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The Golden Hearts Club: Author Cinda Swalley’s Novel Holds a Meaningful Message about Kindness
By Andrea Marvin
The Golden Hearts Club is a family saga about two sisters on a cross-country road trip who discover the power of kindness and how compassion can change people’s lives.
Author Cinda Swalley describes how the main characters, Katie and Megan Summers, seek to help an elderly woman they meet at a rundown motel who lost her family in a tragic fire.
The sisters become determined to help the lonely motel owner find a new home, which spurs a wave of generosity from strangers.
The heartfelt story touches on the strength of family bonds, the power of hope, and the joy of finding love.
Katie believes her mission in life is to spread the word that kindness toward others can change lives, creating The Golden Hearts Club.
During an interview, author Cinda Swalley explains that The Golden Hearts Club was inspired by a cross-country road trip she took with her sister, and that it naturally developed into a fictional novel with a message about compassion and kindness. Swalley describes how her faith in destiny has guided her life.
She always wanted to write a book, and a photograph of the road trip she took with her sister became the catalyst for a story she felt called to write.
Swalley discusses how the message of kindness is relevant in the busy, distraction-filled world we live in. She encourages others to live with heart and follow their dreams.
Tell us about your book, The Golden Hearts Club. Is it partly based on an experience you had?
It’s a story about two sisters on a road trip who decide to help an American Indian woman find a new home.
Part of the story about the road trip is true. When my sister and I were in our 20s, we took a six-month cross-country road trip with a list of people we wanted to visit and places we wanted to see.
Starting from Ohio, we headed South first, visiting New Orleans and attending Mardi Gras. Then we went to Florida before cutting west to see people in Texas and California.
Back in the day, young travelers who couldn't afford lodging could stay at youth hostels, which I think still exist. The hostels published a book that listed old buildings and motels with rooms for as low as ten dollars a night.
You could stay in a bunk room sometimes with four other people in exchange for doing a chore like changing the sheets or cleaning the bathroom.
I got very sick during our trip, so we decided to stop at an old, rundown motel in Arizona. An elderly American Indian woman approached our car in a dusty parking lot and told us she did have an available room, though it had no heat. We decided to stay for two nights.
Years later, I found a picture from that trip of our car overloaded in the parking lot of that old motel. I stared at that for the longest time, realizing there was a story there.
Why was that elderly woman by herself? That's when the story took flight, and Rose, the Indian woman we met, became the star of it.
I always wanted to write a book. In The Golden Hearts Club, the old woman took care of the girls for two nights. The sisters discovered Rose was there alone after her family died in a fire many years before.
Coincidentally, Katie had dreamt about two sisters dying in a fire, creating some anxiety about going on this trip. She thought it was about herself and her sister. But Katie’s dream was about this woman’s daughters.
It turns out to be a really interesting story about Rose and her American Indian heritage.
In the book, the main character, Katie, felt that no one should be alone. She’s determined to come back to Arizona and get Rose so she can help find her a new family.
Readers see how that journey changes people's lives as they move forward in their trip.
A key message in The Golden Hearts Club is to spread kindness. Is the message based on the generosity you experienced on the road trip you took?
When I finally finished the book, I realized it was a family saga, a coming-of-age story. Katie grew up in Ohio and never really left her cozy spot there, so she’s still pretty innocent.
It’s an adventure because these sisters are traveling and have new experiences, but it's also a love story in the end.
I wanted my book to have a message and leave people with something to reflect on. I went back through it again and realized it was already there. The people they met on their trip did such nice things for them.
Offering kindness to people can change their lives. I focused and drew attention to those acts of kindness. Katie grew up with the message from her parents and grandparents that kindness towards people creates more acts of kindness and can be contagious.
Katie created the Golden Hearts Club, where everyone they met along the way who did something nice for someone automatically became members.
During our road trip, we often slept on people's living room floors. People fed us dinner and showed kindness toward us.
In the 1970s, there were no cell phones or computers, and you had to use payphones. We planned the trip for a year, and our friends would say, Oh, you have to go see my cousin, she lives in Tennessee. Or, you have to go see my brother, he lives in Houston.
