Donna VanLiere is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Christmas Hope series, with over 2 million books in print. Her next novel in this series, The Christmas Secret (304p, St.Martins Press) , combines the heartbreaking with the humorous to tell a story that illuminates the true meaning of Christmas. Q. What inspired the storyline of The Christmas Secret? A. I know several single mothers (my own sister is a single mother) and I watch how they struggle and try to juggle every aspect of life. A couple of those women have had horrendous ex-husbands and I’ve sat alongside of them as they cry and try to cope with all the emotions involved in that fractured relationship. Being a single mother is the most difficult job on earth! Q. You deal with some difficult subjects: grief, heartbreak, even drug addiction. How do you handle writing about these topics? A. I pull from real people who have walked down similar roads. My husband and I are currently walking alo