Books, Free and Discounted

So Coming Apart is free through Bookbub today through Friday (or through Amazon, Bookbub is just the distributor who lets the world know about the discount.

If you haven't tried one of my books up to this point, maybe now's the time. You won't get a better price. :) 

Also in free/discounted things to read, I'm part of a group promotion this month with other historical novelists. This is a newsletter builder promotion, which means if you sign up for their newsletter, you get to download anything from a short story to a novel, depending on what they're offering. Just like with my list here, you can unsubcribe at any time - as much as I like having newsletter subscribers, I'd prefer that they be people who actually want to be there. Not to mention the fact that after I get to a certain number of subscribers, I have to pay for the list, so then I really only want people who want to be there.

Here's the link for the promotion, and again, here's the link for Coming Apart.

Short and sweet this week because there's a lot going on. 

To be continued....

Representation matters

Stepping away from books agin this week to talk about a custom order I just shipped out on Monday. A woman reached out to me, and said that her four-year-old granddaughter was obsessed with the character of Chrissie from Daniel Tiger. Apparently Chrissy has spina bifida and uses crutches and braces on her legs. The little girl had never seen a doll like her before, and Grandma wanted to know could I do something similar that wasn't exactly Chrissie.

It's high craft show season, so custom orders aren't my favorite, but I took this one as a challenge. I didn't have any pale gray felt on hand, and since this order was already going to take more time than it should have, I wasn't going to run up to the fabric store to buy any. The braces and the crutches are made from felt of another color, covered with light gray cotton which I did have in stash.

The braces are stitched onto the doll's legs, while the crutches have a snap fastener so they can come off her wrists. I was baffled with what to use for the crutches, and then it came to me that straws would work. Of course, I didn't have any of those either, but my local buy nothing group supplied a handful. Really, the hardest part of the whole doll experience was calculating the width of fabric to make tubes for the straws. I left a tab of fabric at the top, to be sewn to the cuff, and the leftover fabric at the bottom was tucked inside the straw using the tube turner.

I can't wait to hear what the little girl thinks of her.

Also, because everything does lead back to books eventually, another reason I wanted to do this was because the youngest daughter in Coming Apart wears braces on her legs, and I tried to imagine how it would feel to her to find a doll that looked like her. Representation matters.

Thanksgiving

This is a snippet from Coming Apart, both because it’s the perfect time of year to re-share and because I’m up to my eyebrows in Thanksgiving preparations and so I'll leave you with Ava’s meal instead.

It is Thanksgiving, 1931, early in the Depression but there didn't need to be a crash for poverty to be felt in Pennsylvania's coal country. Ava's mother has just died and the family is still reeling from her loss and the unexpected return of her sister Claire. They share the meal with their next-door neighbors so that everyone has enough food.

******

Trudy and I combine forces for Thanksgiving. Her son has not returned, and for a few days, my smiling friend is replaced by a sad-eyed woman who looks ten years older. She pulls herself together because Fritz and Hetty, her remaining grandchildren, need her.

In addition to the moral support, a joint dinner means more food for all. One of Daniel’s friends managed to shoot a couple of turkeys in the woods north of town, and he brought one home in exchange for helping to fix a roof. The house is perfumed with its rich scent.

Carrying the platter across the back porch to Trudy’s kitchen, I think about how this was always Mama’s favorite holiday. She was big on gratitude, giving loud thanks for blessings other people might not have recognized as such. I want to be more like her, but I can’t help but see that we have a turkey only because Daniel gave up his day off, and a meal meant for family must be shared with others for there to be enough.

I hear Mama’s voice, as I often do these days. Family is whoever you choose to bring under your roof. Trudy is family, in that sense, as was Dora, her daughter-in-law.

There are thirteen around the table, which is two tables put together and dragged into the front room: Trudy and Hermann, Fritz and Hetty, Daniel and me and our five, and two of Trudy’s boarders who were invited at the last minute, soft-spoken men whose contributions are a pie and a packet of tea.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, Our Lord, amen.” 

The room falls silent but for “please pass the potatoes” and “may I have more beans?” For once no one worries about holding back for the next day.

One of the men says something to Hermann, and he repeats it to Trudy. She turns to me. “Hans says at such a meal, his family would go around the table and each person says what they are grateful for. Do you think this is good?”

“It sounds like something Mama would have liked.”

