When I began work on my first book, In the Shadows, I didn’t know it would become a book series. I didn’t know the name of the book, even. The working title, believe it or not, was Cul-de-sac. I changed the title while working on the book cover design and seeing all the shadows near the cafe. http://amzn.to/29wFOmt

Somewhere along the way, I decided to write a second book with the same characters. That book eventually became Where Secrets Reside. And then, after writing a few more books in other series, I wrote a third Outsiders book, Winter Tears (which is currently on promo for free on all Amazon websites). http://amzn.to/29plFf8

I’m not entirely sure why I chose The Outsiders as the series name, but I suspect it goes back to my mother’s history. She came to the U.S. from Germany, when I was a baby. Her husband, my father, was American and took her to his hometown in Oklahoma. Boy, oh boy, did she feel like an outsider. Her English was not great, which didn’t help, and she wasn’t used to the southern accent, either. Over a few years she taught herself English by watching TV and reading magazines and books.

I suppose I always felt her discomfort, to some degree. I was also moved by her courage to leave her homeland and travel to a foreign country, especially one that wasn’t too taken with Germany at that time in history. It was the late 1950’s.

In part, her story inspired me to set my outsiders in a foreign land–Dave, the protagonist is half-American/half-French and grew up in the U.S. Another main character, Maurelle, is half-English/half-French and grew up in the U.K. They meet in a small French village.

By the fourth book, Dave’s American father and French mother have also moved to Reynier, France and are preparing to open the chateau/hotel that has been closed down. That fourth book, The Forgotten Tomb, is being edited right now and should be out in a few months.

Up until now, I haven’t talked much about the plot of the new book. I thought you might be interested in a sneak-peek, so here it is.

Pitch/General synopsis:

Fabienne Laurent’s biggest fear is that her family will notice her memory problems are getting worse. If they do, they’ll send her to live in a nursing home, away from everyone and everything she loves. That’s what she and her husband did when her own mother’s dementia caused them too much grief. Not taking care of her mother the way a daughter should is one of her biggest regrets, but she can’t undo the past. At best, she can keep her own family from making the same mistake, at least until they have no choice.

With that decision made, she’ll have to cover up her illness as long as possible. Maybe that won’t be a problem. They haven’t noticed, so far . . . . But, she soon discovers it might not be as easy as she’d hoped. While helping her daughter and son-in-law renovate their new hotel, she finds mysterious journals that lead them to the unearthing of an old tomb inside the town’s caves—and also to the remains of a woman who was murdered twenty years ago. That discovery turns her world upside down, because Fabienne not only knew the victim, but also had a motive to kill her. She must find a way to recover lost memories and convince herself and everyone else that she didn’t do it.

The Forgotten Tomb is a story about family bonds, aging, regrets, trust, and forgiveness.