Brooklyn Bitters is a different coming of age story.  It covers the two year span of a woman facing middle age. Kate, the heroine, lived a conventional life until a chance meeting with a handsome and mysterious man in New York City. The relationship challenges how she sees her life and forces her to face some difficult truths:

I saw myself in that crowd. Not just now but twenty years from now. It wasn’t that long ago I was a young college student and in a blink had become a forty-year-old woman sitting in my sister’s house with Lindsey asking me why I never got married. It would only take another blink or two, and I’d be a white-haired woman sitting in this exact barstool with my head down after a bland visit with Gunner.

I wonder how many of us get to the point where we look back and wonder where the years went and why we didn’t take a different road. Kate is a different kind of character who embodies our most poignant thoughts. 

Glenn

Brooklyn Bitters, a mystery due to be released soon, has interesting characters including a prominent character who died ten years ago. His death is the source of sorrow and guilt…and a mystery to the heroine, Kate. In this scene, she wonders why visiting the cemetery stirs up so many questions.

I reached the first magnolia tree, turned, and stared back at his resting place. The lavender flowers drooped under the weight of the rain, thrashing in the holder with each wind gust. The sight made me queasy as dread swept over me. I let go of my umbrella and grabbed a low-hanging branch to regain my balance. After a long minute, my thoughts calmed and I looked at the grave again.

I’m waiting for something. I just don’t know what.

There’s always one character that’s easier and fun to write. In Pages in the Wind it was Doctor Lieberman, a lonely, celebrated psychiatrist with a sharp mind and tragic past. In Brooklyn Bitters, it’s Stacey, a self-indulgent narcissistic and sexy homemaker. Two entirely different characters. Why they were my personal favorites, I don’t know. They have nothing in common but just seemed to jump onto the page with ease. Here’s an excerpt of Stacey. Maybe you’ll sense why she was fun to write:

Her hairdresser, Debbie, raised her brows. “Quit yer belly achin’. Told ya we’d be done in forty-five minutes. Ain’t easy covering up your red roots. Why not go back to your natural color? Red’s in now.”

“No way! Men hate redheads. Besides, I was meant to be a blonde. All the beautiful actresses are blondes. You think Farrah Fawcett would have hit it so big as a redhead?”

Debbie shrugged. “Well, stop bugging me unless you want the world to know you’re a redhead.”

“Now, Deb! You know how I fret about these parties. Frank will die if he doesn’t make regional manager soon. He’s done everything to impress his boss. These parties give him a chance to strut his stuff. Plus, after a few martinis, the boss will loosen up.”

“Does the dude have a wife?” asked Debbie.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking…and yes, I aim to make her my best friend tonight.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said, waving her brush. “A strapless dress is sure to get her knickers in a knot. Women don’t like sexy blondes sniffin’ around their husbands.”

Stacey giggled. “You might be right. She’s twenty pounds overweight with the sex appeal of an old nun.”

Debbie nodded. “I rest my case.”

Stacey pulled up the spaghetti strap on her purple tank top. “Well, I can’t disappoint Frank. He wouldn’t admit it, but he gets off when men can’t take their eyes off me. After all, he’s the lucky one going home with me. Tell you what…I won’t wear a push-up bra.”

She smirked. “Hell’s bells, you got cleavage in a turtleneck.”

Brooklyn Bitters, my upcoming book due out this summer, deals with lies, alliances, love, and family loyalty. It’s a character-driven read. In this scene, the main character deals with a range of emotions as she comes face-to-face with her mother’s awakening from a long term coma.

I peered into the darkness for her eyes. Spontaneous whimpers escaped my lips as I held my breath, trying to remain calm and not frighten her. Night had grabbed the light from the room, making it hard to see the outline of her face. But turning on a lamp would splinter the moment and startle her. I don’t know why, but the vision of a newborn seized from a mother’s womb flashed through my mind. The babies always, always cried.

Writing about desire taps into vulnerability. When I penned Pages in the Wind the plot had significant grit and violence; it was essential to the story. I chose not to weigh it down with explanation or wordy passages. My upcoming book, Brooklyn Bitters, deals with love, betrayal, and loyalty. My character, Kate, is a career woman whose life has gotten away from her. She missed out on romantic love. In this scene, she lets go of her walls and we feel her inner dialogue. It wasn’t hard to write, but it felt, at times, familiar.

He said love. The rest of it was soliloquy, metaphoric babble, and probably a divergent tactic, but I didn’t care. I was hungry. Starving. God help me, even desperate. My desire for him I’d kept tempered by my doubts collapsed under the word love. A torrent of suppressed passion I had re-directed into duty and hard work engulfed me. I couldn’t resist anymore because I couldn’t swim. Damn it—I didn’t want to.

 Oh, sibling rivalry. I’ve seen it up close. Fortunately, as the only daughter and a middle child…my role was the peacemaker and I didn’t have anyone to compete with (or wasn’t interested). But I did have a front row seat. It was sometimes entertaining, funny, and at times…upsetting. Where does it come from? I’m pretty sure the seeds are planted early. In this scene of my upcoming novel, Brooklyn Bitters, although subtle…you can get a sense how it started:

I spooned another helping of gumbo. It felt good to be called a girl at forty-two. As for the beautiful part, I was no Stacey with her sexy body and pretty face. My face wore the signs of too much reading; I had lines between my eyebrows and the beginnings of crow’s feet. I got my dad’s brown eyes instead of Mother’s blue, and my dark hair touched my shoulders with a touch of gray at the temple. At least, I got Ma’s high cheekbones, full lips, and slender, tall frame at five feet nine. I was best described as average. My father always called Stacey the beauty and me the athlete. Of course, I could barely manage twenty push-ups and was always on the tail-end of a one mile run, but he had tried to give me something.