Her eyes crinkle. “Then we shall do it for Lillie.” She explains the idea to everyone and points to the man who suggested it. “Hans, is your idea, so you go first.”

Hans blushes and stammers, but manages—with Trudy’s translation—to say, “I am thankful to be surrounded by kind people when I am missing my family.”

His friend, whose name I didn’t catch, echoes him, word for word.

“I’m thankful for turkey!” Toby waves his fork.

“And pie!” George, not to be outdone, points toward the kitchen.

“I’m grateful for my family,” Dandy says, ducking his head.

Trudy looks around. “I am thankful for my family that is here, and my family that is not here.”

Fritz, his chin quivering, gulps and says, “I am thankful Mama didn’t live to see us separated.” His grandmother says something sharp in German and the boy shakes his head.

“I’m grateful for Granny,” Pearl says, smoothing things over. “I’m grateful we had her as long as we did.”

“So am I, honey.” I put my hand over hers. “And I’m grateful for everyone at this table today.”

“Thelma?” Daniel asks. “What about you?”

She looks up through tousled curls and points at my belly. “I’ll be grateful not to be the baby anymore.”

There is no night shift on Thanksgiving. Daniel and I huddle together under the quilts, listening to the murmur of the kids’ conversation on the other side of the wall. It quiets down soon enough; their bellies are too full for them to stay awake for long.

“You never said what you were thankful for.” I roll on my left side, the only position in which I am comfortable.

He curls around me and nuzzles my neck. “Like you have to ask,” he says. “I’m thankful for you, and our family. I’m the luckiest man in the goddamn world.”

Fabulous Fashion Friday #5

This snippet is from From This Day Forward, the prequel novella to the Ava & Claire series, available only as a signup bonus for my newsletter. You can find it here. To explain the difference in style, this was a 1918 wartime wedding.

***********

Claire is calm this morning, as calm as a girl can be when her entire life is about to change. I’m glad the strange nervousness that kept her wakeful last night has faded. I wanted to stay up and talk, but the rare combination of silence and a soft mattress was irresistible, and I did not wake until nearly six.

Mama was already washed and dressed, sitting by the window. Her hair was still in its braid, and I got up to brush it for her. “Should I do something different?”

Her brows knit together. “Whatever for?”

I brush and twist and pin, and soon she is the mother I have always known, with a tight knot at her nape and a tatted collar around the neck of her new dress.

She talks to Claire while I wash. I emerge in my corset cover and petticoat, not wanting to wrestle myself into my new dress in the bathroom.

“Let me.” Claire drops it over my head and does up the buttons, smoothing the green fabric over my hips and straightening the high collar. “You look beautiful.”

“Look who’s talking.” My gaze sweeps over her gown, hung now on the outside of the wardrobe, waiting for her to put it on. The heavy ivory satin is like nothing I’ve ever touched, and the clever bodice, wrapping over a front panel of beaded lace to join with the hip sash, is a marvel of construction. The skirt is straight, with an asymmetric overskirt and a short train.

It is simple and elegant, not at all what I would have expected from Claire, who never met a ruffle she didn’t like. 

Fabulous Fashion Friday #3

This week we have a snippet from Coming Apart, After Ava visited Claire in Philadelphia and made a dress for her.

The dress pictured here was the jumping off point for Ava's creation, but in navy blue bias-cut satin.

******************

It is the first of August before I am brave enough to wear the dress Ava made for me. I haven’t even tried it on; what I saw in the mirror during the final fitting surprised and disturbed me enough that I put it in the back of the closet. But this is a special evening, and Prue Foster will be there, which makes me feel a bit braver.

For someone so buttoned up herself, Ava has created a dress far more daring than anything I have ever worn. The navy satin is staid enough, but stitched on the bias, it flows over my curves like paint. It is cut nearly to the small of my back, but in the front, a simple drape at the neck offers only a shadow of cleavage.

I look at myself in the three-way mirror, trying to decide if it will cause a scandal.

“My God.” Already in his tuxedo, Harry stands in the doorway. He takes off his glasses and peers at me.

A blush climbs from the drape all the way to my hairline. “Is it too much?”

He gives a tiny, stunned shake of his head. “You look amazing.”

“Ava made it when she was here.” I turn in a small circle. “I haven’t had the nerve before now.”

“She should visit more often.” Harry slides a hand down my satin hip. “I don’t know if I want to show you off or keep you to myself.”

