📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Mary Lawlor, Author of Fighter Pilot's Daughter #abookishword

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Mary Lawlor, author of Fighter Pilot's Daughter.  Mary is author of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter (Rowman & Littlefield 2013, paper 2015), Public Native America (Rutgers Univ. Press 2006), and Recalling the Wild (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Big Bridge and Politics/Letters. She studied the American University in Paris and earned a Ph.D. from New York University. She divides her time between an old farmhouse in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a cabin in the mountains of southern Spain. You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

  

 

In the book, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War tells the story of Mary Lawlor’s dramatic, roving life as a warrior’s child. A family biography and a young woman’s vision of the Cold War, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter narrates the more than many transfers the family made from Miami to California to Germany as the Cold War demanded. Each chapter describes the workings of this traveling household in a different place and time. The book’s climax takes us to Paris in May ’68, where Mary—until recently a dutiful military daughter—has joined the legendary student demonstrations against among other things, the Vietnam War. Meanwhile her father is flying missions out of Saigon for that very same war. Though they are on opposite sides of the political divide, a surprising reconciliation comes years later.

Read sample here.

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is available at Amazon.

Remembering the 60s and the Cold War 

for Fighter Pilot's Daughter 

 

By Mary Lawlor 

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter was one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever undertaken. It was also probably the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself. Putting the book together was like a process of self-therapy: it had a powerful stabilizing effect that stays with me now. Part of this came with the clear account the research and the writing made of my family’s zigzagging past.

Like most military families, we moved a lot (fourteen times before I graduated from high school). And like other Army fathers, my Dad was away often. My mother and sisters and I would worry about his safety, especially when he was flying in war zones. He would write my mother fairly regularly for a while, then his communications would dwindle off under the weight of more pressing matters close at hand. This would leave us wondering how he was, and I often had nightmares of him being captured, imprisoned…

In spite of the fact that we missed him fiercely, Dad’s homecomings weren’t as easy as we expected them to be. Familiar as he was, his tall frame in the doorway and his blaring blue eyes with that far-away look were strange and frightening. After a while, we’d get used to him; but I wonder how long it would take him to get used to being home. He’d been in such a different, all-male world where violence reigned. At home, there were only women. My mother and sisters and I knew little about what he’d been through, not just because we were too young to know but because a lot of what he’d been up to was secret.

We never talked about any of this, so our house was a tense, uneasy place when Dad came home. Indigenous people in many parts of the world have rituals for bringing warriors home—practices aimed at diminishing the potency of trauma and other effects of prolonged exposure to violence. I guess we’re starting to see something like this in the debriefings and psychological attention given to soldiers and marines returning from war. But in the sixties there wasn’t anything like it. Dads just came home, still warriors, and now being asked not to be.

The story of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter had to have a plot—not just the order of our moves but the dramas that accompanied them. It was difficult enough getting all my father’s military records so I could see the the crazy chain of our moves from one place to another. It was even harder to go back into memories that reawakened painful feelings of confusion and anxiety that came with being new all the time. All those scenes where I was a stranger and everybody else belonged still stung.

Making a story out my family life meant describing my parents, sisters, and myself as if we were characters. I had to give physical portraits, convey personalities and make us say things. The truth had to be the first priority, but the truth can be messy. These portraits had to be shaped so readers could make sense of who I was talking about. I think human character is, in the end, more complex than any literary character. Picturing human beings in their ordinary rawness is very difficult. A reader needs a writer to give their literary characters more specific shape and continuity than most of us usually have—features that allow a reader to recognize a person from one page to the next. In memoirs and biographies, those shapes and continuities have to be made from real materials—the habits and speech styles and surprising ticks of real human beings. So my family members and me ended up appearing in the book in more definitive shape than we actually had. Still, these descriptions adhered to the truth of my memory as much as I could make them.

