Sara Evans photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

More than three years after her world fell apart practically on a public stage, Sara Evans has re-established her personal life and now hopes to get her career chugging along at its previous pace.

In the fall of 2006, she quit “Dancing With The Stars” as her marriage to politician Craig Schelske crumbled amid a series of accusations and lawsuits. The court documents, often available online, gave plenty of fodder for gossip, and she frequently saw her name in the tabloids. Even more frequently, her own fans chose up sides and played armchair psychiatrist.

Sara’s only now starting to talk about the way her family was turned upside down and the way it challenged her as a mother.

“I am someone who is totally and utterly against divorce,” she told The Palm Beach Post. “I hate that I had to go through a divorce, but sometimes you just have no other choice. But you still have an opportunity to make it all okay for your kids, and that’s by behaving properly after your divorce, and how you talk about your ex and not putting the kids in the middle of it. I’m constantly concerned about how my children are doing, and they’ve all been in counseling. One thing I don’t do is talk bad about their dad, because I think that’s the worst thing a parent can do, and ultimately it hurts the parent who’s doing the talking. Despite divorce, the parent-child relationship should stay intact.”

A lot of things, however, have changed. She remarried to Alabama sportscaster Jay Barker, and she relocated from Nashville to Birmingham, blending their families, which include a total of seven children. She also changed management companies and just released her first novel, The Sweet By And By.

One thing has not changed: Sara still considers music her main vocational pursuit. Thanks in part to the divorce, she hasn’t released an album of all new material since Real Fine Place in 2005. But one is indeed on the way.

“I’ve written most of the songs with my producer and my brother Matt,” she said. “We have five more songs to track, and the single should be done and out by the end of February.”

She’s got a real fine place to play some of the material on the books for this summer. Sara is one of the supporting acts for Brad Paisley’s first-ever stadium date, Aug. 21 in Foxborough, Mass. Also on the bill: Jason Aldean, Darius Rucker and Easton Corbin.