An Open Book (Dec. 2020): Two Tales, One Tragic and One Magic

Hello, Open Bookers!  I can't wait to see what you've been reading.

Here's my first recommendation for this month: The Girl Who Came Home, a novel by Hazel Gaynor, a writer of historical fiction who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. (You might remember that I adored Gaynor's The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, which I mentioned here at the link-up back in the summer.)

This particular book drew me like a proverbial cat to cat-nip.  I have always been strangely fascinated by stories of the Titanic disaster, a tragedy as epic in proportion as the vessel itself.  But this one has an element that I truly could not resist: it features a group of would-be Irish immigrants traveling to America in steerage on the "unsinkable" giant's maiden voyage--and these fictional characters are based on the true story of 14 delightful young people who came from the same parish in Ireland.  (The Girl Who Came Home is dedicated to the memory of these real life “Addergoole Fourteen.”) How could I not read this book, I ask you?  You know how I love all things Emerald Isle, don't you?

Well, maybe you've never been to this blog before and you don't.  So before I go on telling you about the page-turner of a NYT bestseller I just read, here's a quick (and shameless!) plug for my own 2014 YA novel about some plucky Irish Catholic immigrants in 19th-century New England, Erin's Ring (a recipient of two Catholic Press Association awards that has most definitely not been a bestseller, but I think is worth a read nonetheless).

Okay, now let's get back to The Girl Who Came Home. In Gaynor's deft hands, the tale of these ill-fated 14 Irish souls from the fictional town of Ballysheen comes vibrantly alive for the reader.  I was sucked in right from the start, and also utterly thrilled that the Catholic Faith and practice thereof is mentioned frequently, without any preachiness (or any derision, which is unfortunately the way of most modern fiction, I find).

Being Catholic is a normal and vital part of these Irish characters’ lives, and it is treated as such. Seamus, the boy Maggie Murphy loves, gives her a silver hairbrush and some Rosary beads as parting gifts before she sails away from him, possibly forever. The last thing Maggie, her Aunt Kathleen, and the other dozen Titanic-bound travelers do before they leave Ballysheen to set out on their big adventure is to attend Sunday Mass at their parish church. Afterwards, the priest blesses their horse- and donkey-drawn carriages--bound for a train that will take them to Queenstown in County Cork, where they will board the ship--with holy water, and he says a prayer for protection. When the Ballysheen 14 get to Queenstown, they are pleased to find out that there is a cathedral not far from the Rooming House where they are staying for the night, and so they will be able to attend Mass in the morning before boarding Titanic.  I found these references to the deep faith of the characters so beautiful, and especially poignant knowing the horrors they were about to encounter at sea.  There are so many references to prayers offered during the voyage across the Atlantic, Rosaries said, and blessings bestowed by priests (and after the ship strikes the iceberg, many terrified passengers, understandably, turn to prayer).  The Ballysheen 14 even attend Mass on the ship.  Yet I believe that a reader of any faith could read this story and not feel uncomfortable or offended by these religious references, because historically, they are undoubtedly accurate.   

The story does go back and forth in time (a literary device that I particularly enjoy, if it is done well--and it is done to perfection here).  Readers are taken from those fateful days aboard Titanic in1912 to suburban Chicago in1982, where we meet Maggie's great-granddaughter, Grace.  Grace has decided to take a break from college, where she has been studying journalism, to help her mother cope with her father’s sudden and unexpected death. Before leaving school, Grace is offered the opportunity to write a feature article for the Chicago Tribune, but she can't decide what to write about. She's not sure the offer will even stand, if and when she ever goes back to finish her degree--but then fate steps in.  Maggie has never told her Titanic story to anyone, but after 70 years, she finally decides to tell it to Grace, giving her granddaughter the feature story of a lifetime to write about.

Grace’s published feature in the paper leads to the recovery of 14 long-lost letters from Seamus, the sweetheart Maggie left behind in Ireland when she sailed away on Titanic--the boy she never forgot and still loves.  It also puts Maggie in contact with the one other survivor from their Ballysheen group, after many years without contact.  Oh my goodness, dear readers!  It’s all so touching and romantic!

This is a thoroughly engrossing story, beautifully written, with such a poignant and satisfying conclusion.  And no way will I give even a hint of how it urned out!  Read this book yourself; it's a "must read" if I ever read one. The characters live and breathe and make you care about them deeply.  And feel free to share it with your favorite young adult reader, because there are none of those pesky scenes of physical intimacy to worry about.  The faith, perseverance, and sacrificial love displayed by the characters is truly inspiring. Is five stars the most you can give?  Okay then, five stars.  And two enthusiastic thumbs up.

My next recommendation is a different animal altogether, a sweet and thoroughly enchanting fairy tale of a novel called Comfort and Joy, by bestselling historical fiction author Kristin Hannah.

I picked up a paperback copy of this relatively short book on the spur of the moment, while on a Sam's run with my husband.  I noticed the Christmas-themed cover (who can resist a Christmas story?) and saw that it was written by the popular author of a couple of my all-time favorite works of historical fiction, The Nightengale and Winter Garden (I figured it had to be a good one if Hannah wrote it).

This is not historical fiction, but I struggle to categorize its genre.  The subtitle is a fable, and that describes the book pretty well.  It's not romance, although it is an extremely romantic story (it will make you fall in love with love); and it's not fantasy, although it does require the reader to suspend disbelief and go on a fantastical trip to an alternate world that could be a dream but might be reality.  (I know!  It sounds a little crazy--but it's crazy good, I assure you!)

I was touched to find that there are several references to attending Mass, saying prayers, and lighting candles for loved ones at church.  The story revolves around characters who are suffering unimaginable losses, who have gone through life-changing recent tragedies.  For Catholics, turning to God at such times is as natural as breathing, yet I don't often find positive references to religion and prayer in modern works of fiction in our secularized world, where God seems to be all but forgotten...but like a breath of literary fresh air, Hannah includes them in this tender, lovely, and strangely believable fable.   

