This book, The House on Lombardy Lane, was inspired by my days as a teen in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I was disappointed when my parents, who were grocery store merchants, did not buy the house we had looked at on Lombardy Lane, Pulaski Heights, Little Rock, Arkansas, with intentions of purchasing it.

Thoughts of this house haunted me throughout my life even throughout twenty-five years of living abroad and teaching for the Department of Defense Overseas Dependent Schools throughout Europe.

My family actually bought a gorgeous house on Wolfe Street, West Little Rock, in...