Deborah Heal is the author of the Time and Again history mystery trilogy and the Rewinding Time Series: inspirational novels of history, mystery & romance. Her characters get to visit the past to see the bits that didn’t make it into the history books—something Deborah has always dreamed of doing herself.
A former high school English teacher, she firmly believes the maxim “write what you know,” which is why all of Deborah’s novels are set in her beloved rural southern Illinois. Even so, their historical topics and spiritual themes transcend geographical boundaries.
Although she grew up just down the road from the settings of Time and Again and Unclaimed Legacy, she was born in Eldorado, Illinois, not far from the Old Slave House featured in her novel Every Hill and Mountain. Her novel Only One Way Home deals with the Cherokee Trail of Tears, which passed through nearby Golgonda, Illinois. (Unlike the characters in it that novel, Deborah’s great, great grandmother’s Cherokee family remained safely in North Carolina.) Having grown up hearing tales of the Ohio River pirates at Cave in Rock, Deborah wrote about them in How Sweet the Sound. And as a fan of Charles Dickens, she told about his visit to southern Illinois in A Matter of Time.
Today she lives with her husband Robert in Monroe County, Illinois, not far from where the pioneers of her novel Once Again struggled to survive amidst Indian attacks. Deborah is a passionate gardener. She and her husband have three grown children, five grandchildren, and two canine buddies Digger and Scout.
Readers can learn more about the history behind her books at www.deborahheal.com and receive free short stories and other goodies just by signing up to her V.I.P. Readers’ List.
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I am so grateful for my beta readers, each of whom found errors the others missed and offered a unique editing perspective for Every Hill and Mountain.
Thank you:
Mom—for making sure I got the “down home” stuff right.
Dana—for calling attention to word choice. (apologetic—really?)
Laura—for reminding me that commas are my friends.
Hannah—for keeping me from making un-cool verbal faux pas, for warnings about sledgehammers, and for advice about Dear John letters.
Gretchen—for noticing the missing quotations marks and the…swirly thing.
A Free eBook “Charlotte’s House”