Writing Fighter Pilot’s Daughter gave me a chance to air the ragged feelings still running in my brain and heart from those days long ago. Some of these feelings had to do with the work my father did. As a teenager, I had a hard time understanding how I felt or should feel about the things he did as a warrior. When I went away to college, I drifted from my parents and made friends with people in left political groups and the anti-Vietnam War movement. In Paris, in May of 1968, I participated in demonstrations against, among other things, the war my father was fighting At the time, he was posted outside Saigon. When I saw him again, the tension between us was almost too much. We had heated arguments, and then for a long we didn’t speak. Much later my parents and I got to be very close, and I’m deeply grateful for that. Being retired from military life, Dad had changed dramatically.

I wanted to write about all this so I could sort out those powerful emotions that were still with me. I hope Fighter Pilot’s Daughter strikes a chord with other military kids. And I hope it gives readers in general a better understanding of what military kids go through. When I tell people I grew up in an Army family, they often say Was it like “The Great Santini”? It’s surprising how often people ask that. The answer is no. Santini was an abusive father, and while many soldier fathers are professionally familiar with violence, they don’t necessarily bring it home with them. Pat Conroy, author of The Great Santini tells a great story, but as he says himself it’s his story, not a representative account of military family life. His book is is one of the few that features a Marine Corps pilot, his wife and children as the central characters, so it often gets taken as a model of military family life.

I hope readers of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter see that there are other ways of describing domestic life for service families. Many of the biggest difficulties for spouses and children are built into the structures of everyday life in military environments. I hope readers take from my book a sense of how complicated it is to maintain a healthy, optimistic family life when you’re having to move all the time and when a parent has to spend long months away from home on deployments. For all the good or ill the armed services might do for America, they can bear down hard on the lives of soldiers’ wives as kids. And they can make make their lives wildly interesting, as I hope Fighter Pilot’s Daughter shows.

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Emily Astillberry, Author of The Essence of Bliss #abookishword

 

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Emily Astillberry, author of The Essence of Bliss. Emily is an author and RSPCA Inspector from Norfolk, England. She has a degree in English Literature and Linguistics from York University and has been investigating animal cruelty and neglect and rescuing sick and injured animals for 20 years. In her day job, Emily deals with very difficult and often emotional situations and meets all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Her career provides some of the inspiration for themes and characters that can be found in her fictional work.

At home, in a very old cottage in the country, Emily has a husband, 5 children, a dog, a cat, an axolotl, 2 giant African land snails and a varying number of rescue hens, so finding time to write can be a challenge. She is happiest outdoors, growing fruit and vegetables in the garden, walking the dog and family holidays usually involve walking up mountains in summer, skiing down them in winter and sleeping in a tent whenever possible.

Emily loves spending time with her large, noisy, chaotic family, cooking meals for friends and playing board games. She always has at least one book on the go and has always dreamed of writing her own novel. She now dreams of writing more. 

Visit her website at https://emilyastillberry.com. 

You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

In the book, Isabel Bliss is a reception class teacher. She experiences other people’s emotions and can influence how they feel but she doesn’t truly understand her gift and has been encouraged, by her mum, to hide it from others. She often feels lost and alone. When a child in her class experiences chronic distress that only she can perceive, Isabel uses her ability to relieve his suffering, but his situation continues to worsen. Eventually she is forced to take matters into her own hands, escorting him home where she finds horrific signs of abuse. She saves his mum’s life and his father is arrested for the brutal torture he has inflicted upon his family.  A wealthy family moves to town and Isabel meets the two sons. She recoils from Daniel, who is hateful, rude and emotionally deficient but is inexorably drawn to Scott, who awakens something magical, deep inside her. They are like her. They are fluencers and have the ability to sense, read and willfully manipulate emotional energies. Isabel confronts her mum and uncovers hurtful lies and deceit within her own family. 

She falls deeply in love and ultimately discovers the untold potential of her gift and the passion and power that dwells within.

Read a sample here.

The Essence of Bliss is available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

The Inspiration Behind The Essence of Bliss

By Emily Astillberry

The Essence of Bliss is an emotional rollercoaster, an exploration of human emotion wrapped up in a story that will make you examine those big questions, such as chance, choice and destiny. It began with a concept, a something that would give me magic to work with, whilst allowing me to establish the rest of the narrative in the real world. That’s what I wanted, a story set in a town of real people living ordinary lives, characters, themes and development that would be relatable to my readers, with a twist, a frisson of otherworldliness that is enchanting enough to transport them towards a hint of fantasy.

