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Inspiration for 'The Moment Keeper'

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I've often been asked what was my inspiration for writing THE MOMENT KEEPER. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the moments in our lives and how they connect to form our life stories. And by the choices we make and how those choices lead us down a certain path.

I think so often in life we don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives until they have passed. And sometimes when we’re young, we can’t see past tomorrow. We live in the now. We all know that with age comes wisdom. And it’s only when we get older and look back on our life that we realize the mess we had gotten into as a teen is but a small blip in our life story. And that nothing is ever so bad that you think about taking your life.

So I wanted to explore all of these things and to show two lives in a parallel narrative, present and past, ending up at the same place but making different decisions that ultimately lead them down different paths.

My other books:

The Christmas Violin

The Moment Keeper

The Yearbook Series: Gina and Mike

The Yearbook Series: Sue and Tom

The Yearbook Series: Tess and Jeremy

The Lion Awakens

Freaky Frank

Will, Middle Name Trouble

The story behind 'The Christmas Violin'

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The Christmas Violin and how it came to be:

I remember the morning as if it were minutes ago. Winter was tumbling into spring and I woke up from a dream that followed me like a shadow.

I was standing on the stone steps of a cemetery. A young woman with beautiful red hair played the violin in front of a small granite tombstone in the shape of a teddy bear. I was mesmerized, watching her slender fingers dance as the violin bow tickled the strings.  She was playing a lullaby, a beautiful lullaby.

From my perch, I saw an old homeless woman watching the violinist, peeking out of a cluster of arborvitae bushes. And I also saw a young man, dressed in a suit, watching the violinist from a few graves away.

That’s the image I woke up with and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Even when I tried pushing it aside to work on something else, it wouldn’t let me. It had a real attitude and, gosh darn it, I was going to listen.

So I did. I learned a long time ago not to fight my characters when they are insistent that I come out to play. So I stopped ignoring them and said, “Okay, if we’re going to do this, I need each of you to help me tell your story.”