Best-selling author Lisa Wingate’s The Prayer Box has traveled across the country ahead of its Sept. 1 release. Seventeen early copies of the Tyndale House Publishers novel have been part of a promotion dubbed “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Book.”

Winners were chosen from contest entrants to become early readers of the novel. Participants were arranged in special “Sister Circles,” each of which shared one copy of the book that traveled by mail. Members of the Sister Circles snapped photos of their favorite reading spots while they “owned” the book and jotted their thoughts in the margins, leaving a trail of reactions, personal epiphanies and memories triggered by the story.

The books have been read on beaches, in mountain vacation cabins and in backyard reading spots around the U.S. and in two other countries.

“What it really made me realize is that stories are so much richer when we share them,” she added. “In reality, no two readers read the same book because we each filter through the glass of our own life experiences. The Sisters looked forward to each other’s reactions as much as they looked forward to the story, and their comments show how much personal experience a reader brings to a book.”

At the end of summer, the traveling books began returning back to Texas. The first copy arrived during the premier book event, “Cooking the Book,” held at the Gourmet Gallery in Waco, where guests dined on banana beignets and baked crabcakes, inspired by the food in the novel. The first book to return was hand-delivered by Melanie Backus and Britney Adams, who made a special trip from East Texas to turn in their book. So far, seven of the Traveling Books have found their way home.

This week the books will be hitting the road again, leaving on The Untold Story Book Tour, as Wingate travels through 10 states in the Southeast.

“The Prayer Box is a novel about the untold story of a woman’s life, as discovered through the 81 prayer boxes  found in her home after she’s gone,” Wingate said. The story written in her prayer letters changes and enriches the lives of the people around her. I think that’s why we need to do everything we can to preserve the sharing of stories within our families, our communities and our culture. After we’re gone, our stories are the portion of our lives that survives, that travels with the people we’ve known and loved. If our stories are lost, we’re lost with them.”

Learn more at www.ThePrayerBoxBook.com.

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