We had a little address book of people's names and telephone numbers whom we had never met before. When knocking on their doors, they would greet us and say they expected us to stop by. That was a major inspiration for the book's storyline.
Tell me a little bit about your own adventurous spirit and how that influenced the story.
I don't know if you believe in destiny. Some people do, some people don’t. In the book, Katie believes that destiny is what brings you to your final destination, where you’re meant to be. In this case, they were meant to meet Rose.
When I graduated from high school, I applied to the airlines to become a flight attendant. I don't know why I wanted to be in that career so badly, because I had never even been on an airplane.
When I graduated from high school, the airlines weren't hiring, so I followed my father’s wishes and went to college.
Coincidentally, on this trip I took with my sister, we drove through a terrible dust storm. We got to El Paso and used our AAA book to find a motel with a swimming pool and outdoor facilities.
When we left, after the storm had passed through El Paso, our car broke down in the middle of the desert and had to be towed back to town. We had to get jobs to pay for the new transmission.
During that time, I was introduced to a man who worked for Continental Airlines. I told him about our trip and travels, and my dream of becoming a flight attendant.
He encouraged me to come back in six months and said he would get me an interview with the airlines. We finished our trip a few months later, and I got that interview, which is how I landed the job.
If that's not destiny, then I don’t know what is. Our car broke down in the middle of a desert, and I met a man who worked for a company that offered me the job that I wanted. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. This is why I believe in destiny.
What was your writing process like? Did the story just come to you naturally? How long did the book take to write, and what was the overall process like?
I would tell other writers to outline the book's beginning, middle, and end. My outline said that sisters go on a road trip. And unless you have a mighty imagination, that probably doesn't work very well.
At times, I would turn off my computer at eleven at night, feeling frustrated because I couldn’t write, wondering where to take the story. But then I would dream about the characters. The next morning, I would run to my computer because I knew what needed to happen next.
It took me six years to finish the book, partly because I had never written one before. Writing dialogue is a completely different animal compared to writing a paper. The punctuation that goes along with the dialogue must be correct.
I was completely entrenched in the book. When I didn't know where it needed to go next, it just suddenly took me. Many writers have similar experiences where the characters and plot take them on a ride. That’s exactly what happened. I would write something down, think about it, and know how the main character Katie, would say it because of her personality.
It took me a long time to finish the book, but I wanted it to be right and for it to have a message. I wasn't going to put it out there unless it portrayed the message I wanted.
What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
Kindness can change people's lives, and a golden heart is a gift. Basically, that's what it comes down to.
You could be walking through the parking lot at the grocery store and offer to take someone’s cart back for them. Or open a door for someone, offer a hug.
You can recognize someone in a sad moment in their life and bring them flowers or baked goods. Thank your mailman, your store clerk, your servers at a restaurant.
I think the world today has gotten a little bit off track. We need people to pay attention to how offering kindness can make people’s days and change their lives.
Do you plan to write a sequel? Or what’s next for you?
Many people ask me if the book is true. The first couple of chapters are kind of true, but this is a fictional story. Many people told me they didn’t want the book to end, wanting to know what happens next.
I don't think I'm going to write a sequel, but I often wonder where the next story might be.
I have a friend who lives in Ohio, and she grew up in a children's home, not because she didn't have parents, but because her parents made the choice to be the custodians of the children's home. I want to write that story. But I don’t have enough facts about it, because it was in the 1960s. That’s something rolling around in my mind, because I think it would be a great story.
Anything else you would like to tell our readers?
People say that in life, things don’t just happen by accident. You run across people’s paths for a reason, which I believe.
I want to tell people to never give up on their dreams, no matter what stage of life they’re in. If you're in a bad place with a relationship or a job, don't ever give up on your dreams because it's never too late. If you believe strongly enough in them, I believe the universe helps you get there.
Author Cinda Swalley attended Columbus Business University and then Capital University Law School for her Paralegal Certification.
She attained her wings with her career as a flight attendant, traveling around the world to places such as New Zealand, Guatemala, Europe, Russia, and Africa.
Cinda grew up in rural Galion, Ohio. She currently lives in The Woodlands, Texas, which she refers to as the best little-big town in Texas.
For more information about The Golden Hearts Club: CindaSwalley.com
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