Out this week: SAFE KEEPING

I'm happy to announce the release of my latest novel this past Tuesday. SAFE KEEPING is the story of another family in my fictional town of Hardys Walk, TX. The Lebays could be your next door neighbors. In fact maybe your kids went to school with theirs. And when their son is arrested for murder, your shocked. You talk with your neighbors and nod your head with the rest when they say how relieved they are it isn't their kid. You lie awake, staring at the ceiling wondering what you would do. It isn't the first time for the Lebay kid, either, who really isn't much of a kid at 34. The police questioned him a year ago about another girl who was found murdered in the same stretch of woods near the Lebay home--near your home, you think. It's close, too close. You thought you knew those folks. You go to church with them, shop at the same grocery store. They keep up their property just like you.

You can't imagine the heartbreak that's going on behind their closed door.

You can't imagine the revelations either, the awful truth that is bound to come out now. Because it's hard to hold onto your secrets when you're put under pressure, when the very lives of your family, your children, and everyone you love is threatened.

I really loved writing this book. The idea came from the time I lived on prison grounds and met the families of the inmates. They were ordinary folks for the most part who were given such a hard path to walk, caught up in a heaving sea of emotions from love for their son to anger over how he could have done the crime he was incarcerated for. They often felt they were jailed, too. It was heartrending, but also awe inspiring to see their courage in facing the crisis and weathering it. Often they said their family was stronger. SAFE KEEPING explores a lot of this territory. It seems the ultimate test of a family's love to have one of its members arrested for taking the life of another human being. While I was writing I kept getting this image in my mind of a person caught in horrific flood waters, how they struggled to hang on to the limb of a tree, or whatever solid, anchored thing they could find, but gradually, as they were battered by the wind and the water, their grip loosened, and finally there was no choice; they had to let go. So it is with the Lebay family. But it's often like that when we're hammered by some calamity. You can't plan for them usually; you can't prepare. So often all you can do is hang on, and ultimately, a lot of the time what we're forced to do is let go. It's scary. No one can predict the outcome. It's like this novel. The ending was so unexpected. Even for me. And I'm the author. So much for plans, huh?

One final note, another novel from MIRA, a very fine novel, THE RETURNED, by Jason Mott, was
also released in paperback this week, at a lower price point. I was glad to be in such good company. If you haven't read THE RETURNED, I can highly recommend it, and in case you didn't know, the television series, RESURRECTION (ABC, Sunday nights. Check your local listings.) is based on Jason's book.

Announcing EVIDENCE OF LIFE, a brand-new edition

Initially published by Harlequin/MIRA in the spring of 2013, a brand-new, mass-market edition of EVIDENCE OF LIFE goes on sale today. The story centers on a woman who is caught in a web of lies after her husband and daughter go missing during a camping trip to the Texas Hill Country. As she undertakes a search for them, certain facts come to light, challenging everything she believes about her family and her life. In addition to the beautiful new cover, this reissue includes the first chapter of SAFE KEEPING, my latest novel, coming from Harlequin/MIRA in March of this year. SAFE KEEPING is the story of an ordinary family, in particular a mother and daughter, who are forced to confront the unfathomable when their son and brother is arrested for murder. How far will they go to save him? How far would you go to protect a family member accused of a horrible crime?

 

I’m thrilled on so many levels to see these books come out, but I’m especially happy for the opportunity it gives me to say thank you again. One year ago I was on the verge of one of the most exciting adventures of my life when EVIDENCE OF LIFE first became available to readers in the form of actual hard copies they could hold in their hands. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, and I wouldn’t trade one minute of the ride. So often when the going gets hard, it’s tempting to give up on a dream. I’m so glad I didn’t have to give up on this one, thanks to Barbara Poelle, my fabulous agent, and to Erika Imranyi, my wonderful editor. A year ago they were fairy godmothers in star-spangled dresses, wielding magic wands. They still are, but now I also number them as friends. Thank you more than I can say, you guys! A boatload of thanks and joy to Readers everywhere, too. It’s all of you who make this dream possible for all of us who work in the publishing industry.