As if this book wouldn't have been good enough already (I couldn't put it down and read it in two sittings), it's also got an added feature that makes it irresistible to me: an Irish character!  In the middle of the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest, Hannah's main character, Joy, meets Daniel, a handsome, dark-haired Irishman with a sad past and a hint of a brogue.  Is he real, though, or just a dream?  

Oh my goodness--read this book, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.  It will make you believe in love, in miracles, in the magic of Christmas.  And what a perfect time of year to read it!

That's it for me (but head on over to Carolyn's blog for more "must reads").  I'll be back here at the blog soon, I hope, or in what I hope will be a much brighter New Year.

One Last Book Signing

Back in mid-December, I was given the opportunity to do a book signing at our [relatively] new parish in VA, along with a much better-known and more commercially successful Catholic author, Steven R. Hemler, who has had several non-fiction works published by Tan Books.  Steve is a fellow parishioner, and he was going to be selling and signing copies of his books after Masses that weekend; the lovely woman who manages the church office had been made aware that I had written a couple of Catholic novels when I set up a table to sell them at the parish's annual Christmas craft fair/thrift sale the first winter we lived here, so she very kindly extended an invitation for me to join Steve.

I had this cardigan embroidered--with a Claddagh design and the title of my second book, 

Erin's Ring--back in 2014, to wear at book signings.  It has not been worn very often!

I did not sell a lot of copies of my books that weekend (#parforthecourse), but I had a wonderful time getting to know Steve (who also travels around to speak to groups about the Faith) and having in-depth conversations with him about all the blood, sweat, and tears that go into the process of writing books and getting them published.  He was so kind to me, an unknown greenhorn author, and gave me lots of tips and advice about how I might go about having my books republished (now that they have been discontinued by Bezalel Books, due to poor sales) so that they might reach a larger audience.  He encouraged me to think about breaking up my epic-length novel, Finding Grace, and making it into a two or three book series.  Because while I personally happen to love, love, love long books that don't end too soon, the vast majority of the reading public likes to consume fiction in easier to digest portions.  (The word count for Finding Grace is about 200,000, whereas the popular number of words for a novel is about 50,000, I believe.)

Someone snapped a picture of Steve and me sitting together at this table, which I would love to share here, 

but they forgot to send it to me.  Oh well...

Anyway, Steve gave me a contact at a well-known Catholic publishing house, a friend of his who both works for the company and is a fiction author himself, and encouraged me to get in touch with him.  I did send this person an email inquiring about the possibility of republishing, and I received the most thoughtful, surprisingly long response from this kind gentleman.  I can't even tell you how much it meant to me that he would take the time to write it.

For the past five years, I have felt a bit guilty that Erin's Ring, a book for which I was given an advance and a real author's contract from Cheryl Dickow at Bezalel Books, has not done better.  I've worried that I haven't worked hard enough to figure out how to make it sell, because I really wanted it to have been a good investment for Cheryl, who went out on a limb for me.  She believed that Erin's Ring might find an audience, at least among Catholic homeschoolers, but it has not.

HOWEVER, for the first time in a long time, I feel as if a giant burden has been lifted off my shoulders, because I realize that there really is little I could have done differently that would have made my books commercially successful.  The fellow from the big-name Catholic publishing house told me, "For whatever reason, fiction doesn't sell that well in our market...We don't publish many fiction books but the ones we do are lucky to sell several hundred, while we expect our non-fiction books, whatever the subject matter, to sell between 1K-5K in the first year and continue to sell after that."  So obviously, no publisher is going to want to republish a work of Catholic fiction that has already been discontinued by another publisher because it has failed to sell well after years on the market.  His advice was to "put those other books to rest and focus on something new."

These words sound like they might make an author feel like a terrible failure, but they had the opposite effect on me.  I have been trying to keep promoting my books here and there, over on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, and here on my blog--because as I said, I felt I owed it to my very generous publisher to try to make them sell.  I joined Goodreads and LinkedIn as well, thinking that all those social media platforms might help to get them some exposure.  My marketing and promotion skills are very weak, to put it mildly, but I've tried the best I know how--without much success.  So that email yesterday was a gift!  Knowing now that even if my novels had been published by a bigger company with more name recognition than Bezalel, and even if I had been less shy about promoting them, it's doubtful they would have done any better than they have, I finally feel free of guilt and light of heart--freer and lighter than I've felt in years.  I can, as this helpful insider advised, put those books to rest.

Focusing on something new might be great advice...but I don't seem to have the time and/or passion required to start a third novel these days.  Every life has its definite seasons, and I am in the Grammy season right now, so my career as a fiction author may be coming to an end.  And that book signing at our new parish may be my last ever.  But I am totally at peace with that.

I still have in my possession a fairly large number of copies of both of my novels, which I purchased for book signings, gift-giving, promotional giveaways, or sending to reviewers--and even offering for sale here at the blog.  I don't expect a lot of blog sales will transpire, but that's okay!  I intend to keep whatever copies I have to pass down to the next generation of my ever-growing family, my ever-lengthening string of Pearls.  I would love for these books to be an inspiration to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren; if they have a dream, I want them to reach for it, no matter how unattainable it seems.  And if in the eyes of the world they appear to have failed, I want them to know that they can still consider themselves successful in the only way that matters--if the work they've done has given glory to God, from Whom all blessings flow.

God has a plan; I believe that with all my heart, and I trust that He knows what is best for me and for the state of my soul. He didn't think I'd need a lot of book sales or writing accolades...but He thought I'd need a lot of grandchildren.

You know, I like the way He thinks.

