Sometimes a story is too long for a short story but too short for a full-length book. It needs to be a novella. Facing the Past was my first story to fit this in-between length. Of course, a novella is characterized by more than length, but I think this one meets the other criteria as well. I have two other works-in-progress that seem to need to be novellas as well. We’ll see what happens with them.

One of those two works-in-progress mentioned above is now finished. The Curse had to compete with revisions of the Enid Gilchrist mysteries as well as work on a book for another writer, but it is now finished and available!

The Stories Behind the Stories
(See the book blurbs by clicking on the link below or the tab above.)

Facing the Past had been knocking around in my brain for some time as I observed and grieved for different individuals–some of whom I had known personally and others of whom I had not known personally–deal with their own issues surrounding sexual and domestic abuse. Jo Chandler’s responses to the challenges in her life might not be the responses of others, but maybe they can provide or inspire alternative choices not yet considered.

When I began writing The Curse, the story was simply about betrayal, but betrayal is never simple, is it? A single act of betrayal can, and usually does, affect more than one person, even more than one family. When I had almost finished The Curse, I argued with myself about whether or not parts of the storyline were realistic. As I argued, a story from the Old Testament popped into my head, and that was the end of that argument! While many of the story parts are different, the effects of the Old Testament story spread through the generations, many more generations, as well. I challenge you to think about what Old Testament story The Curse brought to my mind.