2014 was a lovely year. Most importantly, it was the year I married Tommy, which increasingly seems like the best idea I ever had. I started my second year of pharmacy school and buried myself in the wonders of pharmacology.

It was wonderful but there was next to no time to write and read all the things I daydreamed about. But interestingly, 2014 was also the year that I wrote a short story called The Perfect Shade of Orange. It was a romantic piece set in an apartment building between two characters. A man named Murphy is in love with his neighbor but struggles to tell her given that she’s still in love with her recently deceased husband. Murphy alone knows the truth – her husband was chronically unfaithful to her. But wanting to spare her any pain, Murphy maintains the lie. 

As the story goes: Her husband, eight months dead, and still so undeniably present.

Skip forward in time – 2018 wasn’t such a great year and as December closed, Tommy and I felt trapped by grief and unanswered prayers. 

So, on the last day of the year, I sat down to write. I wasn’t exactly awash with inspiration. I had no end-game, no real direction. I simply longed to step through the door that had been my escape since childhood – the world of story. For me, so much of writing is processing life through a world stitched together in my own mind – my subconscious becoming conscious.

With lackluster enthusiasm, I unearthed a copy of The Perfect Shade of Orange and squinted at it for a while. Could I turn this into a novel? Could I make it breathe?

Let’s just say it didn’t exactly turn into a romance novel. As I explored the concept of withholding information out of a sense of moral compulsion, I uncovered a treasure trove of potential for mystery and suspense. While I think the novel holds true to the beauty and goodness of my original characters’ relationship, the road takes a turn into the dark side of duplicity – family secrets, drugs, racketeering. Deception that ultimately evolves into death threats, blackmail, and kidnapping. 

The Honest Lies became a study of the most painful repercussions of our penchant for secrets, especially the ones we try to keep from ourselves. As Jack Murphy eventually laments – “He didn’t live in a world where Truth held any value outside of its proclivity for manipulation.”  

Almost without deviation, I think the stories I’m compelled to write are ones driven by a question. That question usually centers around human relationships – the way we misunderstand each other, hurt, relate to, and love one another.

At the heart of this story we have Jack, a man haunted by an unnamed past he longs to forget. That past creeps into focus as he is framed for a robbery committed at his own company. And we have Megan, a woman so determined to protect the best in other people that she would rather close her eyes to reality than entertain the idea that they could be less than they seem.

I wrote to understand why we embrace lies. Self-protection, love, weakness? And to explore the most disastrous consequences when Truth is left to sleep. 

If I think back to actually writing the novel, most of it seems to be penned on snowy days inside Pittsburgh coffee shops. I’d settle into a chair with yet another absurdly flavored latte (like marshmallow) and explore the pain of other people, while Tommy sat across from me drinking something absurdly basic (think caramel Frappuccino) and job searched.

One day, he struck gold and got a job offer in Frisco, Texas. I gave up my dream pharmacist job and we moved over the summer. That’s how I woke up one day last August and found myself job-less with nothing to do but unpack boxes and finish a novel. Every day was an adventure as my body woke up to 100-degree heat and my brain packed up and returned to a chilly Michigan town.  

There’s a hollowness when you finish writing a book. You miss the characters, the adrenaline rush you feel as the final chapters practically pen themselves. And then you run into the crushing self-doubt. 

I squinted at this manuscript. Are you actually any good? Will you become something?

Editing and polishing a manuscript is not my favorite activity. I enjoy querying literary agents and publishers about as much as I enjoy cutting hair out of the vacuum cleaner. There’s something demoralizing about trying to convince someone else to take on your project as their own. It’s as if you’re offering up your first-born child – Please ma’am, just one look. I promise he’s stronger than he looks. 

Exactly one year after finishing The Honest Lies, I received an offer for publication and now I’m here – anxiously awaiting publication day. The release is set for December 8^th and our son is expected (though far less precisely) on January 9^th. It’s wild to me that both of them might enter the world within a month of each other. 

Life can be achingly hard. And sometimes, it is beautifully good. Each in turn is meant to change us, grow us. For now, I am treasuring the good. 

You can celebrate with me by pre-ordering the Kindle version of The Honest Lies! Link here.

Ordering ahead helps me in a few ways. In particular it can improve the book’s rankings on Amazon which helps other readers find their way to The Honest Lies. Hopefully they will love me and be my reader forever.