Homewood author returns to bookshelves with 3rd novel

With her first book having made it to USA Today’s and the Wall Street Journal’s best-seller lists, it’s safe to say that Lauren Denton knows a thing or two about writing.

“I really think it started because I’m a reader,” said Denton, who is a regular columnist for the Homewood Star. “Different story ideas stirred in my head, but I didn’t think about writing seriously until college.” 

After graduating from Auburn University, Denton began working at the Southern Progress Corporation in Birmingham, but the story ideas just kept coming. When she finally bit the bullet and began putting pen to paper, she found she could only get 40 or 60 pages deep before scrapping a draft. 

Though she wrote her first full-length manuscript in 2011, Denton didn’t publish her first book, “The Hideaway,” until 2017.

“I finally got an idea that I felt had legs,” Denton said.

She claims she does her best writing in the early hours of the morning, but with her two daughters now in elementary school, she often finds herself typing away at her desk later in the morning. If she’s not working on her next novel, then most likely she’s chipping away at her latest column, where she talks about everything from her daughters and parenting woes to faith.

Growing up, Denton found one of her favorite genres to read was Southern fiction. Having been raised in Mobile but now residing in Homewood, when she starts working on a new story, she begins by focusing on the settings, most of which are fictional southern towns. However, for her latest work, “Glory Road,” set to be released in March, the setting does have a touch of reality. 

As a child, Denton loved visiting her maternal grandparents at their house along a red dirt road. This nostalgia translated itself into the stage for “Glory Road.” The novel’s main character, Jessie McBride, can finally manifest her ideal life as owner of a garden shop nestled next door to her home a red dirt road, after being driven back home to southern Alabama because of her husband’s affair 10 years prior.

In addition to trying to wrangle a newly teenage daughter with a blossoming crush and her mother experiencing memory lapses, things get complicated for Jessie when two men arrive in town, both having set their romantic sights on her. 

As with all of her work, Denton hopes what she writes is “both entertaining and encouraging.” Always thinking of the reader, she sees her work as their escape from reality and enjoys when they’re able to make connections between her novel’s narrative and their own lives.

“I’ve had readers hone in on things that I don’t even think about,” she said. “And it affected them in a way that didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Glory Road” is available for purchase on Amazon and in bookstores.