Welcome to the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt!
If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be sure to start at Stop #1, and collect the clues through all the stops, in order, so you can enter to win one of our top 5 grand prizes!
- The hunt BEGINS on 3/19 at noon Mountain Time with Stop #1 at LisaBergren.com.
- Hunt through our loop using Chrome or Firefox as your browser (not Explorer).
- There is NO RUSH to complete the hunt. You have all weekend (until Sunday, 3/22 at midnight Mountain Time)! So take your time, reading the unique posts along the way; our hope is that you discover new authors/new books and learn new things about them.
- Submit your entry for the grand prizes by collecting the CLUE on each author’s Scavenger Hunt post and submitting your answer in the entry form at the final stop, back on Lisa’s site. Many authors are offering additional prizes along the way!
Welcome to Stop #9! I’m Lori Benton. I write animal stories for children and historical fiction for grown-up readers (learn more about them here on this site, on Facebook, and on Instagram). My newest historical novel is called A Scattering of Light (releasing April 13 2026). Here’s what it’s about:
Colonial Virginia 1734
Mourning her wayward brother’s death, Verity Wilde has turned her back on Williamsburg society, striving to live by her notion of true religion: to keep oneself unspotted from the world. But when she boards a ship to claim an indentured Scottish clerk, she’s unprepared to find another Scotsman, starved and gravely ill, left on deck untended. With scarcely more knowledge of the man than his name and place of origin—William Crockett of Skye—pity compels Verity to purchase his indenture too, meaning to provide the compassionate death denied him by the ship’s crew. Only he doesn’t die.
Will Crockett’s survival upends Verity’s carefully circumscribed life, while he awakens to find his world shattered beyond recognition. As they seek to reconcile their broken pasts, bitterness and fear vie with hope to chart their futures. Can they find the courage to trust each other, and a God who scatters light in the darkness?
I’ve been creating landscapes in story and art for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories include drawing with crayons, inspired by an old anime show called Kimba the White Lion. As a painter, writer, and later a photographer, landscapes have informed my creative pursuits. No surprise then that one particular story landscape I encountered at the age of 19 changed the trajectory of my creative life…
The Power of Landscape in Story
“Every story would be another story… if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else.” ~ Eudora Welty
The book that had such an impact on me was Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead, set during the latter years of Roman Britain. I read it in 1990 when I was making up my mind to become a published writer (if I could). It wasn’t just the setting of the book that inspired me, but also the cultural landscape of the British Celtic tribes, confronted with Christianity during the Roman occupation. Taliesin started my enduring fascination with the Iron Age Celts of the British Isles and explains why so many of the characters I include in my stories hail from that part of the world, even though my published novels are set during the 1700s and mainly in the American colonies. But none more so than my newest novel.
A Scattering of Light allowed me to weave in echoes of those vanished times into the life one of the main characters, William Wallace Crockett, a cattle drover from the Isle of Skye. The story begins high on the moors above a glen where, over the fleeting summer-dim nights, a young Will Crockett recounts the ancient Irish saga, the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). A mysterious Celtic ring-brooch, like the one pictured below, figures into the story. Will invokes Celtic Christian blessings (old in the 1700s) as he goes about his daily life on Skye. Even a mention of aurochs, a type of wild cattle long extinct in Britain, echoes those far more ancient days.
I’d have happily (and passionately) filled the pages of A Scattering of Light with many more such references to times long before the 18th century, but that wasn’t the story I was telling. Most of A Scattering of Light unfolds on the other side of the Atlantic, in 1730s Williamsburg Virginia, where young Quaker Verity Crockett impulsively opens her home and (if she isn’t careful) her heart to Will Crockett, Skye drover, in his time of greatest need.
Is there a story landscape that’s deeply embedded in your heart? Do tell in the comments!
Here’s the Stop #9 Basics:
- If you’re interested, you can preorder A Scattering of Light on Amazon (Releasing April 13!)
- Clue to Write Down: people
- Link to Stop #10, the Next Stop on the Loop: Jill Eileen Smith’s site!
Before you go…
Check out an EXCLUSIVE FREE SNEAK PEEK of the opening scenes of A Scattering of Light!
Looks like a wonderful book. Can’t wait to read it.
