Book Blurb

My children are brilliant. I won’t even mention their tests scores or GPAs, because you probably wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I’m lying, because, after all, I do write fiction. Still, despite all their smarts, they’re lacking in experience.
For example, Jared, who graduated with all sorts of honors once said, “Make ice? You can’t make ice!” In Jared’s experience, ice comes from a lever on a refrigerator door, a machine in a hotel lobby or a soda machine. Ice tray? What’s that? And how do you get the ice out?

Natalie, who reads Austin and Dickens for breakfast once said, “There are no leaves on any of these trees! Look, not one of these trees has any leaves.” It was December and we were in Utah. Natalie had spent every winter of her life in Southern California. After all, unless you ski, why go to Utah in the winter? Unless, of course, you must. I’m sure that at some early point in Natalie’s vast and impressive education she learned about deciduous trees, but in sunny California, trees have leaves and blossoms pretty much always. In Natalie’s experience a leafless tree was a dead tree.

Lately I’ve been working self publishing my book and I’m wading in new waters. I’m discovering ice trays and barren trees. Weeks ago I set the goal to have my book up and out before my dad’s 90th birthday party. I broke the project into small goals. Finish book. Have it edited. Get feedback from readers. Write back cover blurb. Make front and back covers. I set deadlines and I made every single one.

Which means that I now have no excuses.

Except, of course, that I’m doing something that I’ve never done before. It would be comforting if I could practice, but it appears that practice swings are okay in golf and baseball, but not indie-publishing. Once I self publish, the book is out there for anyone to see. Warts and all.

Tomorrow, I’m going to self publish a short story. It’s a little less daunting than an entire novel, but until then, take a look at my blurb for STEALING MERCY and tell me what you think… before it’s too late to change.

Stealing Mercy
After a night of terror, Mercy Faye flees New York. Disguised as a boy, she sets sail for a new life in Seattle, but her nightmare, Mr. Steele, follows close behind. Armed with only her chocolates, laced tarts and wits, Mercy sets out to destroy Mr. Steele and his Lucky Island brothel.

Trent Michaels is searching for his missing cousin. He can’t afford complications--or romance--yet, at every turn he finds Mercy Faye. The night before the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, flames spark between Mercy and Trent leaving the life they know and the city they love in ashes.

Their story reaches forward through time to Bette Michaels, a genealogist, struggling with grief after the sudden death of her husband. Although generations apart, as Bette unravels Mercy’s story, she learns that a life can be rebuilt--even after everything is lost.

Through Mercy, Bette learns that sometimes the only way to find happiness is to steal it.