I Just Pray That God is Pleased with My Books; If So, Then So Am I

I received an email recently that I've been expecting, but it kind of broke my heart a little bit nonetheless.  The publisher of my two novels, Cheryl Dickow at Bezalel Books, informed me that Erin's Ring had only sold 9 copies this past year (and it has hardly been a bestseller at any time since its publication in 2014), and therefore she could no longer afford to make it available for distribution.  I know it broke her heart a little, too, because she'd had such high hopes for this book.  She pictured it being used in Catholic school classrooms and homeschool programs, as a part of the history, reading, or religion curriculum.  But despite the fact that it received two Book Awards from the Catholic Press Association in 2015, my sweet little historical novel filled with endearing Irish immigrant characters just couldn't find its audience.  What this means for Erin's Ring is that once they run out of the stock they have on hand, Amazon and other booksellers will no longer have new copies of the paperback available on their sites--although they offer used copies for sale from other sellers, in varying conditions at varying prices.

A year or two ago, Cheryl had to drop my first novel, Finding Grace (published in 2012), from distribution for the same reason.  The good thing about this book, however, is that unlike Erin's Ring it is also available in the Kindle format.  But otherwise, henceforth only used paperback copies will be found on the Amazon site.

RIP, my babies!

And RIP, writing career.

Okay, that is just extremely dramatic!  And seriously, how can I be sad about the way things turned out when I had the opportunity to do what I love--to write fictional stories that showcase the beauty and truth of the Catholic Faith, of married love, of strong family bonds, and of openness to life--and not only that, to fulfill a girlhood dream of being a published author?  I always thought that was an unreachable goal for me, and it happened.  How blessed am I?  My husband used to joke--years before I ever got around to starting work on Finding Grace, after decades of being a SAHM--that I would one day write a blockbuster book that made me a millionaire, and he could retire early and be supported by my earnings in old age.  Ha!  He's 61 and 1/2 now, and mandatory retirement in his line of work is 65.  So with this latest email from my publisher, I would say that his dream will not be coming true!

God has a plan for all of us; and even though I question Him sometimes, I know this to be true and I trust that He knows what I need to get to Heaven a lot better than I do.  If my books were meant to sell like hotcakes, they would have.  (I've told this story before here at the blog, and if you are a longtime follower, forgive me for the repetition: my husband, who makes me laugh every day, would always say, "But they're selling like lukewarm cakes.")

Early on, I was somewhat involved in the world of Catholic authorship.  My husband and I attended a Catholic Writers Guild/Catholic Marketing Network conference in NJ in August of 2013, and Finding Grace was a finalist for a Catholic Arts and Letters Award that year.

I even stepped way (way,WAY) outside of my comfort zone at that conference and did a short interview with EWTN when they stopped by the CWG booth!

Wow, looking at these photos for the first time in years, it seems like a whole lifetime ago.  And truly, it was.  Not too long after this conference, we had a whirlwind 11-month stretch during which three of our sons got married.  And in the summer of 2013, I only had three young grandchildren; but before long, our sons' families would start to multiply at breakneck speed, and this Grammy's life would become more and more about traveling afar to see them and less and less about traveling afar to do author-type things.

But I would not trade the full and busy family life I have now, with all five sons happily married and at last count, 16 grandchildren--all of whom live within an hour of their Papa and me!--for all the tea in China (or all the 5-star reviews and massive book sales in the world).

So I am not a bestselling author.  But I am an author.  And what's most important of all to me is that I believe God is pleased that I used whatever talents He gave me to give glory to Him--or at least I hope and pray He is pleased.  The fact that these two books didn't succeed in the eyes of the world is not the measure of their worth.  Even as I sit here, feeling a bit down about the fact that my books will not be as easily available to the young souls who might be inspired and edified by their messages (which are in direct opposition to the messages with which they are being bombarded by our increasingly secular-humanistic world), I realize that they were published for a reason, and if just one reader was meant to find them, he or she will (or has).

Luckily, I will still be able to order author copies of my books for myself, to give as gifts or to sell here at the blog.  These author copies are considerably more expensive than they used to be, so I can't offer the same lower prices that Amazon could, or that I used to.  But if you're interested in either book, there are yellow "Buy Now" buttons on the sidebar at the right on my home page under the images of the book covers.  If you click on one of those buttons, you will get to a PayPal page and can make your purchase there.

I am offering signed copies of my books here at String of Pearls, for the following prices (which include shipping and handling):

Erin's Ring: $12.00

Finding Grace: $17.00

I'm thinking that maybe with the holidays approaching, I'll run a little blog book giveaway.  What do you think?  I could offer one of the novels...or I could offer a copy of My Little ABC Book (a labor of love for my family which was never expected to be a commercially successful project!).

Which of these three books should be the giveaway item?  If you have any preferences, let me know in the comments.

I don't know if I'll ever write another book...but I'm glad I'll always have this little space on the Internet to come to when the writing bug hits.  God bless you for stopping by!

INSTAGRAM GIVEAWAY: A Signed Copy of Erin's Ring

I am currently running a giveaway on Instagram.  On July 25, I will randomly pick the winner who will receive one signed copy of my YA novel, Erin's Ring.

If you're interested in entering to win, you can go to my Instagram feed (where I go by @laura.h.pearl) and find this recent post.  (I also have a tab on the sidebar here at my blog's home page that will take you right over to my IG account.)

Erin's Ring was published way back in 2014, and I haven't been as good at promoting and marketing the novel as I could/should have been.  It is a book that I never thought I'd have time to write, as my family was beginning to grow by leaps and bounds right around the time that my publisher, Cheryl Dickow of Bezalel Books, approached me with an offer to fund a second novel--one that would be appropriate for younger readers than my first novel, Finding Grace, which was published by Bezalel in 2012.  All I could see ahead of me were the weddings of my sons (one of whom got married shortly before I finished writing the book, and one shortly after) and the imminent births of new grandchildren.  I was also suffering from some strange symptoms which turned out to be caused by hypoparathyroidism, and I had to have a non-malignant parathyroid tumor removed from my neck. We hadn't moved down to VA to be near our married boys yet, and I knew that I would be doing a lot of traveling from NH for all the upcoming family events.  I had no idea how in the world I was going to be able to write a novel (even a relatively short one) in six months' time, with all that was going on in my life and in the Pearl clan.  I am a wife/mother/Grammy first, always and forever, and the role of writer takes a back seat to those vocations.  But somehow, I got it done.  And not only that, but I wrote without panic or stress, in a state of almost complete joy.

