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Time to Tell Her Story
Beyond the Sky, written in two parts, follows a young woman through her college years and her involvement in the civil rights, and traces her ancestry from immigration from Ireland to the mountains of Hidden Valley. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
When Tillie first showed up in Hidden Valley in my debut novel, New Tomorrows, I knew she would be the one whose mysterious background would take her away from the valley to be involved in the activism of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. My intent as a writer is to create engaging stories that readers can not only enjoy but also be drawn in to explore real, contemporary issues with characters they can relate to. I identified the racial tension our country has faced and dealt with, in one form or another, throughout our history, as one of several important issues I wanted to help my readers explore. I myself enjoy stories that have a touch of romance, but not in the traditional way romance is presented in many books in that genre. I see romance as just one aspect of human connections, and I wanted my stories to be about connections, especially in families and communities.
When I first imagined Tillie, we were witnessing legislative and societal changes influenced by my generation begin to erode or disappear. As a writer, I feel a responsibility to speak about the past to shine light on the present. It was time to tell her story.
I was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement myself in the 1960s. I decided to bring Tillie to the same University I attended, letting her arrive as a freshman the year I was a senior. Her story is not at all biographical, but I was able to write about a time period and events that I personally experienced. While the events are real, both those that are part of our well-known (and some not so well-known) history or the local events in Pittsburg, the characters all spring from my imagination.
What is it that interests you most about historical fiction?
Let me first share my perspective on fiction vs. non-fiction. I like to define fiction as learning through imagination, whereas non-fiction is learning through facts. Reading fiction gives us an opportunity to spend time in a life quite different from our own. I believe folks can often learn more history through fact driven, engaging fiction than they might from a history book. When that happens to us, we often come away with a new understanding or a wider perspective of what life is like living in another person’s skin, both figuratively and realistically. My hope with all my books is that readers might gain increased awareness, understanding, and empathy for the marginalized in our society who struggle daily for justice, inclusion, and dignity.
I have always been a bit of a history buff; my college degree is in Creative Writing, but my minor was history. If I am going to write about human connections, part of who we are is defined by where we can from – the ancestors of yesterday who built the foundation for who we are today. That was especially true for Tillie. Her story was not complete without the stories of the strong woman who came before her and the choices they made, along with the men who loved them.
How did you go about finding your characters’ voices while planning your writing?
First, let me say a word about my writing process. Some folks divide writers into two groups – the plotters, or the seat-of-the-pants writers. I’m a combination of both, but my plotting is very sketchy with only major plot turns in my mind. It’s no more a brief list, rather than a plot outline. My writing is very character driven and sometimes even those major plot turns change as I become more immersed in the life of a character. As I wrote and got to know my characters on a deep personal level, they often sent me off on an unexpected side trip. One such side trip was quite literal when Percy told me to take him back to Quebec because he had to talk to his grandmother and get the pearl ring she had promised him. I didn’t even realize the ring had a pearl instead of a diamond until Percy first heard Taynay’s song about the moon.
One of the greatest joys of writing Tillie’s story was getting to know the six generations of mountain women who came before her. I imagined these women, along with their families, making choices that were often difficult. Choices that went beyond the traditional thinking of their time period. Each one was different, so they spoke and acted in their own unique way.
My original intent was to reference their journals with quotes as Tillie was reading and learning more about her generations of grandmothers. As their situations and choices came to light, and as their words began to paint a picture of the challenges of her time period, I realized I could not merely include snippets of their lives. These women deserved to have their whole stories told, thus I created the entire second half of the book to include their entire first-person narratives.
Where will the next book in the Hidden Valley series take readers? When will it be available?
The next book is already in progress, but I have as usual, been doing a bit of research into its topic and only have a few opening chapters written. The title is One More New Chance: A Vet Tech Romantic Suspense. The male protagonist is Brink, but I won’t reveal the name of the female protagonist because it would be a spoiler. I will drop a brief hint that she is a character readers have met in a prior book, however briefly. Brink is struggling with two issues – his dedication to tracking down the criminal rings that are staging the dog fights in various remote hollers in the valley and his own personal identity conflict due to bullying he has experienced as a result of his bi-racial background. It will be out in 2026, but I do not have a firm date right now. In truth, it has briefly been placed on the back burner while I’ve been doing some minor revisions and reformatting of my first book in the series, New Tomorrows. That slightly revised book will be live soon, to coordinate with October being National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
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The passion of activism flourished on college campuses in the tumultuous sixties, and Tillie embraced it as a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh. Descended from Irish immigrants known in their Appalachian community as Granny Women – the healers – her compassionate nature drew her into the Civil Rights Movement. She could never have predicted how dramatically her life would change. When family journals reveal shocking news about her history and lineage, she’s forced to re-define her path to the future.
