Publication Day!! A rare event in any writer’s life, as all of us--no matter how prolific-- have only a finite number of books in us. The Home Guard began with an idea shortly after I arrived in Beaufort in 2005. That idea percolated over the next several years as I learned more about this luxurious, tide-happy corner of the planet. A Major influence on my book turned out to be one published before I got here: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 1, 1514-186

A Southern Girl (ASG) began as a short novel, by word count almost a novella. It began with the infant’s abandonment as the U.S. family, the Carters, debated the wisdom of adoption. It ended with the resolution of the conflicts on both sides of the world (hey, it’s a novel, it has to resolve conflicts). But then that question set in again: what if? What if the infant thrives and something happens that devastates the family unit? That led to what would have been my third novel