Finding your pearl of great value

  

Some might think that the title of this romance came from the Bible. Well, it could be thought that way, but there is way more to the meaning of pearls than from Scripture.

“As a pearl is formed and its layers grow, a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value. How can you coat or frame the changes in your life to harvest beauty, brilliance, and wisdom?” – Susan C. Young 

. “Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster.” – Joyce Hilfer

“Some give up under pressure, while others rise up and undergo life-transforming experiences. Oyster responds beautifully to external pressure, giving birth to a priceless pearl.” – Mukhtar Aziz 

“A pearl is worthless as long as it’s in its shell.” – Native American Proverb 

These quotes, along with many others, especially the one on the Gospels, speak to what a hidden pearl can mean as well as its value. It also is why it was right for a title in this book. People can seem whole and strong and yet have fought against opening up the hidden part inside themselves. Does that fit romances? I think it very much does as the closest relationships make us face ourselves in ways we won't when not faced with challenges.

 So how does that work with this book? By the way, that sculpture is one of mine. 

 When architect/builder S.T. Taggert returns from a morning run, he finds a call waiting from his Navajo mother. She is concerned that his sister, Shonna, is missing. She asks him to find out if she is okay. This represents a part of his mixed heritage, drunken, white father, and a mother who deserted them to return to her land. Reluctantly, he agrees to see what he can find out about his sister.

Going to his office, S.T. finds something else unwanted. A photojournalist, Christine Talbot, is waiting to do photos of hm, for a series of up and coming young men in Oregon. He doesn't like the idea but finally agrees only because she appeals to the respect he has for those who work.

Christine has another shoot for the series lined up in Roseburg of another man who is making a splash, evangelist, Peter Soul, who has a growing group called Servants of Grace. 

Hence the book begins with conflicts and connections. All will come together, along with S.T.'s search for his missing sister, who had been in the Servants of Grace, with her admiration for Peter Soul, who also wants S.T. to design a larger facility for his growing congregation.

Besides the mystery, the romance, the beauty of Oregon, there is more to explore in this story. One, of course, is what is spiritual truth, how does one find it, is it sometimes corrupted, and if so, how to be aware of that corruption, especially when it might be emotionally very pleasing?

Then there is the question of ancestral heritage. Even if we never lived like modern family members, do we still carry in our DNA their truths? How will that impact our lives if we are living in a very different culture? Is, as this hero believes, there  prejudice against those who carry dual heritages?

It's not like the book presents these questions as some kind of class instruction, but more that the questions are entwined in a heated romance between two very different people, but who find out they have more in common than they thought. Romances can be a lot more than just the basic love story at its heart. How and where do people work out the rest of their lives? More critically, in this book, if there is danger out there, how do they survive it?

To read the blurb, free sample, or buy the book:

Hidden Pearl 

 

 

  

Bannister's Way -- contemporary romance

 If you read Desert Inferno, you will know that its hero, Jake Donovan, was sure Rachel O'Brian would fall for the handsome federal agent, sent to help shut down an important, smuggling operation on the border. David Bannister is handsome, blond, smooth, and brave as he tries to protect Jake from an enemy determined to kill him. That effort leads to the federal agent nearly being killed.

Bannister now shows up as a hero in his own book, Bannister's Way, where his assignment, now working for a private detective agency, is to solve a murder in a prestigious liberal arts university, just outside of Portland, Oregon. The local police have found no evidence. An important political man wants this crime solved.

 The book opens when David confronts his ex-wife where he'll be the model for her life drawing class in that university. This has been set up for him by his partner, Richard Vance, as his way to get inside to find evidence of the killer. Karen, who now calls herself Raven, is infuriated as they did not part on good terms. David, wants her back, hence, he has two purposes in taking the assignment and solving the murder is not highest on the list. 

However, he has no idea that a life drawing class involves nudes. He and his partner have enjoyed playing pranks on each other. David does not find this one humorous, but the only way out of doing it would be to give up this long-shot chance to get back with his ex, as well as find the motive of the killer-- a way to solve the crime with no physical evidence left behind. 

As with many books in the contemporary series, Romance with an Edge, a few characters pop up from an earlier book. This book though has many elements in it, all part of how life can be complicated -- to say the least.

