Hello, reader friends! Join me in welcoming author friend Jeanette-Marie Mirich for a little chat in honor of her new release, The Courtship of Harry’s Wife!
about the author
Have bags will travel should be Jeanette-Marie’s life’s theme. She moved twenty-two times before settling in her first home. An Oregonian by birth and who graduated with a B.S. degree in education from Portland State University, Jeanette has swum in the Ligurian Sea, collected shells and sea glass along the Indian Ocean, Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean Oceans, Straits of Malacca, Gulf of Mexico and the Andaman Sea. Her peripatetic lifestyle is courtesy of the U.S. Air Force and her husband’s medical training. Passionate about needs in the third world after living in Thailand during her husband’s deployment, she has accompanied her husband on dozens of medical mission trips.
Mother of three, Grammy to thirteen exceptional grandchildren, she travels from her Kentucky home to an Oregon cabin, scribbling poems and short stories as well as writing novels. Her first novel, Happy Christmas, Miss Lawrence, won second place in the Colorado Independent Publishers’ EVVY awards. Her second novel, Shadow Games, received honorable mention. Both novels were published by Stonebridge Publications. Quilting has also captured her heart. She is currently inflicting the love of colors on granddaughters.
Visit her website! Jeanette-Marie is also on facebook, twitter, pinterest, and instagram!
q&a
What is your favorite activity or hobby not related to books?
J: Not dusting! I put fabric into patterns and call it quilting. It gives me joy to see hospice patients wrapped in love and my prayers.
B: I’ve done a little quilting too!
Do you have a favorite bookish habit?
J: I love to write in front of large windows with tree leaves tap dancing in the breeze. At our summer cottage in Oregon I view Fern Ridge reservoir and the wind ruffling the gray-blue water. In Kentucky, where we live for a few months each year, large windows in our living room face the back garden. Chestnut trees spread their glory on either side of our deck. Every season finds the trees stretching toward heaven, shedding leaves, nuts, flower pollen, or dappling our windows with shade.
B: I can relate! I love to read with a view!
Briefly describe The Courtship of Harry’s Wife.
J: A journey from grief to love. Courtship draws an introverted widow into the heart of a small town.
B: This sounds wonderfully heartwarming!
What are some of the challenges you faced while writing The Courtship of Harry’s Wife?
J: Editing, thank you very much. I love to splash ideas together like throwing bits of fabric on a bed to see if they work together. I do not love resorting all the bits, cataloging and filing them. That is the editing process for me. I need to unclutter my mind and keep the story thread from snarling.
B: Ah, yes the fine-tuning!
What did you learn or discover about yourself and your characters while writing The Courtship of Harry’s Wife?
J: That tenderness is difficult for me to write because I get caught up in the moment and want to stay there. Lyle is tender toward Delilah and it undoes her, as it does me.
B: Have your tissues handy, readers!
What book(s) are you reading right now?
J: I’ve become addicted to Steven James Patrick Bowers novels, thanks to a friend in the Eugene Police Department. I am reading Kathleen Norris’s book The Cloistered Walk
B: Nice variety!
What is your reading style?
J: I love the feel and scent of a book. Too many years working in libraries, I suppose.
B: You can’t beat the experience of holding a book in your hands and enjoying a story!
What is your next release and/or what are you working on now?
J: The next book in my D.B. Burns mystery series is, The Last Roses. It is in the editing process with my publisher. I just finished a rewrite on my second published novel called, Shadow Games. We shall see what becomes of it, for my publisher closed her doors and it is looking for a home. Perhaps it will go to Mountain Brook Ink, my new publisher.
B: More books on the way, yay!
What’s your writing style?
J: I am a panster who does plot, but I love for the characters to emerge, change my direction, and have a conversation with me. But not at 3 a.m. thank you. I love putting words on a page and enjoy the rhythm of the work. It can entire typing or writing by hand but I feel blessed to communicate thoughts and pray they draw people to joy.
B: Thanks so much for visiting with us!
about the book
The Courtship of Harry’s Wife by Jeanette-Marie Mirich
I shouldn’t have made the promise when Harry was dying but . . . you know how it is. You want to please when the person you’ve always loved is hooked up to plastic tubing looking peaky.
Delilah Morgan, a woman of honor, is unable to ignore her promise to her husband, Harry, which leads to trouble, with a capital T. The beautiful, unassuming Delilah plans to mourn in private after Harry passed, but he had other ideas—specifically, leaving his wife in good hands and protected from the elite of their small Kentucky town. However, he neglects to include his wife in his plans.
Harry has selected local judge, Lyle Henderson, the heart-throb of most of the women in town, to court his widow. The judge acquiesces to Harry’s wishes until Henderson’s life spins into a maelstrom after the discovery of bodies in his long absent wife’s car. The police and FBI begin to suspect him of murdering his wife and her apparent lover.
Determined to clear the judge of murder, Delilah resolves to hunt down the true story. Their adventure nearly costs them their lives and leads them on what Delilah suspects is a wild-goose chase toward love. In reality, their wanderings reveal what sacrificial love can encompass.
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Faithfully Bookish 