Which road will she choose?
After navigating new horizons, she may have to look for answers that lie Beyond the Sky.
Join readers on a thought-provoking journey through the divisions of the Civil War into the ardor of an era when our country’s youth led the way to a better national consciousness.
Beyond the Sky: A Mountain Woman’s Journey to Personal Freedom
Beyond the Sky follows Tillie Carpenter, a character introduced earlier in Ann Heap’s Hidden Valley series. The book is split into two parts. The first part traces Tillie’s journey from her teen years through college, weaving her passion for science and her involvement in the civil rights movement into a vivid coming-of-age narrative. The second part shifts back in time, presenting the journals of her foremothers, the mountain women of Hidden Valley, stretching from Irish immigrant ancestors in the 1840s to Tillie herself. The book is about heritage, resilience, and the blend of old wisdom with modern science.
I found myself swept up in the writing. The style is warm, almost conversational, yet it carries weight when the story demands it. The descriptions of family bonds, quiet mountain life, and the turmoil of the civil rights era felt raw and real. There were moments when the writing tugged me straight into Tillie’s skin, especially during her conflicts with her stepmother and her longing to merge Granny’s folk remedies with modern research. There were times the pace slowed, especially in some of the journal sections, but just as quickly, Heap would pull me back with a sharp emotional moment.
I admired how Heap connected the private, everyday struggles of women across generations with broader historical movements. It gave the sense that change doesn’t just happen in marches or headlines, but also in kitchens, gardens, and the quiet choices families make. I loved that balance.
Beyond the Sky is a heartfelt novel that I would recommend to readers who enjoy historical fiction rooted in family and community, and to those who like stories that braid social justice into personal lives. It would especially resonate with readers who appreciate strong, complex female characters and the blending of old traditions with modern challenges. It’s not a quick or light read, but if you’re willing to let the story take its time, it’s rewarding.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B0F4RRHPQ4
My Own Emotional Turmoil
New Tomorrows: Love – Courage – Hope follows two people with scars on their hearts who meet in the Appalachian Mountains and discover there is hope for love still. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for this story was quite personal and related to my own experiences on the day of 9/11. On that morning, I was teaching 8th grade remedial reading in a town less than 100 miles from Washington, D.C. We had students in the building whose parents worked at the Pentagon. I was also an actively running volunteer EMT. I had to let my students’ needs take first place ahead of my own emotional turmoil. Along with my fellow local first responders, my heart was with the men and women in New York going into that burning building, just as surely as if I had worked beside them on an ambulance call on a regular basis. The fire/EMS brotherhood goes beyond time and place. As a matter of fact, that sentiment is stated by Jon in my story when he tells Allie, “There are no geographical boundaries to the brotherhood.” Every year, as the anniversary approached, I saw and experienced the lasting impact that day had on many of my friends, as well as myself. While my personal trauma was in no way as shattering as that of Jon and Allie in the story, a large number of the people I know in the fire/EMS and health care world have been impacted in ways that changed their lives. It was on the 9th anniversary in 2010, participating in some of the usual remembrance activities, that I began to ask myself the question that is always spinning around in the brain of a writer. “What if?” I began to expand that question and imagine a number of scenarios and finally landed on the question this story is based on. “What if a nurse from New York City and a medic from the greater Washington D.C. area, both struggling with life-altering events that stemmed from 9/11, meet by accident in a rural mountain community and discover a surprising and unexpected attraction between them?” The answer was this book.
The manuscript I started that day was lost, then accidentally rediscovered in 2023, but that is another story altogether.
Jon and Allie both struggle with the fallout of the tragic day of 9/11, leading them to shelter their hearts from others. What trials did you feel were important to highlight the characters’ development?
They both had to learn to trust, themselves and each other, before they could open their hearts to love. But it was going to require work to make that happen. They were at different stages in that process when they met. Allie had learned to reach out for help, in spite of her fiercely independent nature, when she found the original New Tomorrows shelter. Jon, on the other hand, had not willingly accepted the professional counseling offered by the hospital where he worked in New York. Even though they both were pursuing a career that involves caring for others, each had structured their everyday life to avoid close emotional entanglements. As the attraction grew stronger, they faced and overcame uncertainty and danger from Allie’s earlier abuser. The circle of friends that made up the Inner Circle were quietly teaching them, by example, what friendship and love are all about. Allie overcame her fear of both physical and emotional intimacy sooner than Jon faced his own unique demons. It was not until she backed off, forcing Jon to face the possibility of losing what they were building together, that he reached out to get the professional help he so desperately needed.
