Catch and Release

Like most of my peers, I believed the start of school signified the end of summer. When I discovered the official end of summer is September 23rd, I wondered what other adult hoaxes I’d fallen for.

Today, saying goodbye to fireflies is like saying goodbye to my childhood summers over and over. We called those little shooting stars lightning bugs and spent hours capturing them in mason jars with holes poked in the top.

We didn’t know their flashes were part of an elaborate mating ritual where the females surveyed the field of love-starved males as each one tried to out glow the other. We didn’t care that there were over 2,000 species throughout the world, where, in places like the Smoky Mountains, viewers can see them put on asynchronous shows that ripple like waves. Or in Southeast Asia where they perch on trees and glimmer in perfect synchronicity.

All we cared about was lifting our fingers in the air to lure the creatures close enough for us to ease them into their glass prisons. When our mothers shouted for us to come home, we would unscrew the lids and watch our captives flee into the night sky.

Grace, my main character in The Sometime Sister, recounts this memory:

Some nights I caught so many fireflies my jar sent a magic stream of light across the backyard. But I hated seeing those desperate little bugs careening against each other in a fear I could almost smell, so I frantically unscrewed the lid, gasping for air myself as they tumbled toward freedom.

Writing is a lot like catching fireflies. Writers search in the dark for words that will set fire to the page. And when we’ve done our best, we hold our breath and release them to the world.

This summer has been especially generous to me. In June, I released The Substitute Sister, the sequel to The Sometime Sister. Both are available on Amazon or on request at your favorite independent bookstore.

And this weekend I finished capturing what I hope are the perfect words for my September 7th release, False Claims. You’re the first to see my synopsis and cover reveal.

Synopsis Lucy Howard has arranged her life around the philosophy honesty is mostly the best policy. But her dream to work in research at a reputable museum doesn’t materialize. Instead, she finds herself investigating a charming elderly woman who’s running an insurance scam involving the company Lucy works for. She catches her “perfect” boyfriend with another woman. And her favorite narcoleptic-antiques-dealing uncle needs her to prove he’s not a murderer, unless he actually is. Her boss agrees to assist her if she joins his investigation against a doctor suspected of selling human organs. Along with a sexy detective who makes Lucy question her resolve not to rush into another relationship, she becomes involved with some very shady characters. When she begins receiving bizarrely ominous threats, she realizes she could be in real danger.

As the threats escalate, Lucy recognizes that her belief in total transparency might not be enough to save her life. And that if she gets the chance to begin a new one, she must accept that honesty, without love to temper it, can be a cold companion.