I can only attribute this almost otherworldly happiness I experienced while working on Erin's Ring to the Holy Spirit, who was definitely working in me bigtime.  I almost turned down my publisher's generous offer, for fear that my life was just too busy and I wouldn't be able to concentrate properly and meet the requisite deadlines.  Left to my own devices, I would have said no; but during that whole time I was trying to figure out what I should do, my husband's faith in me never wavered.  Even knowing how I sometimes suffer from an extreme lack of confidence, he convinced me that I could do it.  I prayed.  I prayed hard, very much aware that if I turned down this amazing offer, there would most likely never be another opportunity like it for me. And once I signed the contract, the first thing Cheryl did was to take it with her to Adoration, to pray for the success of the book while in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  (With a start like that, how could I doubt that I had made the right decision?!)

Of course, we all know that true success, the kind that is pleasing to God (the only Book Reviewer whose opinion matters at all!), is not measured by the world's standards.  By worldly standards, my poor little novel has not had a very good run--despite being the recipient of two Book Awards from the Catholic Press Association in 2015.  But I do believe that it can do some good in the world.  And that's what convinced me to have this giveaway, hoping that a copy of Erin's Ring will find its way into the hands of the very reader who needs it, who might be inspired or edified by it.

Thanks for stopping by, dear readers.  And if you do decide to enter the giveaway contest, may the luck of the Irish be with you!

Grace-Filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #36): Writing about Writing about Writing

I love to write.  Writing is my favorite.

And one of my favorite subjects to write about, not so oddly enough, is writing.

So yes, as the title of this post has already warned you, today I'm going to be writing about writing about writing.

Confused yet?

I haven't been the best of bloggers in recent months (make that years), but my output used to be rather prolific here at SOP.  My archives are jam-packed with old posts about any number of subjects, and if you're ever bored and hungry for fresh[-ish] reading material, you could always scroll through them and hopefully you'd stumble upon something that would pique your interest.  The 1,300-plus posts are not all about books and writing, not by a long shot; but those grouped under the label "Grace-filled Tuesdays Book Club" most definitely are.

I started this little online book club quite a while ago, at the urging of my publisher (Cheryl Dickow at Bezalel Books), and it has indeed been a pleasure to host these book "discussions" with you over the years.  It's a great forum for talking about how my two novels went from tiny sparks of inspiration to fully fleshed-out stories filled with characters whom I got to know better and better as time went by.

I enjoy it so much when novels I read have Q and A's with the authors at the end, where a reader can learn exactly what motivated them to write their stories in the first place.  I usually flip back there before I even dive into Chapter One, because it adds another layer of enjoyment for me to learn how the writer was inspired to start the book and the amount of time it took to research and write it.  The writing process itself is endlessly fascinating to me.  So you can imagine why I get such a kick out of sharing my own stories here at the blog--about how I was inspired to write Finding Grace and Erin's Ring and how the books eventually took shape.

Most writers will admit that even the fictional stories they create have pieces of real people, places, and events embedded in them; that was certainly true for me--especially with Finding Grace.  But trust me, this novel is NOT autobiographical (or even semi-autobiographical).  So much of what was real was tweaked and reworked, and characters who were inspired by people I knew began to take on their own unique identities--which surprised and delighted me; truly, these characters became friends whom I missed dearly when I'd finished writing the last chapters.

I think this is a common phenomenon for fiction authors.  In his biography Becoming Jane, Jon Spence discusses how the peerless Jane Austen wove together real life and fiction in her work (I've brought this up before here at the blog, in this past book club post, and this one, and this one, too --sheesh, you guys, I'm like a broken record!):

"Jane wrote her early pieces for the amusement of her family and friends, and she put in shared jokes, teasing jibes, and allusions to real events in their lives."
 
"Austen is never autobiographical in the crude sense of recording what happened to her or to people she knew.  But a real situation was sometimes her starting point and developed in her imagination as something quite separate from the 'real'."

Yes, Jane, that's just what I ended up doing!  And I didn't even know that you did this, too, until I'd already written Finding Grace!  (I believe we would be BFF's!)

But Austen is by no means the only fiction author who did/does this sort of thing.  Here are a few quotes by some talented modern-day writers whom I also admire, about how real life sneaks its way into their fictional tales.

In the acknowledgements at the end of One Day, a book I absolutely loved, author David Nicholls writes, "It is the nature of this novel that certain smart remarks and observations may have been pilfered from friends and acquaintances over the years, and I hope that a collective thank you--or apology--will be enough."

Ha ha, so true: I am convinced that a novelist cannot help but employ tidbits of actual conversations that he's been involved in or overheard, tweaking them to fit the storyline he's creating.

In the Q and A section at the back of Anne Rivers Siddons' Off Season (a book that had some very strange elements, to be sure, but which I nonetheless enjoyed on the whole very much) the interviewer asks, "Do you base your characters on real people or are they purely products of your imagination?"  And Siddons replies, "There is always a flicker or a seeming of someone real in most of my characters, but by the time I have developed a character enough to carry them through a book, they become their own selves and there's no doubt about that.  I never knowingly copy anybody--I'm not that good at it."

Yes, Anne!  You, Jane, and I--if only we could go out for coffee together and talk shop!  How fun would that be?

