Closing my eyes, I’m there–years and miles disappear and once again I am at that home of my childhood. It is fall, just as it is now. The trees, surrounding the yard and barn and chicken house are mostly oaks. They’ve dropped many of their leaves. Those left on the trees are dry and brown. They stir and murmur as a breeze goes through.
Although it’s very early, the old rooster crows, waking his flock to a new day. Down in the barn lot, Chappo the horse stamps his feet and a cow stirs, the bell around her neck clangs softly.
Although now there is not much that I would recognize of this old homestead; saws have cut the trees, bulldozers leveled the house and contractors put in paving and streets, the memories are a part of me and they will last forever. In my mind’s eye, I see, hear, smell and feel it all. I’m glad this is so. In writing a mystery, I try to create what is within. I write in scenes, using sensory words to paint a picture. When a reader tells me that she feels as if she is there with the characters in one of my books, I know that I’ve succeeded. Rather than sales or reviews, that, to me, is success.
From Best Left Buried: These hills, with Lee Creek running through to the river, the rocks, trees and animals were forever a part of me. My family’s history lay here among the trees, the rocks, Lee Creek and the Ventris River. The cleared area where my grandparents’ house had stood, the old apple orchard in bad need of care, the lonely cemetery with its leaning headstones and the one unmarked grave–I loved it all with a fierceness that surprised me. I could not imagine heavy equipment digging up the hillside, trucks muddying the stream, trees being cut and animals without their habitat.
This book as well as The Cemetery Club and Grave Shift are available from the publisher at Pen-L.com and from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and Booksamillion.com
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