My Books and Stories
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Moon Glow
“Moon Glow really stuck with me… a very spiritual book about a simple life filled with regular emotions – fear, joy, dread, sadness, and just simple existing. It comforted me. I felt empathy for our heroine…happiness for her life and her successes. I connected with her on her likes and coping skills and the way she connected with others. I felt inspired by her management style.”
Annie Ridgell, Cottonwood, AZ
Moon Glow is a story about a young woman and her path to self-discovery in the midst of fear, anxiety and uncertainty….
Sara Flanagan had made great progress, rising to Assistant Branch Manager at a Chicago bank. And now a promotion to run her own branch brought with it a move to the suburbs. Recovering from a failed relationship with her superior, she put the past behind her to make a fresh start.
She had scarcely gotten settled when the trouble started. Funds went missing from the bank and an investigation ensued. Sara was right in the middle of finding and fixing the problem. Could the Assistant Manager be complicit in the theft? Would the affair with her former boss have a negative impact on her reputation and professional advancement or even threaten to end her career?
Meanwhile, significant changes in her personal life added to her stress and anxiety. Concern about the health and safety of her aging parents mixed with guilt that they wanted more of her time than she could give. Alone and isolated in a new community, she had just begun to make new friends and social connections including a new man she found irresistibly attractive.
Uncertainty clouded every aspect of Sara’s life, at times leaving her almost beyond her ability to cope. Her days and nights were marked by worry and fear, relieved by intervals of joy and emotional release. Her challenge was to find the way through – and out – to having the happy, meaningful life she’d always wanted.
“I had a variety of emotions throughout Moon Glow. Sara pulled me in with her lifestyle choices and wanting to start again in a new place with no friends and a new position. She was a character to rally for and seemed like a real person… her fears and anxieties seemed realistic and I understood from an emotional level how she was growing and making healthy decisions for herself… I cared about what happened to her and the people in her life.”
Moira Revette, Phoenix, AZ
The Hobo Shack Synopsis
“The Hobo Shack,” won the 2017 Tempe Community Writing Contest for adult fiction. Inspired by the song, “Jenny Dreamed of Trains,” on an Ann Percival album that reminded me of growing up in rural Illinois.
In the short story, Jenny, a young adolescent girl, and her friend search for something to do on a lazy summer day. They bicycle to the creek and the train trestle nearby, where they spot an old abandoned house. Her friend says hobos hang out there and is afraid to go near it. Jenny’s curiosity and compassion lead her to risk danger in an effort to help.
“The Hobo Shack” is published in the Tempe Writers’ Forum , Volume 3, April 2017 and is available at the Tempe Library or at http://www.tempelibrary.gov/writingcontest.
Family Secrets
When Elaine Wright dies, friends and colleagues gather to remember the reclusive woman. Real estate agent, Mike Montgomery purchases the unclaimed property to rehab and resell for a profit. When he enters the house, a chill races up his back. Though covered in dust, not a thing appears to be out of place, as if someone had stepped out to run an errand. He’s spooked by the scene of her fall in the bathroom that took her life. As he nears completion of renovations to the house and yard, he is totally unprepared for the mystery he uncovers.
My short story “Family Secrets” is featured in the Fall 2019 Blue Guitar magazine. See the link below for a free download!
http://www.theblueguitarmagazine.org/resources/Blue+Guitar+Fall+2019_Enjoy$21.pdf