I know that when I was writing about Peggy Roach Kelly's feelings for her five sons in Finding Grace, I couldn't help but channel my feelings for my own five sons, whom I adore completely.  Whenever my husband and I would walk with our tall, handsome boys across the church parking lot for Sunday Mass, I would watch them with eyes full of love and think, "Those are all mine!  Those wonderful young men belong to me!"  They had a way of walking, a "Pearl boy walk," that made them look alike from behind. So there you have it,  the inspiration for this scene in Chapter 6 (pages 61-62 in the paperback version), where Grace and her parents are following the Kelly boys across the church parking lot:

"It was interesting how much the five brothers resembled one another, particularly from behind, where one couldn't see the variations in their facial features.  They were all Roaches, similar in height and build, and all had Peggy's chestnut-colored hair (only Grace had inherited the stature and coloring of the Kelly side).  They shared a gait that was uniquely their own, genetically programmed, so it seemed--the "Kelly boy walk": they sort of dragged their feet, yet bounced, with hands jammed in their pockets and shoulders slightly hunched, their heads leaning forward a bit.  The five of them laughed together easily as they made their way over to the church, looking and acting for all the world like a set of giant quintuplets.  They seemed nearly identical in appearance from this view, and as they say about babies of multiple births, they had almost a language of their own.  They often finished each other's sentences, and laughed at the same moments.  Their hand gestures and the inflections of their speech were uncannily alike.

They shared a tight bond that was indeed extraordinary, one that their parents hoped would never be broken.

Peggy drank them in with her eyes; Grace saw the expression on her mother's face and wished for a moment that she had ever been the one to produce such a look of naked adoration.  Then she watched her brothers loping along ahead of them, and if she'd had a mirror she would have realized that her own face bore an expression very nearly the same as her mother's.

'Aren't they something special?' Grace thought, filled with tenderness. Right then she knew more than ever that she hoped she would one day be the mother of many boys."

How obvious is it that that passage was written by a hopelessly smitten Boy Mom?!  I slid that little piece of real life in there as an homage to my beloved offspring; yet as much as the Kelly boys were originally modeled after my string of Pearls, they really did evolve and become their own selves the further along I got in the writing process.

Okay then, that's about it from here.  But before I sign off, I'll leave you with a few images of the six fabulous men in my life, who inspired me to write a book that included five completely lovable brothers and a perfect love interest for my shy little heroine, Grace Kelly.

In the Pink on Gaudete Sunday (And Here are the Giveaway Winners!)

It was quite easy for me to dress in a liturgically appropriate fashion today, on Gaudete Sunday, and that's because of a lovely pink winter coat that I got about four years ago at an after-season sale at Talbot's.

Here I am wearing the coat back in 2015.

They had this coat (which I blogged about before, here) in a slew of tempting colors: Kelly green (my fave), royal blue (my next-up fave), and vibrant hot pink (my husband's fave), to name a few.  So...I was going to say guess which color I chose; but you can plainly see that I chose the pink.  (Not that I live to please my man or anything.  But when he likes the way I look in a color, I try to wear that color as much as possible!)

To tell you the truth, I'm almost surprised that he didn't insist that I buy one in every color they had in my size (something he does too often, because he is a total softie when it comes to me: he treats every day like it's Christmas, or my birthday).  I guess the main reason he didn't insist is that even with the after-season reduction in price, it still wasn't cheap.  If cheap is what I was after, I should not have been shopping at Talbot's.

I probably would have picked a different color, left to my own devices.  But I do love this coat!  When it's the middle of winter and it's depressingly cold and dreary outside (and ugh, getting dark by 5:00!), it gives me a bit of a lift to wear a coat in this beautiful, happy shade of pink.

Plus, it's the perfect garment to wear on Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, when the pink candle gets lit.

Here I am in my Talbot's beauty this morning, when I paired it with a dark purple dress for

Mass (and also a lilac-colored lace mantilla).  I matched the Advent wreath perfectly!

Happy Gaudete Sunday, dear readers!  I pray that you and yours are in the pink--healthy and happy-- as you await the joy of Christmas day!

But before I go, I do want to announce the

--make that winners!

Two names have been chosen among those who entered by leaving comments here at String of Pearls. The winner of a copy of Finding Grace is a Pettis.  On Dec. 10 she left a comment on my Nov. 30 post.  (a Pettis, I have your email address, so I will be in touch to get your mailing address.)

And the winner of a copy of Erin's Ring is Erin Carlson (how perfect is that?!); on Dec. 13 she left a comment on that same post.  (Erin, please contact me via the "Email me" tab up there on the sidebar and provide your addresses, so I can get your book mailed out to you ASAP.) 

Congratulations, ladies!

Last 2 Days to Enter the Giveaway!

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway contest.

I am giving away a paperback copy of my first novel, Finding Grace

and also one of my second novel, Erin's Ring.

Those photos were taken a couple of years ago, when my husband and I were out in South Bend for a football weekend and  I had the thrill of seeing both books on the shelves of the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore.

Having your books on the shelves there does not guarantee that they will be hot sellers...but it is a thrill nonetheless!

My books have received mostly very positive reviews.  Even this one for Finding Grace, the most critical of the pack, has some good things to say about the book.  It's true that, as you will read if you click on that link, I did try to cram about three books into one--because you see, I truly thought I would only write that one novel in my lifetime.  And I wanted to include every single thing I thought I would ever want to write about.  And I really set out to do it only as a legacy to leave my sons and their children and grandchildren, never dreaming it would ever actually get into print.  So...

I do have a few things to point out, if you do decide to read that linked review: (1) the book is not a memoir, although I did strive to show my love for my five sons through the character of  Peggy Kelly--who has six children in all, not five; (2) all of the central characters are indeed Catholic, but there are also some Jewish characters in the book who have a big impact on the life of the main character, Grace Kelly; and (3) I did include lots of Catholic theology and stories of the lives of the saints, but I tried really hard not to moralize heavy-handedly.  It could have been a shorter book, I suppose.  But like I said, I wanted to touch on all the things about which I was passionate, in case I never got a chance to write another novel.

Then I got to write Erin's Ring!   And see it get into print, too.  I have to pinch myself sometimes, or I would be sure that I was dreaming.

