Winter Tale: Preview of Where the Heart Lands

Photo by Laura Bear 2013

Just spent the week battling a nasty upper respiratory virus. Rivers of mucus trying to flow from my head, continuously blocked by swollen nasal passages until the back up threatened to explode through my eyeballs. A fellow sufferer described the sore throat as "shards of glass with every swallow." Exactly right. Shudder. Gross, indeed, but thanks to all sorts of saline flushing, gallons of hot tea, and meds I am almost back to my version of normal. The world looks almost, well, cold and dreary again! But at least I can breathe! Amen!

Here's a sneak preview on my debut novel Where the Heart Lands, coming out March 14th from Unsolicited Press www.unsolicitedpress.com

 A middle-aged woman finds out her husband has been cheating on her again with a woman the same age as their middle daughter. Although she knows her husband Jack has done this before, Lucy is shaken when she learns the woman is pregnant with Jack's child. Lucy struggles with anger and then depression as she loses control of the situation. Forced to live in the same house as her estranged husband during the messy divorce proceedings, Lucy loses her way and acts out her desperation in a way that leads to her hospitalization. A glimmer of hope arrives in the form of an inherited old farmhouse in rural Minnesota.

In another part of the country in an earlier time, a young girl suffers at the hands of her abusive uncle and aunt. Rebeccah plots her escape after a particularly brutal attack through the kindness of a hobo she meets by the railroad tracks on her way to school. Together, the hobo and the little girl flee and the hobo gives her a new name and even finds her a family. The re-born Addie begins to accept the love and care of her new Mennonite family and grows into a beautiful young woman who catches the eye of Carl, a handsome fellow Mennonite man. They wed and begin raising their young family on Carl's family's farm in southern Minnesota. Addie befreinds the elderly couple who live on the farm next door, unaware of their connection to a future friend.

Lucy and Addie meet when Lucy inherits the same farmhouse several years later. They become fast friends and together with local handyman and philosopher Tom Anderson, they renovate Lucy's home as she also renovates her life. Addie is attracted by Lucy's strength and acts on her own confusing emotions about her past and her present and her own desires. Lucy takes a detour on her road to recovery and soon learns that freeing your heart means you can't always tell where it may land.

Have a healthy, happy weekend!