I always knew that I wanted to write something emotional. I believe that our potential to feel - to love, to hate, to fear, to desire, is one of the things that sets us apart and gives us humanity. Whenever I fall in love with a book, and when I think back to all of the books that have moved me the most, it is the characters and the relationships between those characters that makes a good story, great. I read and love books from all sorts of genres but it is human emotion that I find most compelling.

My leading lady, Isabel Bliss, became the focus of my concept. She is, for the most part, a normal person, leading a normal life. She has a family, a boyfriend, a best friend and a job that she loves and is great at. However, Isabel also has something that sets her apart from anyone she has ever met, she has an extraordinary relationship with human emotions. She can feel emotional energy, be impacted by it, experience and influence the emotions of the people around her. Due to her gift, and her inability to control it satisfactorily, Isabel has learned that being around children can be easier for her. She has found that children’s emotions tend to be more simple, purer and easier to understand and manage than those of many adults, hence her career as a primary school teacher. 

Once I had my concept and my protagonist, I needed a story. I wanted my readers to explore the potential of Isabel’s gift alongside her, which is why The Essence of Bliss became a first person narrative, a journey of discovery for Isabel, peppered with twists and turns that I hope will surprise, upset and delight. I started to craft the story around her, following her as she deals with a pretty horrific situation involving a little boy in her class, and then discovers a huge betrayal in her life and a whole world of possibility that will change her forever.

As this is my debut novel, I had no idea what my writing process would be like. I didn’t know if I should make a plan or just start writing and see what happened, whether I should draft out the plot or just wing it, and how much research I would need to do. What I did know was that I had a story in me and I needed to get on and get it out. I had been waiting for the right time to start writing and in the meantime I had grown up, settled into a wonderful career, fallen in love, got married, had 5 children, a menagerie of rescued animals and a dilapidated 250 year old cottage that needs regular propping up. I realised that the right time would never come. The RIght Time, is a concept that doesn’t exist, not in my world anyway, and I needed to stop making excuses and start writing.

I did, and I loved every moment of the writing process. Due to my hectic life, finding the time to produce a six hundred and something page long novel took over three years, snatching moments, committing to periods of time and neglecting my poor family but I got there in the end. I have a double camping chair and I did most of my writing, sitting on it in the garden, me at one end and my dog, Bobby, on the other. I had an idea of where I wanted the story to go and I made copious notes, timelines, pages of character statistics and information, chapter lists etc but I was amazed at how organic the actual writing ended up being. Characters started to write themselves and things started happening that I had never planned. I would picture a scene in my head, when I was out on a dog walk or driving between jobs at work, and I would let it play out, watch and listen to what my characters did and said and then quickly jot it down on one of my many notes pages.

One of my favourite discoveries was Isabel’s mum, Bethany Bliss. She started out as a supporting character, but as I wrote, she became much more. Her eccentricities and complexities had to come from somewhere and so she ended up, not only with a much bigger role in the novel than I had anticipated, but also with a full back story that I hope to be able to tell in a prequel novel one day. I have so many ideas for more stories set in Isabel’s world, I hope I have the opportunity to make them a reality. I am currently well on the way to producing the sequel, The Essence of Insanity and am excited to be able to share it with the world next year.

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Paula Onohi Omokhomion, Author of Shape of the Sun #abookishword

 

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Paula Omokhomion, author of SHAPE OF THE SUN.  

 

Paula Omokhomion is a Master of Public Policy student at the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, though she’s fairly certain that won’t be forever. She holds a B.S. in Public Health Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where she also minored in Creative Writing (Fiction) and graduated with highest honors for her 120-page thesis novella, New Age Taffeta.

Paula developed her skills and love for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family, including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.

Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

The Inspiration Behind Shape of the Sun

By Paula Omokhomion

Shape of the Sun was really inspired by how fiction canon traditionally does not express male leads in an unflattering manner, and going further, how some actually have male leads that do terrible things but put in major efforts to compensate for it, which could come off as whitewashing in realtime. Raj, SOTS’ male

lead really is that central character that is by no means misunderstood and is particularly consciously unreliable. There is also meta-fictional commentary on whether romance can really wipe out negativity as well as the effect of family neglect and performative masculinity. 

