A Christmas Melody

A Christmas Melody


I listened to all of my favorite Christmas music while writing this; not one song in particular. I wrote it in the summer, however, so I had to break our family rule, which is only listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies between Thanksgiving and New Year’s in order to not dilute the magical effect.


Oh, I love this book! I reread it now and then at Christmastime, and I fantasize seeing it as a Hallmark Christmas movie (without the LDS slant, of course). My girls both reread it every holiday season. I love all the cozy Christmas celebrations that come through as Melody is taken into the Trevor family. I love the contrast of seeing this family through Melody’s eyes after the reader has seen them through the previous books when things were so bad. The messages of this book express the meaning of Christmas perfectly, and I’m grateful for the inspiration that gave it to me.


The original idea for this story came from a very dear friend of mine whose upbringing was very much like Melody’s. She was traveling with me to do a book signing and speak at a Relief Society meeting in a small town in Idaho when our conversation turned into the plotting of this book. We became so enraptured in the developing story that we ran out of gas. After we prayed together, I looked in the rear view mirror and said, “Well, no knights on white horses. I guess we’ll have to walk.” We were only a mile or so from an exit, but it was a hot August day. We got out and went about ten paces when a white truck pulled up behind us, driven by a sheriff in a white hat. Yes, I’m serious. Within half an hour we had gas in the car and were on our way again. But later that day when I was being interviewed by a local newspaper writer, I mentioned running out of gas and she said, “Oh, that was you. I heard it on the dispatch radio.” So the story ended up in the newspaper. It’s nice to be famous for something memorable and important.