I have been so lucky, so inordinately blessed--to be both a stay-at-home mom and then later in life, an author.  The fact that I haven't made any money at it is neither here nor there.  In fact, that may be the very thing that leads to the BEST thing for me.  God knows what He's doing.

I love this quote from Saint Mother Teresa, which popular blogger/podcaster/writer/speaker Mary Lenaburg posted on her Instagram stories today:

"If God answers your prayer, He is increasing your faith.

If He delays, He is increasing your patience.

If He does not answer your prayer, He is preparing the Best for you."

Leave me a comment by midnight, and you'll be entered to win one of the books.  Get excited!

"Come on, what are you waiting for?"  (That's what my little Rosita is thinking here, I'm pretty sure.)

Have a great weekend, y'all (as we Virginians like to say).

A Christmas Carol, and a Minor Christmas Miracle to Boot

Before I get started and tell you about the special way I spent this past Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, I wanted to take care of a bit of business.  I haven't blogged in almost two weeks, and in my last post I announced that I'm running a giveaway here.  I got a few comments on that post, and I just got around to replying to those yesterday (sorry for the delay!).

If you didn't see that original post about the contest, I wanted to say again that I am giving away one copy of Finding Grace and one copy of Erin's Ring, two Catholic novels with appeal for readers young and old (I hope!), to be mailed out in time for Christmas gift-giving.  If you want more information on these books, you can click on their cover images, over there on the sidebar, and it will take you to their Amazon pages.  I will be choosing a winner at midnight on the 15th, so leave me a comment if you're interested in having your name thrown into the hat.  Let me know which title interests you more, and you'll be entered to win it.

I've been at this blogging business a long time now, since March of 2011.  I was already four years into writing Finding Grace when my first daughter-in-law Regina (wife of son number one) mentioned that I might enjoy being a blogger.  I hardly knew what a blog even was back then; I had only read Pioneer Woman's--and I'd only found hers because I'd seen a link to it at the end of an article in Redbook or Good Housekeeping or some such women's magazine.  (Does anyone even get subscriptions to those anymore, or is online reading the only way to go?)  Apparently, though, there was already a thriving Catholic blogging community out there--who knew?  So I tentatively dipped my toes into the blogging pool, and bam!  It was pretty much love at first sight.  Or first word.  Or whatever.  During those first few years, there was a new post up here at String of Pearls pretty much daily.  A day without blogging was like a day without sunshine.  (Or coffee!)  

Little did I know how much starting a blog would change my life.   It's hard to even describe how many blessings blogging has given me over the years.  I have come in contact with so many wonderful people, most of whom I may never meet in person, but who feel like true friends nonetheless.  It's like having a whole list of endearingly familiar pen pals: people you come to really care about; people who pray for you and your family when they know you're in need, and you pray for them right back.  It's the most amazing thing.

One of these special people I'd met through blogging is a young girl named Sarah who was still a student back when we first started corresponding via the comboxes on each other's sites.  I was impressed by what a sweet person she seemed to be: a hard-working, deep-thinking, devout Catholic pre-school teacher, writer, and maker of cord Rosaries.  In fact, I have ordered numerous Rosaries from her, for my grandkids and for my husband and myself.  He always carries his Notre Dame blue-and-gold one with him in his pocket, and I carry my Irish-green one in my purse.  (We had them with us on Sunday, and I think Sarah was touched to see that her Rosary-making ministry has had a big impact on the Pearl family.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.)

Sarah very generously read and reviewed Finding Grace about five years ago (you can read that review here).  In the years since, this young woman graduated from college, embarked on her teaching career, and got so busy with other projects that she gave up blogging.  But we still keep in touch sporadically.  I'm old enough to be her mother (she is actually about the same age as the youngest of my five sons), but I consider her a friend.

I knew Sarah lived somewhere in Northern VA, and she knew that we'd made the move to the area not too long ago.  Well, out of the blue she emailed me a couple of weeks ago to let me know that she was playing the violin in a community theater production of A Christmas Carol, opening on Dec. 7, and she wondered if now that I'm a local, I might like to come to one of the shows.  It was playing in a community center just a little over an hour from where we live, and this past Sunday my husband and I had the opportunity to attend a matinee of the performance.

What a delight it was!  (If you live in NOVA, you might want to check out this creative take on the Dickens classic: set in the Depression era with accompanying Bluegrass music, it's a play within a play--and the cast is terrific!  The show will be playing again this weekend, Dec. 15 and 16--get your tickets now!)

My sweet and talented young friend, with the playwright who wrote this particular adaptation of  A Christmas Carol.

The thing that was so cute and sweet was that when the cast had taken their bows at the end of the show and started to come out to talk to audience members, Sarah made a bee-line right over to us.  After all those years of blog friendship, she had no trouble finding me.  

See those fingers of mine on the left?  I kept patting her shoulder in a motherly (grandmotherly?) fashion while my husband snapped our photo.  And I was nervous and excited, so I might have babbled a bit...

But the most wonderful thing about meeting Sarah IRL (as they say) is that I truly did feel like she was just the person I already "knew" through her writing.  We were not strangers at all.

I can only speak for myself, though.  I hope she got the same feeling when she met me.

I'm considering having the opportunity to meet Sarah a minor Christmas miracle; not as big a miracle as Scrooge's conversion in the play, of course--and surely not of the magnitude of the miracle that is the Reason for the Season!!  All right, maybe it wasn't quite a miracle; but it was certainly a gift.

God bless us, everyone!

Office Space (Just What a Writer Always Wanted!); and a CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY!!

Once upon a time, when I was writing novels, I would have given my eye teeth to have an office space to work in like the one I have now.  That is one HUGE plus of our new house in VA, where we moved in March of 2017 in order to be closer to our grown and married sons and their families.  We did downsize considerably when we moved here; but one thing our old house didn't have was an office.  Oh, initially we did carve out office space in our basement, which was mostly finished off thanks to the DIY skills of my hard-working husband.  But after our boys got older and outgrew the desire to hang out together down there, playing with their toys and video games, heading down to the basement to write or do filing or paperwork felt like being banished to the dungeon.

