For a while, I’d been kicking around the idea of creating a fictional smallish town in West Michigan, interested in telling the stories of people living life while exploring faith, taking a page out of Stephen King’s playbook with Castle Rock, Maine, and John Grisham’s Clanton, Mississippi.

Then the Great Pandemic of 2020 hit!

Thus was born Mill Creek Junction.

These first four start smack-dab in the middle of what we’d all been going through—with all the comedy and tragedy, the revealed messiness of humanity and discovered sacredness of the Lord’s movement in our lives during one of the most defining year of our collective pilgrim journey. I mean, seriously: What better way to launch a new story world than during a pandemic?

This first collection of stories introduces the characters who started it all: Max Blade, Gideon O’Donnell, Old Man Nugent, and Mayor Charles “Chet” Goodall and his wife Millie. I hope you find some of your own story in theirs, while being entertained and inspired for the journey.