WHAT WAS THE FIRST NOVEL YOU READ?

I was in sixth grade when I read my first full-length novel.  Finally, the big kids on campus, we could checkout the books in the ‘BACK ROW” (we called it the forbidden row) and there was one cover that stood out for me.  The cover was haunting.  Sad pale faces with blonde hair stood behind an attic window and looked out.  Titled FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, from the very beginning, I left my reality and jumped into the book.

The author V.C. Andrews had a way with words.  The way they flowed, the way they struck at my heart, how I cared deeply about the pain the children went through.  I’d go to sleep and dream about them.  Somehow, they seeped into my very soul. 

That is when I knew I wanted to be a writer.  I wanted my words, my worlds, and my characters to transport the reader into a different kind of reality.  I wanted them to feel the joy, the sadness, the struggles and the glory each time a character did. 

My mind never stops inventing them either.

Signing a contract deal for my first novel is a dream coming true.  It still seems unreal at this point and probably will be until that first printed book is in my hands. 

I hope after sometime and few more novels under my belt, to help others achieve the same goals.  I hope that when someone reads my novels, I will inspire someone as V.C. Andrews did for me.

Thanks again for the continued support and love. 

Happy Writing!

Shelly

**NOTE:  Although now, a mother of three girls and a Christian, I would not recommend the series by V.C. Andrews to read (even for adults) as they are filled with incest and adultery.  At the time, I faced a lot of trials in an unchristian home and I sought out reading as a comfort.  I wish I could say I read C.S. Lewis or some other uplifting author, but it is what it is.     

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God has a purpose for seventeen-year-old Jessica but it will take a swamp, immortal Cherokee Indians, and a trip to Hell for her to find it.

Jessica's sole purpose in life was to keep her father alive in the hope he would wake up from a coma and save her.  For eleven years, her mother pulls no punches in threatening to cut off his lifeline at any little sign of independence from her.  The biggest demand comes six months before her eighteenth birthday—to accept her mother’s choice for marriage or her father would die.        

Hours after agreeing to the arrangement, Jessica finds her father dead.  She’s devastated by the loss, but at least he was free from her mother’s cruelty.  Now, it is up to her to save herself.

That night a windstorm wakes her and draws her to the window.  An odd light illuminates the beach below in the moonless night.  Could it be the ghost of her father?  Maybe, but she is not sure she believes in all that spiritual nonsense, or does she?  Regardless, she follows the light that guides her to a world of the ageless and to the sacred territory of the Cherokee, deep in the Okefenokee Swamp. 

Three young men set their eyes on Jessica. 

One boy will steal her heart, one will try, and one will try to kill her.    

THIS BOOK IS UNDER CONTRACT AND WILL BEGIN PRODUCTION THIS SUMMER.  TO WALK WITH ME ON THIS JOURNEY, BECOME A FAN OF MY WEBSITE!


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