Thanks Gay! Happy Hunting. 🙂
I love Stephen Lawhead’s books too! And your new book sounds great!!
Have you seen The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin on DailyWire+? We got a subscription for that one show. Worth it, I think. I’ve only waited for a show like that since 1990!
Sounds like such an intriguing book! Look forward to reading it!
Thanks Betsy. I hope you enjoy it (and don’t miss the sneak peek!). Happy Hunting!
Sounds wonderful ! Looking forward to reading it!
Thanks for stopping by and participating in the hunt. Hope you enjoy A Scattering of Light as well. Looking forward to April 13!
Thanks for the sneak peek, it sounds like a great book!
Thank you, Sabrina. Happy hunting and thanks for participating!
I’ve read several Amish books where they visit Pinecraft Florida. I love reading of the characters first impressions of the beach. The ocean and beach is my happy place.
I grew up on the east coast and we did spend some time on Florida beaches as I was growing up. Now I’m on the west coast and Oregon beaches are so very different, but still among my favorite landscapes too. Thanks for sharing and reviving many happy memories for me.
I guess two of the most embedded story landscapes for me would be either the Smoky Mountains, of the Front Range of the Rockies in Montana, the Great Falls area.
I’ve never been to the Smokies, but I have spent time in the front range near Great Falls. Mountains are some of my favorite places, so the story landscape that speaks to me in the regard is definitely Mitford NC, which is kind of based off Blowing Rock, which I visited because of that.
Sounds amazing!
Thanks Sarah. Don’t miss the sneak peek, and happy hunting!
I can’t say I have a favorite story landscape but, your new book sounds really intriguing!
Thanks Janet. I’ve been sharing about what inspired it on the blog here, and my hopes for readers going through difficult times. Don’t miss the sneak peek! Happy hunting. 🙂
I love Scotland and the Isle of Sky! I’ll be sure to read this!
Yay! It’s one of my favorite settings outside the USA. It was such fun setting so many scenes there, including the sneak peek scenes. 🙂 Happy hunting!
This looks really thrilling! And i had no idea you wrote for children as well. I will be looking for those. 🙂
Yes. I have two children’s books I wrote and illustrated. Bear Country and Larkspur. You can find them on Amazon (linked on their pages under Books here). Happy hunting on the loop!
Thanks for the sneak peek! Adding this to my TBR list.
You’re welcome, Shelley. And thanks! Happy hunting on the loop!
This is a book I’m looking forward to reading! Can’t wait!
Thanks Beverly. You are such a faithful reader and promoter. Much appreciated! Happy hunting.
Waiting on mine to arrive!
Thank you for preordering, Joyce! Happy hunting here on the loop.
Your book sounds like a great read and the cover looks intriguing!
Thanks Alicia! Hope you’ll snag a copy. Happy hunting on the loop!
I’m looking forward to reading this one! It sounds like a great story line! I would say that a story landscape that I highly enjoy is medieval and regency landscapes, wherever those genres take me – most often Scotland/Ireland and England. I have never been to any of those countries but would love to visit someday!
A reader after my own heart then. Isn’t it interesting to be drawn to landscapes we’ve never visited? I hope you’ll enjoy A Scattering of Light!
I have way too many story favorite landscapes to choose just one! Some of my favorites are the South, the West, the Beach, and the Lowcountry. Thanks for writing great books and participating in this event!
Thanks Lisa! I hope you’ve discovered many new reads to enjoy.
Looking forward to the new book. One of my favorite books is The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn! I trace my roots to the same region of colonial North Carolina where the story begins. I am fascinated by this segment of our history and the courageous people who lived and loved and fought for Freedom. Thanks for bringing history alive the way you do!
Karolyn, then who knows, we may be related. While researching TPoTL I discovered a six-times great uncle living in western NC/State of Franklin during that time period. But my direct branch of the family (his brother) stayed back east in southern VA or perhaps northern NC. I hope you enjoy A Scattering of Light. It was great fun to finally research my birth state of Virginia and set a story there (as well as on Skye).
Its been a while since I read your books, I think I shall enjoy this one!
Blessings to you
Oh I hope so! It’s certainly been a while since I gave you all one to enjoy. 🙂 BTW, one of my favorite characters in this book is called Finn. He’s the collie in the portrait on this post!