Goodreads asked Don Phelan:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Don Phelan More than 40 years ago, I, as so many others did, carved my initials in the beech tree, a tree known by tourists and townspeople alike as the place to share their loves, their lives, their hopes and dreams beneath the tree. The tree toppled in a freak storm in 1998 but I didn't discover that until more than a decade later when I went looking for the tree. Is just sat there, on the ground where the tree once stood, and wondered, "Whatever happened to all those people; the ones who carved their initials in the tree? What were their lives like? I wonder if I ever met any of them in passing and felt a "Don't-I-know-you-from-someplace?" moment, never realizing that we had been at the same place at different times ... The Beech Tree.

So I wrote a chapter Then another. Then 46 more.

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