Ruth Ann Talley works at the Sweetwater mill that’s now a Confederate factory. Her pa and brother are dead, food is scarce, and the Yankees are closing in on Atlanta. She’ll probably never live to have a family of her own, but she won’t give up on the Cause.
Lieutenant Jonah Baker is tempted to abscond from his new assignment until he crosses paths with Ruth Ann. His departed best friend’s sister has grown into a fearless, beautiful woman, but she’s as patriotic and independent as he is disillusioned. No matter how often Jonah warns her the factory is not worth fighting for, Ruth Ann can’t be convinced to take her mother and siblings and run away.
When Ruth Ann finds herself face to face with the Yankee Army, she realizes she should have never fought for a cause she didn’t understand, while Jonah must decide between what is honorable and true, and what to do about the woman who stole his heart.
Danielle Thorne is the author of classic romance and adventure in several genres. She loves Jane Austen, pirates, beaches, cookies, cats, dogs, and long naps. She doesn’t like phone calls or sushi. A graduate of BYU-Idaho, Danielle saw early work published by Arts and Prose Magazine, Mississippi Crow, The Nantahala Review, StorySouth, and… you get the idea. Besides writing, she’s edited for both Solstice and Desert Breeze Publishing. Her growing blog, The Balanced Writer, focuses on writing, life, and the pursuit of peace and happiness. Currently, Danielle freelances as a non-fiction author while waiting to hear from readers like you through her website. During free time, which means when Netflix is down, she combs through feedback and offers virtual hugs for reviews. Her next historical romance is coming soon.
The dramatic continuation of the Emerald Cove saga from USA Today Bestselling Author Lilly Mirren.
Moving to the Cove gave Rebecca De Vries a place to hide from her abusive ex. Now that he’s in jail, she can get back to living her life as a police officer in her adopted hometown working alongside her intractable but very attractive boss, Franklin.
When Franklin’s ex-fiancee comes back to town it will disrupt everything developing between the two of them.
Cindy’s ex-husband has returned to the Cove as well, along with the woman he left her for. And it isn’t long before his presence disrupts Cindy’s burgeoning relationship with the town doctor, his former best friend. A face-off with the girlfriend throws Cindy into a tailspin, but in the end she’ll have to make a decision about what, or who, is more important to her.
Meg and Brad get some good news, but with his paraplegia they’ll learn once again that nothing is as easy now as they’d hoped it would be.
Please note: This book is the third installment in the ongoing Emerald Cove saga.
Lilly Mirren is a USA Today Bestselling author. She lives in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and three children.
She always dreamed of being a writer and is now living that dream. When she’s not writing, she’s chasing her children, doing housework or spending time with friends.
Her books combine heartwarming storylines with achingly realistic characters readers can’t get enough of. Her debut series, The Waratah Inn, set in the delightful Cabarita Beach, hit the USA Today Bestseller list and since then, has touched the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers across the globe.
Exploring the Aftermath of Love and Loss. This is the third in this series.
In the immediate days following a death there are a myriad of details to attend to, especially when you’re the executor or administrator of the decedent’s estate. First, you must make arrangements for the funeral or memorial service. You go through the motions numb, on autopilot, pushing your grief aside to choose a funeral director, set the date and location, book the church or religious leader, purchase a casket or urn, arrange for music, speakers, readings, and flowers, pick out the last outfit your loved one will ever wear, decide who to invite to the service, write an obituary, write a eulogy, and do whatever else is needed to memorialize your lost one in a dignified, respectable, loving way.
I’ve arranged three funerals since January, 2018. In each case, I wanted to ensure my loved ones were honored. This took a lot of time and energy in and amongst the grieving. The upside to all this activity is that it distracts you from acknowledging your loss.
Busyness Beats Sadness
Busyness is a strategy you can employ in the weeks and months following your loss to beat your sadness, at least for awhile. For example, taking on the role of administrator for my brother Vic’s estate required me to manage the details of his funeral, along with the help of my brothers. After the funeral, I spent hours each week unraveling his life, attending to his business: cancelling credit cards and bank accounts, selling his house and other property. An administrator works alone. No one can help you because you are the only one with the authority to speak for the dead. Everything falls on your shoulders.
