Sometimes the most difficult journeys lead to the most beautiful destinations. Join Scrivenings Press author Debbie Sprinkle as she reflects on how life’s challenges can shape our paths, strengthen our faith, and inspire the stories we tell. Drawing from her own experiences and her novella, A Wedding to Die For, featured in Bedlam at Bridal Falls, Debbie shares how both real life and fiction can remind us that hope often waits on the other side of hardship.
Difficult Roads to Beautiful Destinations
by Deborah Sprinkle
Words of wisdom can be found in the most unlikely places! Even the gift shop at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Years ago, I bought this plaque at a time when I was going through a trial in my life. 
A life-truth, if I ever heard one! I can’t think of one crisis or trauma in my life that hasn’t birthed something good—a new opportunity, a terrific new friend, or a new direction that’s led to more blessings. Some of these experiences involved tough choices and sacrifices. And some took me to dark places before returning to the light, but in the long run, I gained something positive from each one.
And those life experiences prepared me for what was to come. I gained experience, knowledge, and maybe even a little wisdom in order to do the next thing and ultimately end up writing. Not that my writing is going to change the world, mind you. But it has changed my world! And I believe, God willing, it will serve a purpose in someone else’s as well.
I think difficulty to beauty is the theme of almost every novel written. Each begins with a difficult road—an inciting incident—and ends with a beautiful destination. That’s what makes reading so satisfying for us. We meet the hero or heroine, or both. We get to know and like them. When they get in trouble, we get upset. If it’s a suspense story and someone is after them, we’re on pins and needles as they try to escape. If it’s a romance, we eagerly await their first kiss and their commitment to each other at the end of the book.
In my latest novella, A Wedding to Die For, from the collection Bedlam at Bridal Falls, Grace Caldwell, a widow of three years, is preparing to marry Detective Peter Young. As much as she loves Peter, she still struggles with her decision because her first marriage was so loving and lasted most of her lifetime.
Fortunately, her daughter and her best friend both encourage her to marry Peter. He’s a wonderful man and will make her happy. The wedding is beautiful, but afterward … well, let’s just say the honeymoon will have to wait.
As Grace and Peter deal with a freak snowstorm, a murder, and a kidnapping, their new relationship as man and wife is stressed to the limit. But along their difficult road, they keep their sights focused on the destination ahead, a beautiful life together.
The books we read can give us the gift of hope for our own lives. Hope that our difficult roads will lead to beautiful destinations in time.
What beautiful destinations have come from your difficult roads? How has a particular book encouraged you or given you hope?
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Author: Deborah Sprinkle
Release date: October 6, 2026
Other series by Deborah: Trouble in Pleasant Valley, A Mac and Sam Mystery, and Second Chances: Romance & Mysteries
Read the first three chapters for FREE here
After her husband passed away, Grace Caldwell thought she’d never love again, but she was wrong. When Grace returned to Trinity Sands Beach Club to help a friend, she met Detective Peter Young. And the rest—as they say—is history.
Now Grace and Peter are at Bridal Falls Lodge in the Georgia mountains for their December wedding. Family and friends join them from Memphis and Chicago.
But instead of being the beautiful, relaxing ceremony Grace envisioned, she and Peter find themselves pulled into the middle of someone else’s personal drama that leads to murder. One that challenges their skills and puts a strain on their newly wedded bliss.
And if that wasn’t bad enough—a blizzard blows in and isolates them at the lodge with a murderer. Grace and Peter have to find a killer before he—or she—kills again.
Debbie Sprinkle is an ordinary woman who serves an extraordinary God. She grew up in St. Louis where she met and married her husband and attended college. She became a chemist and worked in research for a number of years.
Debbie’s writing didn’t actually start until much later when she and her husband moved to Memphis and she had retired from teaching chemistry. Then Debbie began leading Bible studies at their church. The quality of her weekly emails led to an invitation to join the Women’s Speaking and Writing Team, and to attend the 2009 “She Speaks” conference. At that conference, Debbie and Kendra Armstrong became friends and out of that friendship, their first book, “Common Sense and an Uncommon God” was born. It was later renamed to “Exploring the Faith of America’s Presidents.”
Debbie is currently working on several other stories–all mysteries or suspense–her favorite kind.
Email:
Address: 15 Lucky Lane
Phone : 501-289-9319
Great post. My long difficult journey to publication allowed me to gain so much rich experience as a public servant. I learned so much at conferences over the years, and my first published fiction after retirement was so much better than my earlier efforts.