I had two childhoods. One was as a kid in Germany, the other as a teen in California. Now, my husband and I live in Seattle, WA. I was passionate about reading and wanting to be a writer from early on. Growing up in post-WWII Germany, I wrote poetry and short stories, and I read everything I could get my hands on, no matter if it was the classics or dime-store novels. I learned to appreciate Schiller and Goethe, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and, finally, Shakespeare. He says it all! In college I also discovered contemporary writers and learned to tell good from bad. I earned a B.A. in English from California State University at Los Angeles, where I studied literature, poetry, novel & short story writing. I worked as a press agent at a few Hollywood PR companies until I experienced major burn out. Hollywood stars are sooo narcissistic! I traveled & worked at too many jobs to count. In Seattle I found a home in banking administration & human resources. I kept writing. I kept learning, attending workshops and writers' groups. Finally, I published my first novel, Irretrievably Broken. What a long road it's been!
Irretrievably Broken had many inspirations, but ultimately it was a newspaper clipping from my hometown in Germany. A neighboring property had been torn down and a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath, was unearthed. Experts speculated that a synagogue would most likely be situated beneath the foundations of the house I had lived in as a child. I read the clipping and promptly forgot about it. Or so I thought! But this discovery must have been burned into my subconscious. I was almost finished with the novel when I rediscovered the clipping and realized how these facts had informed my writing. There, at the heart of a tale of adventure and travel, of love and loss, was a Holocaust story, come to light after years of concealment, very much like the mikvah that had been unearthed so many years later under our former neighbor's house in a small town where no one in post-WWII Germany ever spoke about such things.
My work experience in Seattle banking inspired my most recent novel, Confessions of a Predatory Lender, also available as an audio book. The year is 2006 and everyone knows you can make a fortune in mortgage lending. "Good girl" Christy is our guide through the maze of predatory lending with BFF Megan her ever-present and irreverent sidekick. Together they're an irresistible combination as they love, covet, shop, and lend their way toward an ending we're all too familiar with.
I'm also publishing a series of stories about love, death, redemption, and hope. They are available as Kindle shorts, called The Angel of Death.
The first in the series, Cigarette Break, is the story of C.J. and Crystal. They seem to be a typical young couple vacationing with their three small children, if it weren't for the fact that C.J. suffers from PTSD. He's an American soldier, on leave after three tours of duty in Iraq and with orders to deploy to Afghanistan. When the family stops at a remote B & B, where they're the only guests, Crystal decides it's an idyllic place for the kids. For C.J. it's the place where he plots his suicide. What happens when he decides he can't leave her behind?
Amazing Grace is the second in the series. Pastor Ken has a problem. It's called membership stagnation. The miracle he asks his flock to pray for arrives with Valley View, a new housing development. When conventional means of luring these prosperous new residents to Sunday services fail, the youth minister presents the solution: Rally Sunday. A morning of worship followed by an old-fashioned barbecue in the very park that divides rich from poor. But a woman named Grace, her daughter Lydia, and a suicidal bum wreak havoc on the congregation's hopes of a miracle. Or do they?
Number three is Dear Sugar. One love ends; another begins. One has embarked on a new life. The other is left behind and can't let go. Across the miles, memories and longing, interposed with an exuberant joy of life keep the two bound to each other. Dear Sugar - an intimate exchange of love letters.
Number four in The Angel of Death series is Piano Lessons. A writer tries to understand what happened to Klara during the final days of WWII. Every time he finishes a new book and worries over what to write next, it's to be about Klara. With one tale spun out and the next not yet begun, hers is always the ace in the hole as he stares at the blank page. He believes a good writer writes to find his narrative, but he also suspects that every writer has such a chronicle, which he can produce when his muse fails him. And then it may have been that Klara was his muse, and after telling her story there would be nothing left to write. Perhaps this is why he saves Klara's account till the end of her life. And the end of his. What is the truth about Klara and the men in her life?
Number five is Interception, the story of "Big J" Jim Jackson, the star quarterback of the Colorado State University Rams. When he can't get to first down with the hot new cheerleader, Valerie "Legs" Foster, he buys her an engagement ring. With expectations of playing pro ball and his wedding date to the prettiest co-ed set, Jim's future is bright. Then he meets Betty. Jim can't believe his luck. Engaged to the woman of his dreams and a sizzling-hot lover on the side--he can have his cake and eat it too. When he learns that nothing in life is free, he runs as far away from Betty as he can. But she's right there to intercept every one of his passes. When she brings on her final play, he can only win by losing.
My husband and I make our home in the Seattle area. Besides writing and publishing fiction, I serve as volunteer contributor/translator to PBS News Hour, and as classroom volunteer at a local community college.
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