While all of this was going on, I, of course, grieved, and many times my grief was amplified as I had to confront the reality of his death time and again while explaining it to strangers on the phone, or sending out official documents – like his death certificate – to complete my tasks. But I also had to keep it together to conduct this business, so I dried my tears and carried on.
What I learned, though, is that this busyness doesn’t ease the pain or stem the tide of grief. It just pushes it off until the day all the tasks are done, every little thing is sold, given away, donated, or trashed. The funeral is over. A new family lives in his house. The grave marker is installed. Once the tasks run out there’s no hiding, and the loss hits anew: He is really, truly gone, and I must come to grips with it.
My dad died in 1976. To this day a random memory or thought of him can trigger an overwhelming sadness, tears, and grief. Most of the time when I think of him I see him as still living, as he was at 45 years of age, being my dad. I can handle those memories much better than when I acknowledge the fact that he has died and I have not seen him in more than 40 years. Nor heard his voice. Nor felt his touch. That life goes on for decades without a loved one is astounding. Where is he? I wonder. What would he think of me now, as a grown woman, a mother, a writer? What would we be doing if he was still here? How would my life be different if I hadn’t lost him at 15? Because my life would be different in profound ways, I’m sure.
When Dad died I was young, a sophomore in high school. I soon took on the role of co-parent with my mom, helping to care for my younger brothers while she worked. In the 70’s, not many moms worked outside the home, not in my social circle. I had to skip after school activities, sports, clubs, etc, to beat my brothers home so someone would be waiting for them, to supervise them until Mom came home. I did laundry. I started dinner. Busyness beats sadness. I guess I learned that at a young age.
Vic has been gone six months now and there are but a few pieces of his life that still need to be unraveled. I will soon run out of busyness. Hopefully the shock of his inexplicable death and my initial grief will have also been settled in the process, when I wasn’t looking. I know I will always feel sadness, be pissed at him for getting on that motorcycle, and mourn him afresh when the last task concludes and my busyness is finally over. But at least the work of concluding his business on earth provided me with safe cover, space, and time to reconcile myself to his loss.
About This Series
This is a new series for this blog. The last few months – no, the last few years – have been difficult for me. There’s been a lot of loss and change, most of it unexpected, some of it for good reasons. I’m generally an optimistic person but even I have my breaking point. I’ve run into it a few times lately. This has left my mind churning and I find myself with so much to say, so much to work out. Writing has always been a means to my seeking clarity, so I decided to use my blog to figure things out. Welcome to The Grief Diary. Please take this journey with me. We can communicate with one another in the comments, perhaps find healing together. Subscribe to this blog to receive email notifications of new posts. Thank you.
If you could pound a stake through the heart of the Bermuda Triangle until it appeared on the opposite side of the Earth, you would be in the dreaded Dragon’s Triangle. What better place to hide a weapon of mass destruction?
A simple phone call from a friend at sea throws Andrea, a graduate of Yale University with a PhD in biomedical engineering, into a world of espionage and intrigue. Did her friend, a deep-sea diver working for a company repairing communication cables, really find a mysterious object buried one thousand feet below the ocean’s surface, and could it be of any importance? Why did this phone call from the billions made each day trigger a covert group, a remnant of Nazi Germany, to come out of the shadows to claim this object, and, like a virus, systematically destroy anyone who stands in its way of recovering what it lost so many years ago? The reputation of the Dragon’s Triangle for unexplained events is just beginning a new chapter.
An obvious neophyte in this deadly game where people are starting to disappear, Andrea has nowhere to turn. A chance encounter with a NYPD officer might strengthen her chance of survival. Sean is a retired Navy SEAL officer who teams up with Andrea only to find that they are both in over their heads. The enemy seems to have limitless power, and there is only one person Sean knows who can help them stay alive. He turns to Paul O, a man of great wealth who owns a company that builds ships and satellites for the U.S. government. A private war breaks out with Paul, Andrea, and Sean, pitted against an unknown, fanatical group that takes place in the air, on and beneath the sea, and on land.