Like for instance, what is it like if the nice guy isn’t actually nice or how do we deal with a villain that we can see being molded into that in real-time, but at the same time isn’t some hidden innocent or wholesome person. There’s all these contradictions in traditional fiction roles, and that was intentional because in real life, there are many people whose lives mirror that of what leads are especially if they have everything that anyone would want, but at the same time, do not have the traditional main character energy of being Mary Sue or just kind and bright and always willing to help and so on. If you think about it, these sort of people are underrepresented, at least in my perspective. 

Summarily, I was most interested in a honest male lead, especially since the grace that extended to male leads are usually not granted their female counterparts. So here was a dude who was thrown by the author under the lamp to be scrutinized. 

I also think that it was interesting writing characters that are majorly high-income or part of high-society in one way or the other. In that way, we have a good view at the rot that might come with wealth, and the struggle is less of fighting against the system and more of fighting against oneself to thrive or not to thrive within the system. 

Concerning the publication process, I got self-published through Draft2Digital, which is a very cost-effective and proactive way of getting your work out there and on different retail platforms. I didn’t really think traditional publishing matched with my intent for SOTS which was a very independent and small work. 

I hope everyone enjoys reading it, and I am always open to feedback. Happy reading!

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Christopher Kaufman, Author of Tales of the Ocean City #abookishword

 

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Christopher Kaufman, author of TALES OF THE OCEAN CITY.  

Christopher Kaufman is an author, composer, presenter, illustrative artist and performer. He started imaginative fantasy books with illustrative art at the age of nine. During high school years he found music and attended The New Orleans Center for The Creative Arts and went on to major in music composition in college. He finished his schooling – earning his DMA in music composition at Cornell University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize Winning composers who prize his abilities as a composer.

Christopher is the type of person who needs imaginative fantasy scenarios to get to sleep. Therefore, he emerged from Cornell, not only with his degrees in music, but with the full event structure for his classic epic fantasy series Tales Of The Ocean City in his mind.

He began writing the story down in the early 2000’s, but it did not really come to life until he developed his home music ‘laboratory’ and started creating the music and text at the same time. Thus books one and two of TOC came about simultaneously as both graphically illustrated pages and effulgent audio albums filled with cinematic epic symphonic music.

They exist now as physical books and audio albums (that go together) and the new Video Book version.  He performs live tours with the music pouring through speakers, live narration and the colorful pages streaming on screen – a true immersive multi-media experience.

He also maintains his career as a composer for the concert stage with a full body of work, from solo works thru orchestral. He specializes as well in ‘environmental works’ which feature soundscapes crafted from hundreds of natural sounds, live musicians (from soloists, chamber groups and to full orchestra), videos filled with both natural and artistic images and readings from the works of John Muir and others.

Kaufman’s books feature full-page graphic illustration and go-with audio albums filled with epic cinematic music, narration and sound design.  All available, with generous discount packages, at kaufmantales.com (epubs and the new Video  Book version available there!).

His author page is talesoftheoceancity.com.

His you-tube channel is SOUNDARTUS.

Visit him at Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/talesoftheoceancity.

Christopher believes in the transformative power of imagination.

“Live with imagination!”

The Inspiration Behind Tales of the Ocean City

By Christopher Kaufman

First, I would like to share that I am a creative artist of long standing. I have my ongoing classical epic fantasy series, Tales Of The Ocean City, music works for the classical concert stage and film, and ‘environmental works’ featuring live performance and soundscapes crafted from hundreds of natural sounds. I also have family audience-based theatrical works which, like Tales Of The Ocean City, are simultaneously books with colorful illustration where each

page is a work of art, effulgent audio albums filled with cinematic/symphonic music, performance films and concert performance pieces. My readings performances of TOC feature live narration as the graphically illustrated pages stream on screen and the music pours through speakers.