What was one scene in the novel that you felt captured the morals and message you were trying to deliver to readers?
Without a doubt it is the scene at the closing of the New Tomorrows program launch where the three women – Allie, Wanda, and Louise – share their personal domestic abuse journeys to emphasize the healing power of love, courage, and hope, followed by the incident that made Jon realize he could fully embrace Allie’s career has a firefighter and open his heart to their love. That culminating scene, and the work of the Inner Circle group before that day, gave the reader a close look at the oft-hidden roots of domestic and sexual abuse and important insight into personal actions and attitudes that promote healthy relationships.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
This was my debut book as writer (published two months shy of my 80th birthday), but there are definitely more to come. The series has already continued with the publication of my second book, Starting Over: A Father by Choice, this past February. I was delighted when that second novel received your Literary Titan Gold Book award! This book tells the story of Randy and Wanda, Allie and Jon’s good friends who were instrumental in the work of the community group creating the domestic abuse advocacy program and shelter. It is another closed-door romance with a bit of mystery sprinkled in and has a strong focus on the true bond that holds a family together – love, not DNA. The third book in the series is in the works with an anticipated publication date of late fall this year. It is tentatively named No Turning Back: A Mountain Woman’s Journey to Personal Freedom. I say tentatively because it has already been renamed twice since I started writing. It tells the story of Tillie, who played a significant role in the first two books. It traces her life from the early sixties when she was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement while away at college, up to current times, and contains journals that reveal the family saga of her forebears from the time they arrived in the mountains as Irish immigrants in the 1840s. Though there is a touch of romance, I would not classify it primarily as a romance novel, but rather as mainline historical fiction. After that, there are three other Hidden Valley stories, as well as a Holiday novella, waiting in line in my brain.
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New Tomorrows: Love – Courage – Hope
New Tomorrows: Love – Courage – Hope, by Ann Heap, is a heartwarming tale of love, resilience, and community. Jon and Allie, both recovering from the trauma of 9/11, cross paths almost a decade later in the Virginia Appalachian Mountains. As their feelings for each other grow, they must overcome numerous obstacles before they can fully commit. This story is not just about two individuals finding love; it also chronicles the efforts of Jon, Allie, and the Hidden Valley residents as they create a domestic abuse advocacy program and shelter.
Charming, quaint, endearing, and peaceful are just a few words to describe this lovely book. The clean, slow-burn romance between Jon and Allie and the evolving sense of community among the Hidden Valley residents offer much to adore and revel in. Heap’s writing style is particularly noteworthy. Her vivid imagery immerses the reader in the story, making it come to life. In the opening crash scene, for instance, the disorienting yet eerily calm emotions Allie experiences are palpable, as if watching a movie unfold. The dialogue is another strong point, characterized by a realistic quality that avoids the overly sentimental tone often found in clean romance stories. Interactions between characters feel authentic, whether in simple morning conversations or in the sharing of thought-provoking memories. Heap skillfully captures the essence of human interaction. The pacing of New Tomorrows is also commendable. While the romance develops slowly, the story itself moves at a well-measured pace. Every word is carefully chosen, contributing to a smoothly flowing narrative.
If you are looking for a novel filled with heart and hope, New Tomorrows: Love – Courage – Hope, by Ann Heap, is a fantastic, cozy, and entertaining read. It is highly recommended and well-deserving of a spot on your TBR list.
Pages: 286 | ASIN : B0CHLFXCT8
Unwavering Love
Starting Over, a Father by Choice follows a couple who have been together since their teens and are now facing a crossroads that will determine the future of their relationship. What inspired the setup of your story?
I enjoyed Wanda and Randy’s romantic relationship. How did it develop while you were writing it? Did you have an idea of where you wanted to take it, or was it organic?
Let me address these first two questions together.