Will they survive, and if they do, how will it change them?
Three people from different walks of life meld into a tenacious team, never giving up when the chips are down and all seems lost. Who will be the first to sacrifice their life for the others, and does Andrea stay a victim, or does she become a force to reckon with that takes the strongest of men by surprise?
Tony Dellamarco is an engineer turned teacher turned author. His lifelong passion for writing led to the publication of professional articles throughout his engineering career. He has also written several stories for children, including The Great Race, on understanding the doubling of numbers, two others for a Great Pyrenees periodical, ODE to A Great PYR and Great Bear the Great PYR, and The Little Star and Tubby the Tugboat, that have been read in elementary school classrooms. He completed two additional yet to be published novels, The Raptors and The Cranberry Chalice, designed to capture the imaginations of teenagers and adults alike. A graduate of Arizona State University (ASU) with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York with a master’s degree in education, he has years of technological and educational training.
His first job was with IBM where he started working in the Quality Control and Engineering departments. After 27 years he finished his IBM career as a senior engineer. He then taught 10th and 11th grade history and science at the Minisink Valley Central School District in upstate New York. Throughout his life he’s been an avid sportsman and has trained in power lifting and a variety of martial arts. At 19 he earned a scuba diving certification and piggybacked a pilot’s license at the same time. When he’s not writing or conjuring science fiction novels, he enjoys teaching his grandchildren how to drive his tractor while working the fields around his home in the Hudson Valley.
Q&A with Tony Dellamarco
MS:Hey Tony, Congratulations on publishing your first book. Tell us about it.
TD:Beneath the Dragon’s Triangle covers many genres. It is a techno-thriller which includes military covert operations, espionage, science fiction and a dab of romance. The main character is a female, Andrea, who is thrown into a deadly game of espionage after she receives a call from a male acquaintance repairing a communication cable deep in the dreaded Dragon’s Triangle. What did this man find buried that immediately put people’s lives in danger?
When Andrea’s best friend, a librarian, dies a questionable death while researching the approximate coordinates where this object was found, her life turns into a living hell. Soon others will follow the ranks of the missing. Like the unraveling of a ball of yarn, Andrea’s mundane life becomes entangled in a web of deceit and danger. She meets Sean, a NYC police officer at her friend’s apartment. He is there to inform the next of kin of the librarian’s tragic death.This chance encounter puts both their lives in danger, and they soon find themselves fighting a fanatical group that will stop at nothing to get the information that only Andrea knows – the actual coordinates of where the object lies. Sean, a retired Navy SEAL, enlists the help of Paul O., a modern-day Howard Hughes stereotype and close friend.
Together the three fight to survive the attacks of a relentless well financed covert group. This story is high on action and adventure taking place on the land, in and below the deep waters of the ocean, and in the air. The race is on to see who will be the first to find the mysterious weapon that is capable of changing the course of history.
Here’s a (very) short excerpt:
Oh, the arrogance of man. Even the best plans can be delayed by unforeseen circumstances.
MS:So, were you born a writer, or did it evolve?
TD: As a youngster in elementary school, I always wrote stories that were out of the ordinary. A rocket that landed on the sun, as an example, and a story about a magical sled that could go through buildings. In high school I took a high-speed reading and writing class at a local college. The Sister who oversaw the writing piece told me I had quite an active imagination. The essay I wrote for her in the early 60’s was about flying cars and how they traveled from one place to another. I guess in retrospect, I was born with an imagination, but never took people and their impressions seriously about the articles I had written.
MS: When, why, and how did you start writing?
