Salt Lake author Sarah DeFord Williams pens a mystery in her debut book

When local author Sarah DeFord Williams was 9, her love of reading took off. Classics like "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "Heidi" resonated with her in a way trendy books cannot.

"I feel like I'm going home when I'm reading those books," she said from her home in Rose Park.

So, when Williams decided to become a writer, it seemed only natural to do what felt comfortable. "I wanted to write the kind of book I would have loved as a kid," she said about her debut novel, "Palace Beautiful." "So I was kind of writing for young Sarah."

With "Palace Beautiful," Williams, who has three children of her own, set out to write a book for middle readers with a fundamental appeal that wasn't about certain styles or times but rather the basic human feelings and experiences that everyone goes through.

Set in the summer of 1985, "Palace Beautiful" is Sadie's story. Sadie has just moved from Texas to Salt Lake City and is trying to find a place to which she can escape. What she finds is a secret attic room and a journal written by a girl her own age more than 60 years ago. Both of the girls play out in the pages of Williams book.

Williams chose the year 1985 for logistical reasons. At the center of her story is a mystery, and if it had been set in 2010, getting on the Internet could have quickly solved things. To give the book the sense of suspense it needed, Williams said, it needed to take place in the age before computers.

The year 1918 also plays a large role in "Palace Beautiful." That was the year when a massive flu epidemic swept across the world. It was something Williams had never heard about until her husband mentioned it off-hand one night. "I got so curious and had to start researching it and see why something like that was forgotten."

Williams spent a lot of Saturdays at the Main City Library working on the microfilm machines. She went through every piece of Deseret News microfilm that covered the flu epidemic, which lasted about a year and a half in Salt Lake City. It was important to do, she said, because it helped her graph the events and see what cultural and social implications stemmed from it.

Because of all her research, it wasn't hard to choose the book's locale. After all, she already had a wealth of information, and many of the epidemic's victims, including her husband's grandmother, are buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.