I smile at him. “You lucky man, you get to do both.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, I'd like to offer my take on Thanksgiving, 1932 in the combined households of Ava Kimber and her friend and neighbor, Trudy. Times are hard, but they can still find reason to be grateful, and it's the one day of the year where no one worries about leftovers.

**************

Trudy and I combine forces for Thanksgiving. Karl has not returned, and for a few days, my smiling friend is replaced by a sad-eyed woman who looks ten years older. She pulls herself together because Fritz and Hetty, her remaining grandchildren, need her.

In addition to the moral support, a joint dinner means more food for all. One of Daniel’s friends managed to shoot a couple of turkeys in the woods north of town, and he brought one home in exchange for helping to fix a roof. The house is perfumed with its rich scent.

Carrying the platter across the back porch to Trudy’s kitchen, I think about how this was always Mama’s favorite holiday. She was big on gratitude, giving loud thanks for blessings other people might not have recognized as such. I want to be more like her, but I can’t help but see that we have a turkey only because Daniel gave up his day off, and a meal meant for family must be shared with others for there to be enough.

I hear Mama’s voice, as I often do these days. Family is whoever you choose to bring under your roof. Trudy is family, in that sense, as was Dora, her daughter-in-law.

There are thirteen of us around the table, which is two tables put together and dragged into the front room: Trudy and Hermann, Fritz and Hetty, Daniel and me and our five, and two of Trudy’s boarders who were invited at the last minute, soft-spoken men whose contributions are a pie and a packet of tea.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, Our Lord, amen.” 

The room falls silent but for “please pass the potatoes” and “may I have more beans?” For once no one worries about holding back for the next day.

One of the men says something to Hermann, and he repeats it to Trudy. She turns to me. “Hans says at such a meal, his family would go around the table and each person says what they are grateful for. Do you think this is good?”

“It sounds like something Mama would have liked.”

Her eyes crinkle. “Then we shall do it for Lillie.” She explains the idea to everyone and points to the man who suggested it. “Hans, is your idea, so you go first.”

Hans blushes and stammers, but manages—with Trudy’s translation—to say, “I am thankful to be surrounded by kind people when I am missing my family.”

His friend, whose name I didn’t catch, echoes him, word for word.

“I’m thankful for turkey!” Toby waves his fork.

“And pie!” George, not to be outdone, points toward the kitchen.

“I’m grateful for my family,” Dandy says, ducking his head.

Trudy looks around. “I am thankful for my family that is here, and my family that is not here.”

Fritz, his chin quivering, gulps and says, “I am thankful Mama didn’t live to see us separated.” His grandmother says something sharp in German and the boy shakes his head.

“I’m grateful for Granny,” Pearl says, smoothing things over. “I’m grateful we had her as long as we did.”

“So am I, honey.” I put my hand over hers. “And I’m grateful for everyone at this table today.”

“Thelma?” Daniel asks. “What about you?”

She looks up through tousled curls. “I’ll be grateful not to be the baby anymore.”

There is no night shift on Thanksgiving. Daniel and I huddle together under the quilts, listening to the murmur of the kids’ conversation on the other side of the wall. It quiets down soon enough; their bellies are too full for them to stay awake for long.

“You never said what you were thankful for.” I roll on my left side, the only position in which I am comfortable.

He curls around me and nuzzles my neck. “Like you have to ask,” he says. “I’m thankful for you, and our family. I’m the luckiest man in the goddamn world.”

Aren't they pretty?

I got my author copies from Amazon a day or two after the book launch, and I fully admit that I tore into that box before I thought to set up my phone to take a video. 

Oops. Author excitement is real, folks.

I've got more than a few craft shows coming up heading into the holidays, and I've learned that while they aren't the best venue to sell books, books do sell at craft shows. People are interested to see what else the maker makes, and it's always an interesting conversation.

In addition to a cover that I'm absolutely in love with, I designed bookmarks for Coming Apart (actually for the eventual whole series) that incorporate the three family photos used on the series covers.

All this to say that paperback copies of Coming Apart are available through this website for $16.99, which includes postage, autograph (if you want one), and one of my handy-dandy bookmarks. Please leave a comment here or email me at karen . heenan @ gmail.com (without the spaces, obviously).

I look forward to sharing Ava and Clarie with you.

 

It's here!

 

Thank you to EVERYONE who made Coming Apart's release the best one ever!

