Sara Brunsvold is the Christy Award–winning author of The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip and The Divine Proverb of Streusel. She creates stories that boldly engage contemporary issues through the lens of hope and unshakable faith. Her passion is to connect with readers first through books, then through meaningful conversation. She lives with her family in Kansas.
Sara talks about the healing and reconciliation her character experiences through books and literature, and how her own experiences influenced this theme in her new book, The Atlas of Untold Stories.
FF: Can you provide a brief summary of your new novel, The Atlas of Untold Stories?
The book is about mothers and daughters and the stories that knit them together. Chloe Vance searches for a way to tell her overprotective mother, Edie, that she has landed a dream job in Prague. Her solution is to open her mom up to adventure by taking her on a road trip through America’s heartland, focusing on places associated with authors or books. Her mom, distrustful of Chloe’s seat-of-the-pants style, agrees to go only if the oldest and highly responsible Vance daughter, Lauren, goes too. What ensues is nine days of exploring American literature from three very different perspectives—and discovering how these stories unlock their own.
FF: What inspired you to create a story centered on a literary road trip through America’s heartland?
As a proud, book-loving Midwesterner, I have visited many of the literary sites featured in The Atlas of Untold Stories. I’ve witnessed how these sites and their related books bring people together. I was born and raised near Hannibal, Missouri, where Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) spent his boyhood and set his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Every year, thousands of people from all over the world come to Hannibal, each having experienced Twain’s work from their own unique vantage point. It’s fascinating. As I considered how many literary sites the middle of the country boasts and how much potential each site has to bring forward visitors’ untold stories, the idea for this book came together.
FF: How do the specific literary works the characters explore correspond with the struggles they go through?
Stories help us see ourselves and our circumstances in new ways. Each of the Vance women has a different level of appreciation for and familiarity with the literary works, but invariably, at least one of them finds a connection point to her own experience. For instance, Lauren, who is hiding the fact she was recently fired, finds a model of strength in the life story of Willa Cather and her O Pioneers! character Alexandra Bergson. Chloe is drawn to the vivid imagination of L. Frank Baum and hopes their visit to the OZ Museum in Kansas will ignite grace for dreamers like her within her pragmatic mom and sister. And Edie, who has never read Joan Lowery Nixon’s middle-grade novels about the orphan train movement, is confronted by her unresolved feelings of childhood abandonment when they visit the National Orphan Train Museum and Complex. Each work of literature helps at least one character discover the words to express how she is feeling or a new way to view her struggle.
FF: The Atlas of Untold Stories features three women in the same family dealing with change and their own personal challenges. What made you want to explore these varying perspectives?
Differing perspectives create conflict, but they can also be a source of pivotal discovery. It’s tempting to see someone only for the beliefs they hold and categorize them accordingly, but when we go below the surface level to empathetically understand how they came to hold that viewpoint, we realize how nuanced people really are. Edie, for instance, has some pretty staunch views that can be off-putting to her daughters. But when her daughters consider where those views came from, it changes their estimation of her. They relate to her more. That’s a beautiful thing, in fiction and in life.
FF: How does the women’s shared appreciation for literature help them navigate their transitions?
As the road trip unfolds, the Vance women begin to anticipate that literature will help them better understand themselves and each other. By opening up their minds to fictional models of how to navigate challenges and conflict, they open up their minds to how they can grow and effect positive change in their own lives.
FF: Edie does not want anything else in her life to change. How does this affect her character development?
Edie has gone through some hard things with her own mother and sister, so her desire for stability when it comes to her daughters is a driving force. But sometimes change is not only good, it’s healthy, and she wrestles with that tension. As a mother to two teenage daughters, I found myself relating to Edie in a lot of ways. Every mother of adult or nearly adult children can sympathize with the turmoil Edie experiences.
FF: How did you balance the road trip elements with the deep emotional themes of the story?
The road trip elements often serve as comic relief from the deep emotional themes. From contending with the lack of air-conditioning in Chloe’s yellow SUV to surviving a stock tank float in Nebraska to a climb up a questionably secure observation tower in Branson, the road-trip memories the Vance women make together help propel the emotional growth they experience.
FF: Your stories often have intergenerational themes. What inspired you to explore family relationships?
My daughters were my biggest source of inspiration for The Atlas of Untold Stories. The book is dedicated to them and releases almost exactly one year before my oldest graduates from high school. This season of motherhood is a weird, vigorous mix of excitement, nostalgia, unexpected joy, sometimes regret, and constant learning to entrust my children to God. It makes me all the more empathetic toward my own mom and reflective of our relationship. I write to process, and this book helped me explore the evolving dynamic between mothers and daughters from both sides.
FF: What messages do you hope readers, particularly mothers and daughters, get out of this story?
I hope readers come away with a desire for connection with the women in their families. Family is a gift that is sometimes hard to receive but always worth embracing.
FF: What are you working on next?
I am writing a contemporary women’s novel about a woman searching for her place in her church community after chronic illness changes everything.
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The Atlas of Untold Stories
Sara Brunsvold
Publisher: Revell
Genre: Contemporary
Release Date: June 17, 2025
Available Formats: Paperback, Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
ASIN: 0800746120
ISBN-13: 978-0800746124
Book Summary:
A literary journey beckons them . . . and may profoundly rewrite their stories.
Chloe Vance, dreamer of the family, needs to tell her pragmatic mom, Edie, that she has accepted a low-paying art instructor role at a Christian school in Prague. Her older sister, Lauren–the “responsible one”–is doing all she can to hide the fact she’s been fired for a foolish mistake and is desperately seeking her next career move. Meanwhile, Edie, estranged from her own sister following their mother’s recent death, is frankly in no mood for anything else to change.
The one thing they can all agree on? Life in books sure is easier to navigate than life in the real world. As the three women embark on a nine-day road trip to visit significant literary sites throughout America’s heartland, they hope to find inspiration through the works and lives of literary greats. As they experience firsthand the adventure and wonder of the classics, they’ll discover the value of being honest with themselves–and their family–about their losses and failures. Only then can they come to terms with their own needs and desires and find support from the most important women in their lives–each other.
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