SL: Tell me about the real-life inspiration behind The Bridge. How did you discover Landmark Booksellers?
Karen: In the spring of 2011, I was visiting the Nashville area on a book tour, and my editor at the time, Becky Nesbit, took me to downtown Franklin. “Prettiest street in America,” she told me. That warm afternoon as we set out, I saw immediately that she was right! Then she took me into Landmark Booksellers—and my life would never be the same! I fell in love with the warmth and light of the place, and I had a wonderful conversation with Joel and Carol Tomlin, the store owners. When I learned the history of the place and how it had served as a hospital for Civil War soldiers, I was even more enthralled. I left that day imagining how awful it would have been if the store had been wiped out in the 2010 Nashville flood. Would they have recovered from something that devastating, especially with their old and collector’s books making up so much of the stock? Within a week, I came up with a story that wouldn’t leave my heart. The Bridge, I called it. Charlie and Donna Barton became my fictitious store owners, who had lost everything in my imaginary flood. A few years later, it became a two-part hit Hallmark movie series: Karen Kingsbury’s The Bridge.