I eventually fashioned an office space for my husband, behind the couch in the family room, where he could keep up with the family finances without getting a bad case of FOMO.  I did write most of Finding Grace down in the basement, because I was using an ancient (and finicky!) tabletop computer for the first few years I was writing it, and that old girl couldn't be moved to another room.  But after my husband saw that I really was going to do it--I was going to finish that novel!--he got me my first laptop.  And so by the time I was writing Erin's Ring, I either worked at the dining room table or went off to Barnes and Noble for the afternoon, where I ordered one Starbucks coffee (and maybe a pastry to go with it!) and sat at a little table in the café area, happily pounding the keys of my laptop until my battery started to run out.

In our new house, one of the four bedrooms upstairs had been used as an office by the previous owners.  Since we no longer have any boys living under our roof with us, and that means every bedroom other than the master is now a guest room, we decided to follow the previous owners'  lead and continue to use the fourth bedroom as an office.

His work area.

And hers.

More hers.

Full disclosure, dear readers: those photos were snapped shortly after we moved in and set up the room.  Almost two years later, the office has seen a few changes.  (And it is much messier than it was back then, especially on my hubby's side.  Wink, wink.)

I love that our grandchildren's artwork now decorates my side of the office.

My desk is crowded and messy...but I don't dare show you his!

I cannot tell you how absolutely wonderful it is to have a place where my husband and I can both work so efficiently.  We each have our own desk, our own printer, and we sit in matching faux leather rolling office chairs.  We have two filing cabinets and plenty of storage and shelving.  It is everything I ever wanted in an office, and as I said, it makes it so that in some ways, we are better set up than we've ever been--even though we loved our big Colonial in NH, where we spent 26 of the best years of our lives.

It's almost too bad that I don't really write anymore, now that I have a great place to do it.  I don't even blog as much as I used to.  (See above: we live near a small army of Pearl grandchildren now...and time spent with them and their parents trumps time spent at my laptop!)  I'm so happy that before life became too hectic to do it, I fulfilled that long-held childhood dream of becoming an author, of writing just one novel that might make some infinitesimal difference in the life of even one reader.

Well...Hopefully, that has already happened.  Because I recently was given the rather discouraging news that because Finding Grace has not sold well enough in the six years it has been in print, after the end of 2018 it will no longer be available to the public in the paperback version.  It will still be available as a Kindle download, however.  Erin's Ring has not exactly sold like hot cakes either (my husband, who makes me laugh every day, jokes that it's more like "lukewarm cakes").  For the coming year 2019, it will still be available in paperback from Amazon.  But after that...I'm not sure.  It was never formatted into a Kindle book, and unless my husband and I decide it's worth investing whatever it takes to have that done, it will probably not be available at all.

In our correspondence over the years, my publisher (Cheryl Dickow of Bezalel Books) often comments that although I have been blessed in so many ways, having my books be financially successful just isn't one of them.  But I do believe that there is a reason for everything: I fully believe that I was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write my first novel; and I also believe that it was not meant to be a best-seller, but had some other purpose (which I may never know in this life).  So I am a bit sad that the paperback version of Finding Grace will no longer be available for sale on Amazon; I much prefer it, personally, because I use a lot of dashes in my writing and they look the same as hyphens in the electronic version of the book, and I worry that it's confusing to the reader.  But at least it will live on in Kindle.

I vacillate between not even believing that anything I've ever written is of any real worth or that I am even a real writer at all (instead of just "sort of" a writer), and hoping beyond hope that my books will find their way into as many hands as possible--particularly the hands of young adult readers whose lives might be changed, even in some small way, by these Catholic works of fiction. I trust that God knows what he's doing, and if Finding Grace  and Erin's Ring are meant to go the way of the dinosaurs, there is a very good reason for that.  But I have to admit that in my heart of hearts, I'd love to see those books available for my grandchildren's children.

In the meantime, I have plenty of copies in the office to share with my family.

And you know what?  I think in the spirit of Christmas giving, I'd like to give away one copy of each novel between now and Dec. 15. 

Leave me a comment by Dec. 15 and tell me which one you'd like to win and whom you'd like to give it to, and I'll toss all of your names into a hat (one for each book) and choose two winners randomly.  I will mail the prizes out to the winners the next day, and hopefully they will arrive in time for Christmas gift-giving.

I think I'll head on over to Instagram and post the contest there as well.  Thanks so much for stopping by here--and maybe I'll see you over there?

Grace-filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #35): Austen, Writing Fiction, Etc.

I was looking through some old saved documents on my computer yesterday, and I came across something I'd forgotten I'd even written.  I believe it was the beginning of a presentation I was going to give to the Daughters of the American Revolution at a meeting in Dover, NH, in October of 2015, when I was going to be their guest speaker and receive that year's "Women in Arts Recognition Award (for Contributions in the Field of Literature)" from the local chapter of the DAR.  I was nervous about speaking in front of a crowd, and I thought maybe I should have a speech prepared and try to memorize it (but also have a printed version there in front of me to fall back on).

I never finished writing it; I remember now that I told my husband I had decided not to go in with anything prepared, because the few times I'd spoken to young readers at schools, they seemed to like the Q and A format best.  And when answering particular questions, having a sort of "conversation," I felt the most at ease.

So imagine my panicky feelings when the woman who introduced me began by saying, "Here to speak to us today..."  Oh, no.  I fought through my nerves, wishing after all that I'd brought a typed-up speech to present; but somehow I got through it.  Most of the listeners were older women, but there were a few young granddaughters of the Daughters there, who were delighted to have their books signed afterward and were just delightful in general.

