ASHEBORO, N.C. — A famous author has chosen a small Triad city for the setting of a new book and residents are excited.
Alyssa Chapuis was scrolling through social media a few months ago when she found out her hometown, Asheboro, would be the setting for a new book.
The new book was written by New York Times best-selling author Nicholas Sparks and is called Counting Miracles.
According to Visit the Heart of North Carolina the plot goes like this: Tanner Hughes, the main character in the book, comes to Asheboro to find his father and "reset his inner compass." The plot also involves a love interest.
"They have some dates, and the love interest in the story has a child, so he kind of runs around the different places at the zoo, it mentions some exhibits and they play frisbee in Bicentennial Park and go to some shops," recalled Chapuis.
Chapuis is the Public Information Officer for the City of Asheboro. She has finished her advance reader copy of the book. Without spoiling the end, she gave some insight into the places mentioned in the book like Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen.
"I like the light shed on it because it's a great place to come to eat and to volunteer and just the fellowship. So many people out there are so much appreciative of getting this one meal a day. We get so many testimonies I could probably talk all day about it," said the kitchen's President, Gene Woodle.
The Visit the Heart of North Carolina website says, in the book, Hughes visits the North Carolina Zoo and wanders through shops and storefronts in downtown Asheboro. Sparks made references to many landmarks in Asheboro in his book: including Asheboro High School and Coach's Neighborhood Grill. Uwharrie National Forest is also mentioned.
Chapuis remains hopeful the book will help bring more tourism to the Asheboro area.
"I really hope that it instills a sense of pride that such a famous author would want to choose Asheboro as a setting for the book," Chapuis continued, "So, it's really cool to just be mentioned, and we can only hope there's a movie filmed here one day."
Counting Miracles will be released on Sept. 24.