This is Cherie Dargan's Author website. Welcome!

"It's a little history, a little (quilt) mystery, and faith, hope, and love."

My grandfather, Lee Lewis, loved his big Overland car and had several large farm trucks. In the late 1920s he took the big bench below, put it on the back of his bigger truck and built a little house around it. He took his mother (Eva), wife (Nellie) and three daughters on a trip west to California. They stopped in Arizona and he dug irrigation ditches for six months while the girls went to school. Then they went on to California and finally returned home to the farm.

The truck house is down below on the right. I wish I could have seen that truck house! However, I have the big bench in my office. Grandma Eva slept on it while they pitched a tent outside. Whether he was trying to invent the first R. V. or SUV, it looks like fun.

The truck house fired my imagination, and I used it in Book Four.

Historical Fiction with dual timelines & narrators.

Book Four: The Recollection

A holiday themed story with the historical story set during 1933.

The Dust Bowl has devastated farms across the Midwest. World war looms on the horizon. Banks are failing. The Great Depression has come to Jubilee Junction. A young farm wife, Marie, packs up what's left from the farm sale. She and her husband, Frank, have farmed with his parents and now they've lost their farm, and home. Frank and his father want to go west to work and they've been working on a truck house as a place for them all to sleep. Then they get a phone call inviting them to come to Jubilee Junction and stay with Aunt Mabel and Uncle Edward. In the end, they decide that Marie, Edith (her mother-in-law) and the two little girls, Jessie and Julia, will stay in Jubilee Junction while Frank and his father Samuel travel to Wyoming to work as supervisors at a CCC Camp.

In the present day, Gracie and her team of history sleuths have a new quilt mystery to piece together, one that will join two families together. And during both timelines, Christmas in Jubilee Junction is celebrated with new family members, new babies, old traditions, and a fresh and unexpected opportunity to practice forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace on Earth.

Book Four grew out of wanting to explore the 1930s in Iowa and trace the impact of the Great Depression on the cities and farms of our state.

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Check out my new Author & Advocate space on Substack

I worked on this website two years ago, and then I got excited about Substack as an author newsletter/blog.

https://cheriedargan.substack.com/

Sign up/subscribe and each new entry comes to your inbox. However, you can also go directly to Substack and see my list of columns.

News and updates for 2025

As an author, I'm faced with a hard choice--should I be on my computer emailing libraries to arrange for the next book talk, working on the next novel, or updating my website or Substack? I focused on getting Books Two (The Legacy) and Three (The Promise) published. So now I have a trilogy of stories to promote.

So, please pardon the fact that I didn't update this website for the past year. But I did hold fourteen events, including the Hearst Center for the Arts, Western Home's Craft Fair, several libraries, The Market, T. J.'s Christian Book Store, and The Cedar Falls Christian Writers Conference.

I also had several interviews. John Busbee interviewed me for Grandmother's Treasures, Book Two, The Legacy. January 12, 2024.

The interview aired on his show, The Culture Buzz.

Events posted on my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CherieDarganAuthor/

The Cedar Falls Christian Writers Workshop at the Riverview Campgrounds, Cedar Falls. If you're a writer, check it out next year! It was held June 6, 7, & 8, 2024 with keynote speaker Susie Finkbeiner. www.cfcwc.org

Pictures from this year's conference, which was wonderful! I got to meet my illustrator, Patricia Tiffany Morris. I enjoyed chatting with her, catching up with others, and making a few new friends.

Images from the Cedar Falls Christian Writers Conference 2024

Above, Left--I met my illustrator, Patricia Tiffany Morris, for the first time face to face! We worked by Zoom for the past two years.

Middle--my table at the conference with first two novels on display. Right top -- me with David LaBelle, one of our speakers, and a skilled photographer, novelist, and speaker.

Below, Left -- my friend and former student, Sheri Smith Shonk, another novelist with Robyn Mulder, an old friend from the conference who moved to South Dakota several years ago. Robyn is a writer, editor, blogger, and speaker. It was wonderful to reconnect!

Middle -- here I am with two former Hawkeye Community College students, David and Sheri. I just finished Sheri's fourth book, Walk With Me: Houses of Hope Book, and recommend her series!

Right -- Mary Portzen is the co-coordinator for the Cedar Falls Christian Writers Conference, and a good friend. She and Nick now live in Cedar Falls.

Below -- I saw this t-shirt and had to have it! "Careful or You'll End up in my Novel"