I began writing fantasy stories with colorful illustrations when I was nine years old. Later, as a young student at The New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, I discovered music; there I played oboe and piano, sang bass solos in Handel’s Messiah and began composing. I continued my schooling in music all the way through a Doctorate in Music Composition (Cornell University) and followed that with leading a performing arts group titled CHIRON Performing Arts - through which I’ve presented the work of hundreds of artists of all disciplines. Later, I founded a series titled The Phantastic Theater - new music for people of all ages all at once, where I find creative ways to present new music and art and for which I’ve created and produced my theatrical pieces mentioned above.

All through the years of music school my stories never left me.  

I am the type of person that needs to dive into imaginative fantasy scenarios every night to get

to sleep.  So, I finished my schooling phase with my music degrees and the vast event structure for Tales Of The Ocean City - through book eight, which I am completing now!

I started writing down these stories in the early 2000’s, but it was only when I initiated my home music ‘lab’ and began creating the text, music and narration at the same time that I found my voice as a storyteller. After two Audio Albums (TOC books 1-2), and then adding the element of the graphically illustrated pages filled with art and color, the style for these works was established.

Tales Of The Ocean City tells the tale of a young civilization turning the corner into the future. The city as a whole must do this by facing a terrible enemy from the deepest past, The Vorm - with whom they co-evolved in ages past on their ancestral isle. The main characters are young Harl’ut and his lifelong companion, Vispushin - who is a perianth (a kind of telepathic pegasus).  They are very close, like family. They speak to each other mind-to-mind.  Harl’ut too must face the past.  At the end of book two he undergoes an initiation adventure where he descends into the volcanic mountain, Pla’than’taa - from the belly of which The Ocean City was delved. There, he interacts with personifications of past god-like figures and battles a terrific monster. He then leads a cadre of young warriors into the Vorm Hive on a vital mission.

My work as a composer has informed my storytelling.  In musical harmony you have chords with great tension that resolve (cadence) into more consonant ones.  In TOC there are situations of conflict that resolve, such as the visceral battle scene of book one that ends with a heightened and inspiring resolution. Music has given me a strong sense of pacing. I know when to write short, direct sentences to move the action (of which there are tons) at a terrific pace, and when to take time and paint a glorious picture.

I believe in the transforming power of imagination. This is a theme that runs throughout all of my creative projects. I hope that the experience of my stories helps people see, hear and live with imagination more fully - this is the cure for all that ails us. 

I would like to acknowledge the writers that have informed my work and imaginative life and to whom I am eternally grateful; Tolkien, Lovecraft, McCaffrey, Dunsany, Lewis and my favorite,  Lloyd Alexander - who spoke about writing for adults for many years and enjoying it, yet, when he started writing for young people, the emotions became deeper and more powerful, not less so.

This may be why my Tales Of The Ocean City appeals, not only to YA audiences, but to Adult Fantasy Lovers as well.

Thanks for tagging along! Live with Imagination! 

See you in the places Beyond The Fields We Know, to paraphrase Dunsany.

Christopher Kaufman

My works are available at kaufmantales.com.

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Jayne Lisbeth, Author of Raising the Dead #abookishword

 

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Jayne Lisbeth, author of RAISING THE DEAD.  

Jayne Lisbeth was born in NYC and continued her life’s journey from Long Island, to New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, California and Tampa, all places featured prominently in her writing.  Her first book, a memoir, Writing In Wet Cement has been published internationally by London based publisher, Austin Macauley. Jayne’s second book, Raising the Dead, a work of historical fiction, mystery, friendship and the supernatural, was published in 2023, also by Austin Macauley.  Ms. Lisbeth publishes monthly “Food for Thought” blogs on her website, Jaynelisbeth.com. Her “Food for Thought” blogs are based on her reflections of  life, friendship, love, and topical subjects of interest. Ms. Lisbeth’s non-fiction, poetry, and short stories have been published from Vermont to California to Tampa, Florida where she has received awards at the local level. She has been published locally in Pages of Our Life, volumes I and II which is currently part of the USF, Tampa, Geriartic Studies Programs. Ms. Lisbeth’s short stories have been published in the LEC Phoenix Anthologies, 2015-2023. Jayne’s interests include writing, reading, exploring, traveling, calligraphy, gravestone rubbing, entertaining and cooking.  Jayne’s author’s website is Jaynelisbeth.com. Ms. Lisbeth and her artist husband, Tim Gibbons, are the owners and founders of Funky As A Monkey Art Studio, providing art in public places and launching new and emerging artists in exhibiting their art.

