My Debut Novel
Madison
“There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying.”
Madison
Madison is an intelligent, thirty-year-old female banker with a husband on life support. To cope, she renovates an old Spring Mill that her husband invested in five years earlier, before his accident. Since his accident there has been no other man in her life, but the book opens with her decision to make a change in at least that part of her life. She also hits a financial bottom and her employer’s solution amounts to financial espionage.
The antagonist, her father-in-law, fights to keep his son hooked upon life support for an inheritance Madison is unaware of at first. Breaking out of the holding pattern her life consisted of, Madison decides she wants her husband off of life support.
Subplots: a self-defense class that ushers Madison into an underground martial arts club, a father-in-law’s plan to steal his son’s inheritance worth millions, and the undercover banking assignment spawns a duplicitous way of life, friends, and a lover she never planned for.
She is determined to have what she has always wanted, a normal life with family, children and a rich network of friends.
10 Barclay St, Newtown, Pennsylvania
You do not have to be good,
you do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles
through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
-Mary Oliver
Progress on Madison-
Post July 2019
I’ve finished a novel. Madison is finally completed. Really, I’ve written three. The others are marinating in the desk drawer. But this one, I want to carry forward over the publishing threshold. I’m editing it for the third time and it will probably see a few more full edits before I’m through. I’ve had an editor review the entire thing only to learn that I put the cart in front of the horse with that move. If nothing else, I am beginning to understand the process.
I’ve sent out about twenty query letters to as many agents and received several very nice responses. Those responses made it clear that a website is pretty much a mandatory requirement. I am now spending my summer building a website. It is a fun endeavor. I’m learning quite a bit and I am enjoying collecting personal content for it.
Oh, how I am tempted to put Madison in the desk and start a brand-new fresh novel. I miss the free hand writing with abandon, getting into the writing flow and loosing myself in the process. So much fun! But no. I am going to see this through. I’ll keep you posted on my progress in this author blog space. Have a wonderful summer.