About Me

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My literary taste runs the gamut from Shakespeare, Poe, and Austen, to Elizabeth Lowell, Toni Morrison, and Jo Nesbo. Though I often read tales that plumb the inner demons of tortured souls, I prefer to write lighter books that my readers can have fun with.

Growing up, my sister and I lived next door to three French girls, who were like sisters to us. It was our friendship that gave me the idea of writing a book series about a group of five girls, plus the wonderful time I spent in Santa Barbara in my 20s.

Set in Santa Barbara, the Cota Club books tell the stories of each of the five friends and reflect the genres that fit each of the characters. That’s why Kristi’s story in Love and Money is a mystery, whereas Carla’s story in The Offering is romantic suspense. Tate’s story in Love and Hate is a thriller. I don’t know yet about Izzy’s, but Gwen’s will turn to the world of the supernatural.

Review: The Good Soldier

The Good Soldier The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When it was time to write my senior thesis in college, I picked Ford's novel, because it was the only one I felt passionate about: I HATED IT!
Anyhow -- Now in my 50s, I've reached the "age of reflection." As such, I thought, why not go back and revisit the novel?
Perhaps it's not surprising, given how much water is under my bridge and how many novels I've attempted to write, my estimation of The Good Soldier has done a 180. Much of what I now find fascinating about the book is what drove me nuts in my teens. Ford refuses to follow a clear timeline, the 1st person's POV forever shifting and changing, reflections of the same event at different times with sometimes conflicting "facts", I now find captures the shifting and not always trustworthy ways memory works.
In college, it was a trend to study books "in and of themselves", which I now believe is utter hoo-ha, since it seems impossible to divorce historical context from what's and how it's written. In my reading up on Ford, I now have learned that he was Modernist friend of the Cubists and The Good Soldier can be understood as a cubist novel.

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