Because I had taken art as a minor in college, I was familiar with life drawing classes. I also, have had an interest in art history, for how forgeries complicate that world. Having been a sculptor myself, with a lot of fired clay figures in my life as evidence, writing about a heroine, who did that work, added to the fun (the image alongside here is my digital painting with one of my sculptures being worked on Raven's stand).

Writing about a long-estranged couple, but where the sparks were still there added to this creation, which is fiction as is the fine art college. That house on the river though, that was real as I stayed in one like it when I was a kid and swam in that river. 

I'd mention all the tropes, which they say can attract readers (like friendship between two bros), and there are many, most off the lists, but I think are relevant to how detective work happens, art is created, people are treated or should be, and finally the beauty of that part of Oregon.

Since one reviewer at Amazon didn't care for the title, I should mention here that it fit David, who was known as a headstrong, risk taker--- one of the things Raven had disliked about him was a belief, it all had to be his way. David has emotionally grown since those early years, but his stubborn determination to do what he sees as right is still part of him and again could cost him his life-- hence the title that could not be changed. :) 

Check out the link to the book where you can read a free sample as well as an extended blurb. 

Bannister's Way 

 

Desert Inferno -- contemporary romance

image we took in 2011 on one of our desert hikes. The rattler is not in the book, but it is a symbol of the danger that is.

 

Next in my series, Romances with an Edge, is a contemporary romance where I wrote the first draft in the 1990's for the sheer satisfaction of creating it. I didn't think whether it was salable as back then, I wrote a lot of my contemporaries because I had read others; then wondered what would I write if I did them.

Desert Inferno broke one cardinal rule I had seen in most romance novels of that time. The hero was not handsome, not in his eyes or in those of many he arrested. Jake Donovan was a border patrolman and worked the desert along the rugged land between Arizona and Mexico to arrest those committing crimes and turn back those with no right to enter the United States. 

Even then, it was not popular with many people, but he had come from a difficult upbringing and chose this as his way to contribute. As backstory, his brother was in prison when this story begins. He chose the other way, and Jake had helped put him there for his crimes.

Back to writing, when the option to be an indie writer arose, the books took some changes to fit the time (communicating had changed a lot in those years. I brought out the first in 2012, it was Desert Inferno, which opens with the heroine, Rachel O'Brian, a successful artist with a career painting Southwest landscapes, many of her works in prestigious galleries.

The reader meets her when she has gone out from her family's ranch on the border, to do a plein air painting-- alone on the desert with her paints and her faithful truck, who she has named Matilda, (I by the way, never have named a vehicle, but I knew some did).

Action begins when she sees movement, believes it might be a person in trouble. She grabs a canteen, her gun, and walks out to see if help is needed.  She does know the dangers of this land. Assistance might have been earlier, but now the man is dying and soon dead. The desert can be deadly for the unaware.

Back at her ranch, she notifies the police that she needs someone to come out. The one who gets the notice is already on the border and shows up to assess what happened. It is Jake Donovan. This is the beginning of a beauty and the beast type story, though she does not see her beast as he sees himself or even as others see him.

Click on the link to get the free sample of how this begins and the flavor or the book.

The problem with this book, once I wanted to bring it out, was a cover. There were simply no male models that fit what I saw Jake as. Easy to get the beauty of the story in an image, but not the kind of man without perfect features and yet who has charisma, power, and the kind of energy that was attractive to many others, especially women.

I finally solved the cover problem with this image that does not show his face, but does that body she admires so much. It hints at the violence with the lightning.

Desert Inferno at Amazon

 With their very different upbringings, figuring out what would work for a relationship, where only one wants it, takes some time. Meanwhile, Jake has an enemy out to destroy him-- an enemy not safe for Rachel either. The ranch she has been raised on with her single father was in earlier historic romances in Winds of Change.

There is a lot of the desert in the book because of my love of it, not ignoring the dangers it can present, especially in wilderness. I also called Border office in Nogales, Arizona, to make sure I was keeping that part accurate for its time 2000. Being a painter myself, Rachel's part was easy to write. 

With twists and turns in the story, it kept the book interesting for me to see all this couple went through to get a happily ever after (you know, with romances, that's part of the deal for readers-- unlike how life too often works out...). 

Because I enjoy writing more than a couple, other characters crop up, including family, but always the romance is central-- again part of the deal with this genre.