Recently I met Natasha Evans on Instagram. She is the producer of The Planted Mindset Podcast. I was honored to be a guest on her podcast last week and had a wonderful time! If you’d like to listen here is the link.
Podcast Guest
Book Signing – Eyes of The Peacock
What a fun evening at KO Distilling! The hostesses were dressed in 1920’s costumes, the whiskey and drinks were fantastic and all the SCOFFLAWS were out!!!
New Release: Eyes of the Peacock
So excited to release my fourth full-length novel. This novel is set in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia in the years 2018 and 1928.
Eyes of the Peacock
Alex Rossi, a recently engaged wedding photographer, finds herself mystified after a freak accident compromises her life. While recovering, disturbing visions of a 1920s dancer haunt her and the mystery starts to bleed into her present life.
As a reoccurring vision of the dancer holding a lifeless body invades Alex’s dreams, she worries that she is losing her mind. When the past and the present merge, tensions escalate. Alex questions everything. In a twist of fate, secrets are revealed that alter the course of her life and the lives of many others.
A tale of truth, justice and eternal love.
New Audiobooks!
I am so excited to announce that Queen Anne’s Lace and The Cotton Blossom are now available in audiobook form!!
Production of the audiobooks was cool. I held auditions. And these talented ladies Emma Tigan and Sarah Nessel embodied Lacy Mitchell and Lillie Mae Parker so perfectly. For an author, it is a challenge to find just the right person that is the same as “that voice in your head,” but these two knocked it out of the park.
I hope you get a chance to enjoy these stories in whatever form you like best.
Queen Anne’s Lace Anniversary
One year ago today, I took a leap.
The leap into the unknown. It was scary and exciting all at the same time. No one really knew I was going to do it except my husband and two friends.
The lessons I have learned from what I did:
🤜Don’t wait to do something you love.
🤜Believe in yourself. AND stopping listening to that little girl in your mind wearing the FEAR shirt. (please get her out of the driver’s seat)
🤜Your job is to put your art/gifts into the world. Your job is NOT to judge them, but to set them free. They will resonate with who they are supposed to.
🤜The more you “ship” your work/talents the easier it gets.
I am thankful that one year ago I published my first novel Queen Anne’s Lace. The paper manuscript of that novel sat for 12 years on my bookshelf. Finally, after encouragement from my friends and a lot of work to get past self doubt, I published. I highly recommend Seth Godin’s book Leap First.
Just like finding a old friend again, Writing and I have become the best of friends again. I am now writing my 4th full length novel and will publish more books in 2021 and continued to publish for the rest of my life. I thank everyone that has supported me through this journey.
BUT- I want YOU to know don’t wait on doing what you want to do, what you are called to do, and what you love to do — please DO IT!!!!
Writing Research
I am busily writing my next novel. Part of this novel is set in 1928. I have loved learning about the Prohibition era. So in order to do proper research, I decided to make some of the cocktails that were created in speakeasies. This next novel will contain some of my favorite recipes for the drinks I discovered. It is important to do research; )!!
Featured on Alzheimers Author Website
When I first published my novel The Jade Butterfly, Jean from ALZ Authors reached out to me. This is a wonderful website with a collection of books (non-fiction and fiction) that have a connection to Alzheimer’s disease. I am proud to be a part of this group of authors!!
The primary reason I wrote The Jade Butterfly was to honor my grandmother, Maude. She died in the mid-1950s of breast cancer. My own mother was five when Maude passed. I always wondered about the pain of losing a mother at such a young age. The opening scene of the novel is how I imagined my grandmother to be with my mother.
Joni, one of the main characters in The Jade Butterfly, has Alzheimer’s. I believe the inspiration for bringing a dementia disease into my novel was because of my mother’s step-mother. She suffered from dementia at the end of her life. It was heartbreaking to watch my mother care for her. Close to her death, my grandmother didn’t even recognize me. And at times, she struggled to remember my mother.
There are so many levels to caregiving. I think a lot of people will identify with Ellen, Joni’s daughter in the novel. Ellen doesn’t believe she knows how to be a caregiver. And she certainly doesn’t think that she will be good at it. Caregiving is just two words: care and giving. Ellen learns her own way to care for her mother, discovers the life Joni lived before the disease and finds herself, after years of unhappiness.
My greatest hope in writing this novel was for Ellen and the readers of The Jade Butterfly to realize that the people with Alzheimer’s are NOT the disease. They lived vibrant, beautiful lives before their minds started to leave them. Of course, we should honor them where they are at present day, but we should fully celebrate and remember the beautiful life they lived.