TD: Writing has always been a passion of mine. However, it was unleashed when I hung my engineering spikes up and starting teaching at Minisink Valley School District (NY) as a 9th grade history and 11th grade science teacher. Unfortunately, the general public has no idea of the diversity and intelligence of the teaching environment. My experience as a high school teacher was invaluable to my writing career – sort of like a mini-Library of Alexandria. One wing of the high school contained the biology, chemistry, and physics teachers. Another wing housed the math teachers. Then there were the English teachers who had a compilation of hundreds of stories from Ancient Greece to modern literature. The entire school was like a huge book just waiting to impart its knowledge freely to anyone who wished for it. Walk the halls of a high school with disciplined students and you will be overwhelmed with ideas and stories one could write about.
MS:What inspires you?
TD: Nature, biblical stories, and prophecies, watching and trying to understand why people act the way they do; studying the big picture…earth, the universe; studying the ever-faster evolution of technology and where it might lead….
MS: Who was/is your biggest influence?
TD: I would say my freshmen college English teacher and my humanities literature professor. My freshmen English teacher liked my style of writing, and my humanities literature sparked a thousand stories by his inspiring lectures and antics.
MS: Who was/is your biggest supporter?
TD: My wonderful wife, my editor, and an established author who took me under her wing.
MS: Who was/is your biggest detractor?
TD: Life… Accidents, sickness… Life can throw you curves when you least expect them.
MS:Who would you most like to thank for their involvement in your writing career?
TD: My wife, who never faltered when I needed to write a chapter or essay that sometimes took away from our vacation time. My wife is a true blessing that has always stood by my side and constantly encourages me to write.
MS: If you could study under any author, who would you choose and why?
TD: There are many, but, Isaac Asimov would be my choice. He wrote over 500 plus books and is one of the best Sci-fi writers of the last century.
MS: Name something you wish you had written and explain why.
TD:The Time Machine. It’s timeless.
MS: What advice do you have for beginning authors?
TD: Perseverance… never give up… It took me over 15 years of research and being delayed due to life throwing curves that took time for me to regroup … Pick up the pieces and continue.
MS:Describe your writing process.
TD: I tend to think on a topic and then do a mental layout.
MS:How do ideas come to you?
TD: I’m constantly thinking of story lines. If you listen and watch life as it evolves around you, ideas will come to you.
MS:Do you work from an outline or just go with the flow? If you use an outline, how detailed is it?
TD: Both… I have a habit of going outside the story line and go with the flow…
MS: Explain your research process.
TD: Journals, engineering, science, geography. History… read, read, and read a variety of materials.
MS:What do you love most about writing?
TD: It’s one of the few things you can do in life where you are in total control of the outcome…
MS: What do you hate about writing?
TD: Nothing really to hate. I do get frustrated when I write myself into a box − where the outcome I anticipated cannot happen because of what was written in previous chapters…
MS: What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself through writing?
TD: Everyone has a story within themselves. Write about what you have personally experience and what you know best.
MS:Do you have a special place to write?
TD: Yes. I enjoy looking at the landscape from the vantage point of my computer.
MS: Where did you get the idea for your book?
TD: Multiple sources that converged into a plot.
MS:Do you have a favorite character from your book or series? Why that one?
TD: Andrea, because she is every man’s dream, and a champion for women who never give up even when the odds are stacked against them.
MS:What is the time span in your novel, weeks, months, years?
TD: Months to a few years.
MS: How much research went into it?
TD: I put in years of research because of technology catching up to what I had already put down on paper. Meaning, I had to re-research and recreate something different and futuristic from what I had committed to the storyline.
MS: How have the changes in present day publishing impacted writing career?
TD: Unfortunately, times have changed. Years ago, you could send a manuscript or chapter outline to a publisher and get a response, but that option no longer exists, except for the few very well established authors. Today, getting a response from an agent is difficult. Where a publisher would read your manuscript in the past to see if the story was well written and interesting, today’s agents make their decisions without diving into the story line.
MS:What would you do if you couldn’t write anymore?
TD: Dedicate more time to charities.
MS:Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
TD: The sequel to my first book, Beneath the Dragon’s Triangle.
Note: I am an Amazon Associate and may receive a small commission from book sales.
