This shoreline inspires painters and photographers, songwriters and storytellers alike. Even in the coldest winters, sports lovers like skiers, snowmobilers, and dog sledders see the North Shore as a canvas for adventure.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. The North Shore is a special place. It has a way of getting under your skin and staying there, shaping the people who live here and the ones who only pass through or eagerly return time and time again.
I count myself lucky to live in a place that still feels wild and beautiful every time I step outside. Now that same landscape is the setting of Maren’s Team, the newest novel by author Debra Hines, who, despite traveling the world and living in many different states, calls the North Shore her “happy place.”
“We have some good friends that live in Castle Danger,” Hines said, who currently lives in Iowa. “We’ve spent several summers up there as their guests. It’s my happy place. I just love it up there.”
That connection to the area eventually led Hines to a story centered on sled dog racing, a world she knew little about when she first began writing.
“I’d heard about the Iditarod,” she said. “I just knew it was a really big race up in Alaska. But that’s about all I knew about it.”
The idea for the novel took shape after conversations with friends who had watched the local sled dog races.
“They watched the sled dogs run in Two Harbors and said I should write a book about that,” Hines said. “So, I started it and as I was doing research, I just got completely hooked.”
Hines attended the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon vet checks in 2022.
“That really hooked me,” she said. “That was great because we got to talk to the mushers and we could see the dogs and we could pet some of the dogs.”
In addition to attending races, Hines read firsthand accounts from mushers and followed both the Iditarod and John Beargrease closely as she worked to capture the culture accurately.
Maren’s Team follows Maren, a determined musher chasing her dream, and Seth, a childhood friend she reconnects with after years apart. Hines said she does not outline her stories in advance, instead allowing her characters to develop as she writes.
“I’m not a plotter,” she said. “What ends up happening is I kind of get to know my characters when I’m writing my first draft.”
In addition to Maren’s Team, Hines is also part of the Aspen Gold shared world, a collaborative fiction series created by a small group of writers who developed a fictional Colorado town together over several years. Working within the shared setting requires careful coordination, with authors maintaining a detailed guide to locations and characters to ensure consistency across books.
“It’s a challenge,” Hines said, noting that while creative differences occasionally arise, the group’s longstanding relationships and mutual trust allow them to resolve issues and keep the series moving forward.
Strong female leads and second chances are recurring themes in her work.
“I like adventurous, strong women characters,” Hines said. “And I like second chances because if you make a mistake or if something doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean you can’t find a fulfilling relationship in the future.”
While romance plays a role in the story, Hines said she wanted the adventure of sled dog racing to take center stage.
“I didn’t want it to be like a formula type romance or a Hallmark movie romance,” she said. “Once I got involved in the mushing aspect and the races and reading about the things that can happen on a race, there’s plenty of adventure there.”
Although Maren’s Team centers on sled dogs, Hines said she did not originally consider herself a dog person. She grew closer to dogs while staying with her daughter’s family during the COVID pandemic, forming a bond with their husky mix, Drake, who even appears on the back cover of the book. That experience helped shape how she wrote the dogs in the story.
“Every dog has a different personality,” Hines said. “To me, they’re like little kids.”
Hines will share more about her writing process, her research, and the world of sled dog racing during upcoming visits to the Two Harbors Public Library at 2 PM and Silver Bay Public Library at 5 PM on Friday, January 23.
“I’ve presented the program at several of the local libraries and I’ve gotten a good response,” she said. “It kind of just gained momentum. It’s exciting.”
Her presentation includes a visual slideshow and focuses on the Iditarod, the John Beargrease, and the relationship between mushers and their dogs.
“I really focus on the Iditarod,” she said. “Then I talk about the Beargrease as being one of the qualifying races. And then I talk about the dogs and a little bit about the mushers.”
After reading Maren’s Team, Hines said she hopes readers come away feeling connected to both the characters and the culture behind the story.
“I hope that they feel like they’ve gotten to know two people and their families,” she said. “And I hope that it also kind of makes them want to explore dog sledding or look at it from a different angle. And the whole musher culture too.”
Whether readers come for the adventure, the romance, or the behind-the-scenes look at sled dog racing, Hines said she hopes Maren’s Team offers a story that resonates beyond the finish line.