For those who ordered ebooks, they should have arrived on your devices promptly at midnight. Paperbacks may already be in your hot hands - I opened that for sale a bit early so I could get some reviews and lure in potential readers.

Still feeling my celebration a bit - champagne will do that - but I'll pop back in later in the week with a few more podcast links and (when my copies arrive) a giveaway for a paperback of Coming Apart.

One more week!!

It's almost here!

You know how you look forward to something and it's forever in the distance and then, all of a sudden, it's RIGHT HERE and you feel barely prepared? 

That's me right now. I've been working on Coming Apart for so long, and then planning the launch, organizing podcast interviews (more about that soon!), getting advance reviews in order so that potential readers who don't know me will have some idea about the book, releasing the paperback a bit early (surprise!) so I could order author copies from Amazon, and, now, scheduling an in-person launch event. (More on that also later, when I've got it together).

So that's really all I have to say today. A podcast episode will be dropping tomorrow, so I'll post a link to it then - it was a really good discussion on a podcast for writers who've taken up the craft (or taken it up as a profession) after the age of 50. 

Which is me. Somehow. (When did that happen again?)

Lightbulb moment

I don't know anything about brain science, and if I tried to learn, my eyes would probably glaze over. Which is not to say I don't respect the hell out of how our brains work, and I think some of it will never be figured out by science, no matter how hard they try. 

I'm working on the second book in my 1930 series, and it's been going well. The plot line involving Ava, my primary main character, is basically complete, even if I haven't written all of it. For Claire, the secondary main character, I can't say the same. I know how she starts and I know where she ends. But until recently, I had no idea how to bridge that gap. 

The other day, I forgot to have my morning coffee. Then I forgot to have it in the afternoon, and by the time I made a pot for after dinner, I knew it would either have no effect or it would keep me up all night. I was good with either. 

It seemed like it wasn't going to work. I went to bed at midnight, my normal time, got into bed, closed my eyes, and the answer to all those plot questions slammed into the front of my head with the force of a speeding car. I got a full explanation of what goes wrong, who's involved, who's behind it, the reactions of the key characters, and how it leads to the ending I already had in mind. 

None of this had (knowingly) existed in my brain up until that point. 

I didn't want to get up. I laid there for a good half hour, telling myself the story, repeating the best phrases, hoping I would remember it come morning. And then I remembered - I never remember that stuff come morning. So I got up, went downstairs and turned on the lights, and wrote eight pages of notes.

Then, of course, I was too wide awake to go back to sleep, but it was nearly two. So I flopped on the loveseat downstairs, and turned on an author interview podcast whose host has a very soothing voice. When I'm up and walking, I enjoy the interviews. When I can't sleep, she takes me out in minutes. 

And it worked. I slept until five, when the birds started to sing. Then I went back to bed for two more hours. When I got up, I was afraid to look at my notes, for fear they weren't as brilliant as I thought, but they were good. Not brilliant, maybe, but solidly plotted, and now that I know what's coming I have no qualms about writing this midsection of the book.

Writing isn't the problem. Filling in those occasional blanks is the problem.

And if someone can explain how my brain can deliver a fully plotted section of story out of the blue, complete with dialogue, I'd really appreciate it.

Also, could it maybe choose a more convenient time of day?

Coming Apart Now Available for Pre-Order

So Coming Apart is now available for pre-order from this link. The book will release on October 18, 2022, and if you've pre-ordered, it will arrive on your Kindle at midnight. As an added inducement (isn't that a nice way of saying bribe?), the book is priced at $3.99 for the first month of the pre-order, so all you bargain shoppers can save a little and get a lot.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, here's the blurb:

A woman who's lost everything. Her sister, who has everything. And a baby who means everything - to both of them.

Ava has always been poor, so she doesn't think the Great Depression will change anything. But when her mother dies and her coal miner husband loses his job, Ava's certainty falters. The last thing she needs is a letter from her estranged sister, asking for the impossible. 

Claire has everything she could ever want, except the child she promised her husband. When her sister's life falls apart, she reaches out to help - and finds the missing piece of her own marriage.

With everything at stake, Ava must choose: give up one child to save the rest or keep the family together and risk losing it all?

At this point, it's Amazon exclusive, and the ebook will stay that way for a while. I've been curious about Kindle Unlimited but never tried it before, and it seems easier to set it up from scratch instead of withdrawing the book from sale on all the other platforms to do it.