Author Links  

Website | Amazon Website | Publisher’s Website | Facebook | Instagram

The Inspiration Behind Raising the Dead

By Jayne Lisbeth

The story behind all my books focuses on the evolution and distillation of women’s lives through their loves and friendships. This is the engine that steers the ship of words I sail on. 

There are several backstories to Raising the Dead. First is my lifelong obsession with cemeteries. Their peacefulness has always beckoned me, their silent beauty. The many stories under, and on, tombstones, goads my imagination. My favorite hobby is creating gravestone rubbing prints, combining my love of history and art. I discover stories under and above each tombstone with names and dates carved in stone. I imagined a book to be written by spirits romping through cemeteries, preserving their family histories to those listening.  

I am a lifelong diarist. Over the years I revealed and discovered myself, friends and lovers. Now, my journals are a useful research tool. They are the zeitgeist of each era I have lived and learned through. All these times contribute to Raising the Dead, which is set in the early 1970s. 

In Raising the Dead my main protagonist, “Emeline,” is much like many adrift young women I have known. Emeline is bereft after the deaths of her parents. She has moved from her beloved childhood home on the California Delta, across the country to Virginia with her new husband. She meets “Felicity,” an older woman who becomes her dearest friend and mentor. The mystery of Raising the Dead arises with the sudden disappearance of Felicity, who Emeline has come to rely on. Emeline is heart-broken. She is determined to discover the whereabouts of her dearest friend and “other mother,” Felicity. Through the help of new friends Emeline makes, both living and dead, the mystery of Felicity is unraveled

The story behind the Raising the Dead evolves from a dear friend and mentor in my life who departed this world too early. She encouraged my writing and mentored me in every step of my own journey. Raising the Dead is a tribute to this remarkable woman. Her life is woven from the yarn which becomes the tapestry of my novel. Combining all these aspects of my backstory, Raising the Dead is a tale of friendships, history, a love of cemeteries and spirits. The final message of Raising the Dead is the importance of enduring love. 

Adding to this mix is my love of antiques and their restoration. My many years living in California are also a driving force, as well as my love of birds, wildlife, nature and the fauna of life.  

Readers and reviewers of Raising the Dead all agree they “could not put the book down.” The ending of my novel does not disappoint. Raising the Dead is a heart-warming tale of the haunting journey of a young woman maturing into womanhood.

Raising the Dead is available at Amazon.

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with P.K. Eden, Author of The Mirror #abookishword

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by P.K. Eden, authors of THE MIRROR.  

P.K. Eden is the alter ego of multi-published and award winning authors Patt Milhailff and Kathye Quick whose debut novel FIREBRAND was lauded as comparable to the Harry Potter series, garnered 5-Star reviews, and won numerous  Reviewer’s Choice Awards.

Born long, long ago in a place not so far away, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Kathryn Quick has been writing since the Sisters in St. Casmir’s Grammar School gave her the ruled yellow paper and a number two pencil.  She writes contemporary and career romances, romantic comedies, historical romances as well as urban fantasy. 

Kathye has twenty fiction books in print with various publishing houses and one non-fiction compilation of her town’s history at the behest of the Manville Library Bord.  She was honored to have been named an Amazon top 100 Romance Author for Ineligible Bachelor published by Montlake Romance. Other works include a three book  Grandmother’s Rings Series – Amethyst, Sapphire and Citrine, a rom-com series that follows three siblings as they use their Grandmother’s Rings given to them by their mother to find their soulmates. 

Because she has been fascinated by King Arthur and his knights for almost forever, her series Beyond Camelot, Brother Knights, is her vision of how the majestic kingdom may have survived after Arthur. Two books are written in this series with the third and final still in concept.

She is a founding member of Liberty State Fiction Writers and has been a part of Romance Writers of America and New Jersey Romance Writers.