Exploring the Aftermath of Love and Loss. This is the second in this series.
Happy New Year!
Here we are, once more, at the start of a new year. After the disaster of 2020 it couldn’t come soon enough. Putting last year in the rearview mirror is both exhilarating and liberating. We can’t help but be optimistic as we change the calendar, opening up 365 new days brimming with promise, weeks, months, and days yet to be written with the ink of life. Anything can happen, especially good anythings. It’s like being swept up in a gust of fresh air when you’ve been trapped for months in a room with no ventilation.
Many of us start off the new year with a set of resolutions – commitments or ideals to help us get – and keep – on whatever we believe is “the right track.” Some of the more popular are to lose weight, exercise more, save money, get organized, learn a new skill, start a new hobby, and/or spend more time with family and friends. Whew! I’m exhausted already.
These are all admirable goals, but for those of us on the grief journey any one of them can be too much. When you’re just trying to get through the next hour, the next minute, without falling apart, trying to lose weight or go to the gym on a regular schedule is near to impossible. So I’m replacing these popular resolutions with one simple objective that will enable the brokenhearted to nurture, rather than torture, themselves in the new year.
To Thine Own Self Be Kind
“Kindness” tends to be a buzzword these days, usually relating to the concept of being kind to others. What about being kind to ourselves?
I recently discussed this with my pain management specialist. We’d both just read The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy, which is a profound yet simple book about kindness, self-love, friendship, and hope (read it). She and I agreed on the book’s message to not only be kind to others but to ourselves. Quite often, she said, we hold ourselves up to impossible standards, then when we fail to measure up we heap criticism and disapproval upon ourselves until we collapse. Seems we can beat ourselves up much meaner and harder than anyone else could or would. We’d never do this to a friend or acquaintance, she said. Instead, we extend to them tenderness, compassion, and generosity we routinely withhold from ourselves. This is both physically and mentally unhealthy.
Tread easy
We must remember when grieving that we are not at our best, life is not normal, and we may mistakes, neglect our duties, lose our temper, or break down in tears for no good reason at all. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up when these things happen, causing us to fall short of our unrealistic expectations. We need to step back and look at ourselves as we would look at anyone else living in our circumstances, and say, “It’s okay to be sad, or mad, or lazy, or forgetful.” Forgive yourself as you would forgive anyone else. Know in your heart that you are doing your best, that you need time to process and accept the changes that have come upon your life. It is not easy for anyone, and that includes you.
Now that’s good medicine. I’ll take it. How about you?
About This Series
This is a new series for this blog. The last few months – no, the last few years – have been difficult for me. There’s been a lot of loss and change, most of it unexpected, some of it for good reasons. I’m generally an optimistic person but even I have my breaking point. I’ve run into it a few times lately. This has left my mind churning and I find myself with so much to say, so much to work out. Writing has always been a means to my seeking clarity, so I decided to use my blog to figure things out. Welcome to The Grief Diary. Please take this journey with me. We can communicate with one another in the comments, perhaps find healing together. Subscribe to this blog to receive email notifications of new posts. Thank you.
A tension-filled mystery set within the Great Dismal Swamp in 1800s Virginia.
Finding themselves in a slave community hidden within the Great Dismal Swamp, Will Rees and his wife Lydia get caught up in a dangerous murder case where no one trusts them.
September 1800, Maine. Will Rees is beseeched by Tobias, an old friend abducted by slave catchers years before, to travel south to Virginia to help transport his pregnant wife, Ruth, back north. Though he’s reluctant, Will’s wife Lydia convinces him to go . . . on the condition she accompanies them.
Upon arriving in a small community of absconded slaves hiding within the Great Dismal Swamp, Will and Lydia are met with distrust. Tensions are high and a fight breaks out between Tobias and Scipio, a philanderer with a bounty on his head known for conning men out of money. The following day Scipio is found dead – shot in the back.
Stuck within the hostile Great Dismal and with slave catchers on the prowl, Will and Lydia find themselves caught up in their most dangerous case yet.
