A 1959 Columbian High School graduate, Barbara Moffett Kingsmore has co-authored a second book, "Maddie's Paradise Mountain."

Now a resident of Florida, she and Rosemary Ling wrote the semi-autobiographical novel, "I Remember Grandma," published in 2008 by PublishAmerica. Clarke Books is the publisher for "Paradise Mountain." Kingsmore was in Tiffin last week to visit relatives and take books to Paper and Ink in Tiffin.

"It's a romance novel, a light romance novel, but it's written from a Christian perspective," Kingsmore said of the new book.

Although both books include scenes from West Virginia, the characters in the second book are not related to those in the first. The main character, Maddie, is a young girl growing up in a large family in the hills of West Virginia. At a square dance, she meets a young naval officer, whom she marries. They build a home on a mountaintop overlooking the town.

Because the year is 1941, the husband is sent to war in the South Pacific. During the three years he is away, many misfortunes befall Maddie. She has doubts about her marriage, watches her home burn and runs away by climbing into a box car on a train. A man and his wife, who have lost a son in the war, take her in and pay for her to attend college.

"At the beginning of the story, she's not a Christian, and she can't understand why her grandmother believed that Jesus was the answer," Kingsmore said. "But she learns gradually, through all these circumstances in her life, that through prayer, she is able to handle things in her life."

The author said some of the description pictures Maddie praying. Her husband eventually returns, rebuilds their home and becomes a preacher. Maddie earns a teaching degree and uses it to teach the children in her hometown.

"The town that she lives in is actually the town that my co-author grew up in and the college she went to actually is there," Kingsmore said.

In the months since the second book was completed, Kingsmore has moved away from Ling, so her next book will be a solo effort. Kingsmore already has started gathering stories for "God's Miracles on the Street Where You Live." The concept for the non-fiction work began when she met a woman in the fitness center at her apartment complex.

"She told me this was her first day of exercising since she had a stroke. I noticed her left arm was not paralyzed," Kingsmore said.

The woman went on to say her doctors and nurses called her "Ms. Lucky" because she had come through the stroke without paralysis. Kingsmore was surprised to learn the woman had suffered from the same kind of aneurysm that had taken the life of Kingsmore's best friend.

The woman felt she had experienced a miracle.

"I went out and got in the pool to do my exercise. I had this revelation that I was to get up and talk to this lady and tell her I was going to write her story. So I did. ... Her mouth just fell open," Kingsmore said.

The woman agreed to be included in Kingsmore's third book. Within 24 hours, Kingsmore said seven more people approached her, offering their own experiences. So her new book is to be a collection of those stories.

"I called my publisher and said 'I want to run this idea by you.' He said, 'Barbara, you've got to run with it.' So he encouraged me. I just kept getting confirmation that I should do this," Kingsmore said.

"Maddie's Paradise Mountain" can be ordered at any bookstore or it is available online in PDF format at www.clarkebooks.net.

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Meet Maddie, a beautiful young girl growing up in the 1940s in the hills of West Virginia. Always the dreamer, she yearns for happiness and searches for the meaning of life. Life isn't what she expects and the twists and turns along the way are often filled with hurt and unfulfilled dreams. Maddie stumbles and falls along many different paths trying to find happiness but it is ever elusive and not easily within reach. Join Maddie in her journey of spiritual awakening when she discovers that the answer to the meaning of life and personal happiness is achieved when we follow the right path and invite God into our lives.