My characters talk to me and sometimes tell me which direction to take. I started out knowing what happened to Wanda that resulted in the birth of Carter and I knew she and Randy would eventually repair their relationship. Some of the scenes that helped them get there were not part of the original plan. For example, their participation in a living nativity was a sudden, unexpected inspiration. But it fit right in with another goal I had. I wanted to use their story, and Randy’s unwavering love for both Wanda and Carter, as a vehicle to explore the true meaning of family. That it goes way beyond DNA. This is part of my personal experience, as I claim two grandchildren who do not carry my DNA but were gifted to me by my daughter-in-law after my son died.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
My plan for all of my books (this series will have six when complete – then another series is floating around in my head) is that each will explore a real-life contemporary issue, as a strong protagonist (or protagonists) struggle to overcome personal trauma related to that issue. It is my hope that readers will learn something new and gain a better understanding of how that issue impacts individuals and communities, while enjoying an intriguing story. The first book in the Hidden Valley Series, New Tomorrows, explored the issue of domestic and sexual abuse. When Wanda, a strong supporting character in that story, publicly revealed that she, too, had been a victim, I had to tell her story, too. Other themes planned for the future are racial relations and healing, eating disorders, illegal dog fighting, and addiction.
I love the Hidden Valley Fire & Rescue series. What will the next book in that series be about, and when will it be published?
The next book (which will be released late summer or early fall this year) is Tillie’s story. In No Turning Back: Marching Toward Freedom, you will meet her when she is a young teen and follow her life from the 1950s to the early twentieth century. During that time span she leaves Hidden Valley to go away to college where she becomes involved in the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. She eventually (and reluctantly) returns to Hidden Valley following a series of difficult life events. It is a story that explores racial relationships and healing, as a strong woman with a mountain heritage finds her personal freedom to define who and what she is. And perhaps, finds an unexpected, late-in-life romance. There is some historical family saga in her story that goes back to Civil War times.
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Wanda Marlow and Randy Sullivan fell in love when they were young teens, both involved in the volunteer fire and rescue company of their remote valley home in Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. They are sure their relationship as a forever couple will survive being apart while Randy pursues a carpentry apprenticeship out of state and Wanda goes away to college. However, at the end of her freshman year, Wanda comes back to their Hidden Valley home pregnant and holding onto a big secret about the father of her child.
Wanda feels shame over the circumstances of her son’s conception and blames herself for betraying their love. She keeps trying to push Randy away, but they have never stopped loving each other. When her son Carter is only three months old, Wanda and Randy agree to start over as a couple, but the secret still lies between them.
Randy’s greatest fear is having Carter’s father show up one day to claim the child he has come to love as his own. As Carter grows, he begins to ask questions about his father. Once the secret begins to hurt Carter, Wanda and Randy know the truth must be revealed. But what is the truth? Is it what Wanda believes? Or is it something entirely different? Their search for the truth leads them on a path to solve an unexpected mystery about Carter’s biological father.
Carter becomes convinced that Paws, his pup since they were both babies, can help solve the mystery. In a drama-filled scene, Paws must help Randy rescue the nine-year-old from the danger he finds himself in as a result of that belief.
Told against the backdrop of the Hidden Valley Fire & Rescue company, this story is filled with a unique cast of characters you will come to love and want to visit again. This closed-door romance is more than just a happily-ever-after love story. It’s a story of family and friendship, community and compassion, and finding strength to overcome personal trauma.
You can read this book as a stand-alone, but you will enjoy a richer experience by reading the books in the Hidden Valley Fire & Rescue series in the order published.
Starting Over: A Father by Choice
In Starting Over, a Father by Choice by Ann Heap, readers are drawn into the lives of Wanda and Randy, a couple whose longstanding relationship since their teenage years faces its toughest test. Heap intricately explores the dynamics of love and commitment through the lens of this pivotal incident that promises to either solidify or unravel their bond.
Wanda, traditionally a diligent and sensible individual, finds herself at a crossroads after a transformative event, prompting readers to ponder the resilience of her character and the future of her relationship. Randy’s enduring affection for Wanda is portrayed with depth, challenging him to redefine acceptance and support in the face of unforeseen changes. Heap crafts a cast of well-rounded characters, from Wanda’s blend of intelligence and vulnerability to Randy’s unwavering support. Additionally, Carter adds a touch of charm and spontaneity, while Tillie emerges as a wise and enigmatic figure whose timely interventions often carry a touch of mystique.
The narrative balances light and dark tones effectively, ensuring a compelling read. Dramatic turns, such as a character’s sudden disappearance, are handled with a flair that grips the reader. The portrayal of firefighters weaves in a layer of heroism and sacrifice, enriching the storyline with a realistic glimpse into their courageous lives and the personal stakes involved in their profession. Heap also addresses the complex theme of adoption with sensitivity and insight, providing a thoughtful commentary on its challenges and emotional journey.
Starting Over, a Father by Choice is a captivating and enjoyable read, deftly combining elements of romance and drama with a realistic portrayal of life’s unexpected twists and the enduring power of love.
Pages: 250 | ASIN : B0CJQQS3G8
LITERARY TITAN 