How far would you go?

Ryan's dad

I’ve followed the Ryan Ferguson case since it became the focus of news shows like Dateline and 48 Hours, and like so many other people around the world, I rejoiced when the justice system in Missouri finally came to its senses and let Ryan go free. If you aren’t familiar, he was arrested nine years ago at the age of nineteen when a friend claimed he’d murdered a man. Never mind that the friend didn’t have the facts regarding the method of the crime correct, or that the friend had mental and emotional issues, or that there wasn’t one shred of physical evidence tying either of these young men to the crime scene. Ryan was convicted and sentenced to forty years anyway, and he spent the entire decade of his twenties behind bars. One of the things he said, I believe more than once, was that it was harder for his parents. Well, who knows, but I’m a parent of two young men so that remark resonated. 

The prison where I once lived with my family was a first-offender unit and housed mainly young men

The Fergusons - who could have imagined the calamity to come?

Ryan’s age. I got to know many of them and often their parents. There were designated days a few times a year when the families of the inmates were invited to visit the prison grounds, sort of like college level parent and student orientation day. The inmates’ families and the prison administrators’ families would mingle on prison grounds in an outdoor area furnished with picnic tables and playground equipment. One of the young men whose parents I met at one of these functions, a good looking kid who had a bright future until one night when he decided to hold up a mini mart with a gun, was a beloved babysitter to my two pre-school age sons. You might wonder how a mother could allow a convicted felon around her kids, but this young man wasn’t bad. He got in with drugs, the wrong crowd, something like that. He went off the deep end like kids do sometimes, the ones who are only temporarily lost. They need a wake up call. He got his. In part, I think the unique setting he was in really helped. It kept him segregated from more hardened criminals. He received counseling, one-on-one and in groups. Rather than a cell, he was confined to a room in a dormitory type building. He had meaningful work. He was given every chance to reform, to atone, and he did.

“We never expected our son would get into this kind of trouble,” his dad said on an orientation day. “He went to school, made his grades. He played basketball, for God’s sake, and he was good at it. He made varsity his sophomore year.”

“The police knocked on our door. We were just sitting down to dinner,” his mother said. “It was the first we knew. The police said they had every right to arrest him, that he was an adult.” She looked at me. “He was seventeen.”

“Even now, if he’s an adult, I’m Tinker Belle,” her husband said.

Sitting at the picnic table, listening to them talk about the calamity that erupted in their lives without warning a year ago, I couldn’t imagine it. These people were parents like any other. They could have lived next door and anyone would have been glad to have them as neighbors.

“I think maybe I wasn’t there enough for him.” The dad’s voice slipped and caught. He looked off, jaw working. “It’ll be different when we get him home again. I’m not giving up on my kid.”

His wife took his hand.

My throat was tight. As it turned out, he didn’t give up on his son. We kept in touch for several years once he was released, and as far as I know, there was never another brush with the law.

It’s a good story, a happy ending story. Like Ryan Ferguson’s story. His family believes in him too. They’ve been there for him, never once wavering in their faith in him. His dad crisscrossed the country in a car painted with a message: Free Ryan. He never let up, not once. He was always so composed, too, like Ryan, himself. I got the sense Ryan’s dad would have done anything to have Ryan free, to have him safe. To get him back.

The situation was heartrending to me as it was to thousands of others. I can say, honestly, I lost sleep over it a couple of times—it seemed so horrifying. And there was that question of how far a dad would go for his son; it was so compelling.

How far would a dad go? Or a mom, or a sister?

How far would you go to save him, if your son or your brother was arrested for murder?

The family in my latest novel, SAFE KEEPING, faces this nightmare. On an evening like any other they’re sitting down at the dinner table when the knock comes on the door and the police take their son. Their lives unravel. Their faith in the justice system falters and is finally lost. Now they have to decide: How far will they go?