ELEANOR KUHNS is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition. She lives in New York, received her master’s in Library Science from Columbia University, and is currently the Assistant Director at the Goshen Public Library in Orange County, New York.
This is the first in a new series for this blog. The last few months – no, the last few years – have been difficult for me. There’s been a lot of loss and change, most of it unexpected, some of it for good reasons. I’m generally an optimistic person but even I have my breaking point. I’ve run into it a few times lately. This has left my mind churning and I find myself with so much to say, so much to work out. Writing has always been a means to my seeking clarity, so I decided to use my blog to figure things out. Welcome to The Grief Diary.
The Virus
Let’s start with the coronavirus, COVID-19, which impacts everyone everywhere so it’s not necessarily a personal problem in my miniscule part of the world. I have not been sick. No one in my direct orbit has been seriously ill or hospitalized. The biggest impact the virus has had on my life, thus far, is that I’ve been working from home since March 23rd, 2020. It’s doable, but not ideal. I’m a nurse in a college health center, so much of what I’m doing at home is paperwork and administrative stuff. I miss seeing the students, and I miss the daily contact with my colleagues, our conversations, brainstorming, and troubleshooting. I miss the adrenaline rush when there’s a call for a nurse to race to an emergency, accident, sick student, or staff member. I miss walking through the beautiful buildings on our campus. I miss being in a learning environment (which I wrote about here.)
Yeah, there’s a lot to miss, but one thing I’m not missing is a paycheck. I know I’m lucky to have a job where I can work from home. So many others do not. Too many others have lost so much more to this virus: jobs, homes, loved ones. I understand I’m one of the blessed.
I also miss what most people are missing: hanging out with friends and family; going out to dinner, shopping, a concert or a movie; not having to wear a mask everytime I go out. This too shall pass, I tell myself, and each day passes. Hopefully the newly released vaccines will become more widely available and distributed, or people will just get their heads on straight on how to mitigate this virus so life can return to some semblance of “normal.” There’s something optimistic about that, no? So it’s not the virus that has me tied in knots, although it’s not helping.
The Fridge Gallery
Not my fridge but you get the picture. Right after I made this observation I added pictures of the living to my Gallery.
Let’s talk about the fridge gallery. Do you hang pictures on your refrigerator? I do. I have all kinds of pictures – photographs, clippings from magazines and newspapers, cartoons, and inspirational and motivational magnets and mementos – covering the freezer door. The other day I was looking at my fridge gallery and realized that all of the people in the photos were gone. They’d died. This included my parents, my brother, his partner, an aunt, and a cousin. And they are not the only members of my family who have passed away recently. We’ve endured a cycle of death. Last I counted our extended family lost nine members in the last three years.
Grief is a heavy thing. You need to get out from under it sometimes. But it’s hard to climb out when it keeps being heaped upon you. Many of these deaths were preceded by illness, sometimes savage illness, like a vicious cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. Two were the result of a single tragic motorcycle accident on a beautiful summer day. All of them bring additional grief, whether it’s anticipatory as you watch someone you love suffer and slip away, or raw as someone is inexplicably ripped away from you with no warning. I’ve endured both and, trust me, there’s no way to determine which is the easier loss to bear.
The Grief Diary
As I pondered the photos on the fridge I thought of each individual life and my thoughts swirled. I felt an urge to tell their stories, to write about their lives, what made them special, why their memory endures. So I’m starting this Grief Diary to tell their stories, and my own, in an exploration of grief, love, and loss. These posts will endeavor to not only heal my broken heart but to help heal others on the grief journey. I can’t promise regular entries but I will post when inspiration moves me.
An Invitation
Please take this journey with me. We can communicate with one another in the comments, perhaps find healing together. Subscribe to this blog to receive email notifications of new posts. Thank you.
ELEANOR KUHNS is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition. She lives in New York, received her master’s in Library Science from Columbia University, and is currently the Assistant Director at the Goshen Public Library in Orange County, New York.
Marianne Sciucco, Author 