Published on 11/8/2006

If Mary had a midwife, this would be her tender story.

Consider the possibility that someone was sent to help at Christ's birth. A beautifully-crafted piece of historical fiction, The Innkeeper’s Wife (Shadow Mountain, hardcover $12.95) gives readers a new Christmas story and a special witness about the most important birth in the world. The author, Lynda Wilson, takes a deeper look at what could have been as she allows us to view the Nativity through the eyes of Hannah, Mary’s midwife.

The Innkeeper's Wife

Readers travel back in time with Hannah, the innkeeper’s wife, to the day when Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem. Roman decree mandated that every Judean must return to his ancestral home. With no place to stay, Mary was provided none of the customary help she should have had to give birth.

Warm and generous as always, Hannah invited the couple to stay in the stable alongside her husband’s inn. When the baby was delivered, with Hannah’s help, no one cared that they were in a stable; all were thankful that both the mother and the baby were as healthy as joy and love filled the stable.

The chapters are divided by sacred Christmas hymns that families can sing together as they read the story aloud. The book features several full-color original illustrations and is available in bookstores nationwide and on amazon.com.

About the Book:

The Innkeeper’s Wife

By Lynda M. Wilson

Illustrated by Brandon Dormon

Published by Shadow Mountain

Publication Date: October 2006

Price: $12.95

Hardcover 5 x 7 ½, 48 pages

ISBN: 1-59038-479-2

About Lynda M. Wilson

Lynda Wilson grew up in a military family and attended eleven different grade schools. It was then that books became her most confident friends. She has been writing since she was a child, recently completing a woman's scripture study of the book of Exodus. She is the founder of "Hugs Across the Miles," an organization that has sent thousands of quilts and school supplies to orphanages in Russia and Jordan. The mother of four grown children, she and her husband live in Alamo, California.