She is married to her real-life hero, Donald, and has three grown sons, each having romantic adventures of their own. Her two grandkids, Savannah and Dax, happily cut into her writing time but she still manages to get a few pages done each day.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜ www.Kathrynquick.com  

Twitter ➜ https://x.com/KQuickAuthor

Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/KathrynQuickBooks/

Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/kathrynquickauthor/

Goodreads ➜ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217228581-the-mirror

***

Thanks to novelist and editor, Dr. Nathasha Brooks-Harris who invited Patt Milhailff to write for several TRUE CONFESSION lines of magazines where she learned tight and entertaining writing and resulted in the publication of more than two hundred short stories and articles.

One of Patt’s most gratifying experiences was when she moderated a standing room only workshop at the African American Romance Slam Jam in 2004 and has since enjoyed speaking engagements at libraries, book clubs and other forums. 

She was awarded 2009 Author of the year and 2010 Mentor of the year by Romance writers of America, New York City Chapter, a terrific organization that helped her to obtain valuable lessons and insight while on her writing journey. 

Patt is also featured in A Dream Deferred, A Joy Achieved, a non-fiction novella by Charise Nesbit a co-producer at Tyler Perry Studios, about foster care, as well as being included in two of Times Bestselling Author Zane’s anthologies. 

Patt is one half of the writing duo P.K. Eden along with Kathye Quick, authors of Firebrand,  that received a five star Affaire de Couer Reviewer’s Choice Award. 

She is also a member of Liberty States Fiction Writers the home of a magnitude of talented writers and fellow authors and is the author of nine novels.  

Patt was raised, and educated in New York City, residing in  New Jersey, and has since relocated to Delaware.

Social Networks for P.K. Eden:

Follow on Twitter: https://x.com/PKEdenAuthor 

Follow on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/P.K.EdenAuthor

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p.k.edenauthor/

 

The Inspiration Behind The Mirror

By P.K. Eden

When I was a child (a long time ago in a state far away), fairy tales fascinated me. Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty. All those wonderful takes of Princesses and magic things in a extraordinary world of fairies and magic and evil things. I could listen to the stories at bed time over and over and never get tired of them.

As I got older and started to use my imagination to write fiction, first romance like rom-com, historical romance, and the like, I found my mind drifting to those wonderful objects in the fairy tales I loved so much. Snow White’s Mirror, Rapunzel’s Tears, a Spinning Wheels that could turn straw into gold. Imagine if they were real. I found what could be a niche for a story like that in the urban fantasy genre.

I put my imagination into overdrive, bought a book called Tales of the Brothers Grimm, which by the way are very grim and gloomy, often downright scary. Nothing like the modern-day adaptations we love today. Still, I was determined to bring my vision to print.

So the what ifs  began. Most authors know that’s how our storylines start. What if the magical objects in the fairy tales were real? What if the Brothers Grimm wrote their tales to shield that fact from humanity so they wouldn’t be used or exploited? What if the Brothers Grimm formed a secret group to protect the objects? What if a faction of this noble group, called the Primogen Sentinels, went rogue and wanted to use the objects for personal gain? 

Enter the direct descendants of the Brother Grimm, Siene and her brother Reed, a Sentinel from each of the seven continents, Lucian Davalos, the leader of Taltos, the rogue faction, and his mercenaries, a PhD whose research could just ruin Taltoian  plans by counteracting the effect of Snow White’s poison apple, sprinkle in an adventure that spans three continents, a touch of a love story, and an unexpected conclusion, and there you have it. The what ifs turned into a plot for The Mirror. 

If you’d like to know how this all turns out, I invite you to become a Primogen Sentinel and follow Siene and Reed Dower – the European protectors, Dr. Ben Michaels – PhD and scientist, Thumbelina who would rather be called Lina, Lucian Davelos – leader of Taltos, a host of Watches, Seekers, Cleaners and their antagonistic counterparts, as they race for the artifacts across North America, Europe and Africa; one group to save the objects from discovery, the other to use them for personal gain.

If you do, please let me know if you enjoyed the story. 

Thanks for letting me join you today

Kathryn Quick  (1/2 P.K. Eden) – the other half – Patt Mihailoff - is busy plotting Book Two in this series. If you are concerned about climate change and love Native American characters, you might want to check back and see what we are planning for 2025/2026.

The Mirror is available at Amazon.