall. I love the cooler air, no bugs, and the amazing fall color we get here in Ohio. I think I love this season the most because it’s so fleeting. You have to hurry and appreciate it. It doesn’t last nearly long enough and that makes it more special in my mind.
Tour Giveaway
(1) winner will receive a silver leaf necklace and an e-copy of Finding Juniper!
Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight January 28, 2025 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on February 4, 2025. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. Worldwide if Amazon Global Shipping is available. If international winner lives where Amazon Global Shipping is not available, only ebook will be given. Ebook delivered via Bookfunnel. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.
Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!
lovely interview! thanks for sharing it :)
ReplyDeleteLovely cover
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpt and the interview.
ReplyDelete