I hope you'll consider ordering Coming Apart. I'm so proud of this book - there's a ton of my heart in it, and a not inconsiderable amount of my friends and family's stories, as well. 

From This Day Forward

 

Just a reminder that From This Day Forward is available to newsletter subscribers. 

Subscribe here to get acquainted with Ava and Claire, and have some important back story to read Coming Apart.

Miss the link? It's here!

Coming Apart: Free Prequel

A few days ago, I showed off the covet for Coming Apart. Thank you for the messages and comments - I'm absolutely in love with it and I'm glad you like it - and are looking forward to reading the pages inside that cover.

What I've got for you today is the blurb for the book, introducing my two sisters and their situations in life.

Pre-orders for the book won't be up until August or September (I usually do a 30-day pre-order, but I could be convinced to lengthen it if you want to order in August), but you can read a free prequel novella right now if you sign up for my mailing list.

From This Day Forward is set a dozen years prior to Coming Apart, and it tells the story of Claire's wedding and the beginning of the break in the sisters' relationship.

If you subscribe, I promise not to spam you, and I will never share your email address. I check in generally on the 30th of each month, and occasionally I'll pop in at the middle of the month if there's big news or a sale that I think you should know about.

When you sign up here, you'll receive an email welcoming you to the list and giving you a link to BookFunnel, which is the website that holds the files. They're an excellent site and can walk you through the download process to your Kindle or other device if you haven't done it before.

If you're already a subscriber, your last newsletter had that same link and you can head on over to download From This Day Forward.

It's a gift to my readers, and a promise of more story to come. Enjoy!

Cover Reveal: Coming Apart

Here it is! 

I was trying to hold off sharing this for a while longer, but I've been talking about this book for so long, that I just can't. And I love this cover too much to keep it to myself.

Coming Apart is the first book in my Sisters series, of which there will be at least three books. That's what they've informed me, so far, anyway.

When I first talked to the cover designer, I said I wanted something that looked like an old photo album, the kind with black paper and stick-on corners. Alas, the designer is too young to be familiar with such things, but the direction she went in, which I think of more as a scrapbook, is even better. I love the pressed flowers, the tape on the corners, the creasing of the paper under the photo.

And the PHOTO. That's my great-aunt Margaret, holding my Uncle Dick, her brother's second-youngest child. It's perfect. We were originally looking at vintage stock photos of babies or women holding babies when I realized that I had albums of photos to which I hold exclusive rights.

Albums full of photos. So what did I do? I went through them all, after I'd picked out the cover photo for this book, and chose photos for books two and three. I don't know everything about those books yet, and won't really know until after the first drafts are done, but I know the titles and the overall theme of each book, and that was enough.

Also, my cover designer in this case is also a writer, and she's doing well enough with words these days that she's retiring from custom cover designs and I wanted to get these done before I lost access to her. (She'll still be available for tweaks when the books are finished, but I didn't want to risk not getting a matched set, not when I loved the first cover so much). 

I'll be back soon to share the back cover blurb and an opportunity to get a free prequel novella to Coming Apart.

Coming Apart: The Houses

There are three houses in Coming Apart, and they all mean different things. 

The first is Ava's house in Scovill Run, the coal town in upstate Pennsylvania where she has lived her entire life. Scovill Run is fictional, but based on many coal towns in my research, all of which grew up around the mine, and none of which were particularly nice places to live.

Ava's house is one half of a twin. There are two bedrooms upstairs, and a sitting room and kitchen downstairs. There is no electricity, and water is supplied by a shared pump in the yard. The other plumbing needs are taken care of by an outhouse. Most of the heat in the house comes from a wood stove in the kitchen; there is a coal stove in the front room, but it is only used on special occasions, because coal is expensive and the men who mine it can't often afford it.

Claire lives in Philadelphia, in one of my favorite houses on Delancey Place. All the houses on the street are either brownstone or brick, three and four stories. They were the houses of the wealthy then, and for the most part, that block continues to be single-family homes. The house I chose for Claire stands out because of its round front. I've always liked it, and jumped at the chance to let her live there. 

Not only that, it was up for sale several years ago, so I have a pretty good idea of the interior layout.

There is a third house in the book, which will only be explained in oblique terms because of spoilers, but it is a house I actually lived in during the late 1980s. It's also in Philadelphia, several blocks south of Claire's house, and was built before the Civil War to house mill workers. 

