Why should readers pick up your book?
Set in the beautiful Loire Valley, French Illusions will remind readers what it was like to be young, adventurous and filled with dreams. My remarkable true story will touch hearts and linger in readers' minds long after they turn the last page.
What was the turning point when you realized you wanted to write and share your voice with the world?
About four years ago, after my husband and I dropped our youngest daughter off at college, I went through a sort of mid-life crisis. I missed being a mom and I wondered how I would fill the void. Sure I had my part-time bookkeeping business, but it consumed only a few hours a day and it wasn't interesting any more. Something was missing? But what?
This prompted me to review what I like to call my "mid-life list." This is similar to a "bucket list," with an important twist. The idea was to refocus myself and figure out the things I wanted to do with my life in my fifties - while I could still do them.
My list was short.
-Learn to play the piano
-Travel to Africa to see the elephants
-Travel to Tahiti and see the island of Bora Bora
-Travel back to France (with my family this time)
-Write a book
At the time, I didn't own a piano and, with two daughters in college (on the east coast no less!), I couldn't afford a trip to Africa or Tahiti. I had already traveled back to France in 2001 with my family, so that left me to examine the fourth item on my list more closely. If I did write a book, would it be fiction or non-fiction? What genre would I choose?
The answers to my questions came to me in the shower (which is where many of my ideas seem to materialize, strangely enough). I decided to hunt down my diary from my au pair adventure in France and compose a memoir. It took me three years to write it, but now I can scratch another item off my mid-life list.
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