Anyway, yesterday when I stumbled upon that partially written speech, I thought, "Hey, I see a blog post brewing!"  So I decided to tweak it a bit, and since this is Tuesday--and that's Book Club day--I thought I'd share it here at the blog.

Jane Austen is a 19th-Century novelist whom I greatly admire.

She once observed that "the best authors have often been the worst talkers."  And I'm not trying to imply that I count myself among the "best authors"--not by a long shot!--but I do believe that I express myself much better on paper than I do in person.  So forgive me if I stumble a bit up here.  I'm a little nervous talking to you all--I'd do better writing you letters!  [See how I was preparing them for having to listen to a sub-par speaker?  Classic me!]

Okay, let's get down to it, shall we?  How does one go about writing fiction?

In his biography Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence wrote this of the famous author: "Jane wrote her early pieces for the amusement of her family and friends, and she put in shared jokes, teasing jibes, and allusions to real events in their lives."

In my case, this did not happen as much with Erin's Ring as it did with my first novel, Finding Grace; but in Erin's Ring,  for instance, I just HAD to have a reference to dinosaurs, because all five of my sons were completely obsessed with them growing up.  But I wasn't sure I could use that term in 1870, when I wanted Michael Kennedy to use it while he's talking to Erin Finnegan at the Halloween dance, on pages 170-171.  So I looked it up and was thrilled to find out that in 1842, biologist Richard Owen had given that name to the pre-historic creatures whose bones he'd been studying in England.  So I could use it, and it would be historically accurate.  (And that reference  to dinosaurs--that was totally for my boys.  Like a secret shout-out.)

Also, because of those five sons whom I adore, I knew from the get-go that in Finding Grace, title character Grace Kelly had to have five older brothers (who are loosely modeled after my boys, of course).  In Erin's Ring, Molly McCormick has four brothers and a sister, but her mother is pregnant with a 7th child and in my head, I've decided it will be a boy.  Because I think any work of fiction I ever write will have to include a household with five brothers in it.  (Brothers who are handsome, intelligent, kind, faith-filled--and who treat their mother like a queen!) [Pause here for raucous laughter of the crowd!  Ha!]

In Becoming Jane Austen, Spence also wrote: "Austen is never autobiographical in the crude sense of recording what happened to her or to people she knew.  But a real situation was sometimes her starting point and developed in her imagination as something quite separate from the 'real.'"

That is definitely the way I went about writing my first novel, Finding Grace.  So much of the story is reminiscent of my own experiences growing up: the Catholic school I attended; the house where I lived in Plattsburgh, NY and the houses by the lake where my best friend and my boyfriend (now husband) lived; the kids who were my girlhood classmates and friends; but even people and places that were initially inspired by my real life took on a whole new life of their own through the writing process.  I recently read a book by a modern novelist whom I also admire, Elizabeth Berg [who writes popular, mainstream works of fiction that actually feature positive Catholic characters and families--huzzah to that!!], and she alluded to this very thing.  In an answer to an interview question at the end of The Art of Mending, she says, "The truth is, writing fiction is for me a magical and largely uncontrollable act: the characters create themselves, as does the story."  Before I wrote a novel, I would have said that that statement was just a load of artsy nonsense, because books don't write themselves; after, however, I knew for a fact that it was absolutely true--at least it was for me.  I thought I knew where both of my novels were going at the outset, but they changed course on me (and the characters did and said things I hadn't planned on them doing and saying) as the story progressed.

Austen called Pride and Prejudice "my own darling child," and it's true--when you're an author, your books are your "babies."  You become very attached to the characters you create, and then you sort of miss those people when you finish writing the book.  And you are like a worried mom when one of your precious babies goes out into the world alone, without you, and is now open to criticism and judgment.  There are some people who will not like your baby at all, and that makes an author feel unspeakably vulnerable.  I'll tell you what, I had stomach cramps for about two weeks at the end of the summer of 2012, when Finding Grace went to print.  During most of the close to five years I had worked on it, it was my happy little secret, shared only with my nearest and dearest; I kind of wanted to keep it close to me forever--the way a mom feels when she gives birth to a new baby and can hardly fathom that this child will one day grow up and leave her.  You would think that seeing a book make it to publication would be thrilling for an author, but it's actually pretty terrifying.

Anyway, I read once that a niece of Austen's who wanted to become an writer, too, asked her what advice she could give.  And the esteemed author told her, "Read, read, read!"  So--if any of you think that one day, you might like to be a writer, the best thing you can do now is to read as many works as you can, by people who are good at expressing themselves with the written word.  Reading good writing will help you to become a better writer yourself.

Reading this essay over again, I'm wondering if this was actually something I was working on in preparation for one of the school visits I did (the invitations came from two sweet relatives of mine who taught at the middle school level--a niece and a sister-in-law).  That ending part seems more like something I would say to young people who might be aspiring writers than to a group of DAR ladies.  Especially since I think the Daughters' focus was Erin's Ring, which was filled with historical information about the town of Dover.  If I'd been writing something to say to them, I think I would have focused specifically on the process of incorporating that fascinating local history into the novel.  Either way, it makes a pretty good book club blog post, don't you agree?

Well, I guess I should wrap up the meeting now.  I'm not even sure I should continue to host this online club, because it's not as if my humble little books have been read by too many people.  I have a rather large collection of copies of both novels in my office right now, because I stocked up on them for a holiday craft fair at our church last December and sold only a few copies.

There are lots more in boxes...

I would be happy to sell signed copies through the blog, for the same price as Amazon sells them--but without the shipping costs.  Email me if you're interested.  But please, dear readers, do not feel like this post has been one big commercial, trying to get you to buy something!  I just thought I'd offer that.

Okay, before I go, here's today's discussion question: do you prefer Jane Austen-style 19th-century fiction, or are you more interested in the offerings of modern-day novelists?

Thanks for stopping by.  Now get your nose back in a good book where it belongs!  (Sorry.  Bookworm humor.)