It's what Philadelphia calls a trinity house (Father, son & holy ghost), with one room on each floor. The entire house was no bigger than a standard two bedroom apartment. But it was pretty cool, living in a place that old, and knowing that the underground railroad had used several of the houses on the block as shelters for runaway slaves making their way to freedom.

I have pretty clear memories of this house, but again, it also was up for sale a few years ago and the renovations that were done after my time there as a renter were pretty significant. They couldn't make it bigger, but they made it nicer. One of the few things that's still the same is the clawfoot tub in the third floor bathroom, which my roommate had painted gold on the outside. Thirty years later, it's still gold.

I wonder what my characters would have thought of a gold bathtub?

Coming Apart: The Husbands

Daniel Kimber and Harry Warriner are as unalike as their wives.

Daniel Kimber is a miner. That's all he's ever done, and all he wants to do. But the Depression and the Scovill Mining Company's attitude toward union organizing means his job is always at risk. He started in the mines at the age of ten, and to him it's a big deal that his eldest son stayed in school until twelve before going to work. Daniel worships his wife for her strength and ability to manage their family on next to nothing. He's never looked at another woman - they met in grade school and paired off almost immediately. .

My choice for Daniel is Colin Farrell in a more scruffy moment. Daniel doesn't actual have a mustache, but there's something in the bleakness of his expression here that works for me.

The only son of a wealthy businessman, Harry Warriner made it to nearly forty before acquiring a young wife who met none of his mother's exacting standards. He knows his place in Philadelphia society, but it isn't what he would have chosen for himself, if he'd had a choice. Marrying Claire is his one rebellion, but he doesn't always see how difficult it has been for her to fit into his life.

Harry, at the start of the book, is fifty years old, with a precise trimmed mustache and spectacles. He can't see two feet without them. His upbringing has made him very restrained, but he does love Claire and wishes he knew how to make her happy.

Coming Apart: The Sisters

Coming Apart has two main characters, sisters Ava Kimber and Claire Warriner.

Both were born in a fictional upstate Pennsylvania coal town of Scovill Run, a small town entirely owned and operated by the Scovill Mining Company. Their mother, Lillie, was an Irish immigrant; their father was a Polish coal miner. Ava and Claire are children numbers four and six of Lillie Kovalevski's seven children.

Three years older than her sister, Ava married young, to her childhood sweetheart, and duplicated her mother's life of hard work, grinding poverty, and frequent pregnancies. She is often angry and always exhausted, but she wouldn't trade her hardships for her sister's blessings.

Claire graduated high school, got a job in Scranton, and managed to snag herself a wealthy husband. She moved to Philadelphia and has rarely been seen since by the family she left behind. 

Not surprisingly, Ava holds a bit of a grudge that her sister has more or less abandoned them, but she's also too proud to accept any help that would be offered, because she's managing just fine, thank you very much.

Claire may be thirty years old and wealthy beyond anything her family can conceive, but she's not happy. If she could only give her husband a son, maybe her mother-in-law would stop bullying her, and maybe she wouldn't be too embarrassed by her background to go home and visit the sister she misses desperately.

Both these photos were found while wandering the internet. Claire is pale and blonde and perfect; she has little else to do but keep herself looking that way. I found the inspiration photo for Ava when researching 1930s hairstyles. It's the only thing that's not accurate - Ava hasn't cut her hair, but the "I tolerate no nonsense" expression on her face is completely Ava.

What comes next: Coming Apart!

I'm really excited about the next book. I know, I'm excited about every book, but that's because every time I write one it makes more space in my head. It gets crowded in there. 

This is the one that in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. The original title was My Sister's Child, but I changed it because there is a psychological thriller out there with the same title, about a woman who kills her sister and takes her baby, and even though they are very different genres, it's a recently published book and I didn't want to use the same title. 

So now it's called Coming Apart. One of my favorite things is that I am able to use a family photo (my great-aunt Margaret and Uncle Dick) for the cover. Even though the title has changed, the ambiguous photo of woman and child - which sister's child is he? - will be the same. I can't wait to show the cover design, but I'm waiting until we have a final page count, so my designer can change the title and also do the full wrap cover for the paperback.

While still historical, this book has no real historical figures in it, and so, in the weeks and months leading up to publication, I'll be sharing character bios, location information, and some of the fascinating Depression-era history I've uncovered while writing. 

Stay tuned!