I was visiting with a new friend, Janet, relaxing on her living room sofa in Bentonville, AR and our discussion made me realize I should share a few things about Mandy O’Brien. If you have met Mandy and her dad, Devlin O’Brien, then some things you might remember will be repeated, but if you have not… Well then for those of you that have not, I’ll begin at the beginning.
Amanda O’Brien was born to Devlin and Anne O’Brien, about eight years before you would have normally met her in Roosevelt, Colorado. Devlin preferred to call her Mandy, a nickname that persisted through her life. Continue reading “Mandy O’Brien”
Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin to Aengus Hughes and Georgia (Reismann) Hughes, Cali grew up with a relatively normal childhood. Her father was employed as an editor in the newspaper business and when she was nine, he took a position with the Battle Creek Enquirer, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her mother secured a teaching position at the Verona elementary school.
Cali essentially stayed to herself with few close friends in school, ignoring any significant personal relationships, even during high school. After she graduated, she spent her spare time tutoring and helping younger students and worked at a summer camp for fourth and fifth grade children. Then with her summer over, a partial scholarship to the local Western Michigan University branch in hand, she took courses in Child and Family Development. In the meantime, her father had set aside a trust fund for her and an education allowance to help her advance. But without warning, she suddenly needed every penny of her allowance: both her parents had died in a car accident, struck by a drunk driver, two months into her first semester. Well educated in the old country ways and beliefs, mostly due to her father’s Irish influence in her upbringing, Cali felt the deep despair of the Banshee’s double wail.
Redheaded, freckle faced Billie Mattis had only one real love in her life, William C. Hawke III. She was five when she had met him and he was nine. As she got older, she knew that his father, W.C. Hawke II and his wife, were somehow involved in commercial real estate and they brought William to visit them at their horse ranch on varying weekends. Their dads spent their time talking about investments and future projects, things that would help her family’s ranching business and ensure her and her sister’s future. Both their moms spent their time discussing the arts and cooking.
From their first weekend together, Billie, her sister Sandy and William occupied their time boating and fishing on their small lakes, and horseback riding. All under the watchful eye of the ranch foreman, of course, their friendship grew. But Billie’s playful and fiery personality and temperament, preferring to wrestle, or sword fight with sticks or handmade wooden swords, or to race their horses through the wooded sections of the expansive ranch, brought her and William closer. Continue reading “Thoughts about Billie Mattis…”
This morning I was thinking about a friend of mine, Shara, and the incredible life she has had. I thought I would share a bit of her past in case you might follow her adventure in the Paladin Shadows chronicles.
Shara came about quite by accident, an unexpected bundle in the Smallwood household. She was born in the beautiful, pine covered Riggs Valley in the western United States and raised on her parent’s horse ranch outside of the small college town of Riggin. She was eight years behind her two, planned sisters, both of whom generally ignored her during her years growing up. They left home not under the best of circumstances after quarreling with their mother over things she could not remember. They moved to the lower valley and lived with their great aunt in the town of Hawthorne. Continue reading “Thoughts about Shara…”
The past few weeks since I launched this page have been extremely busy. Happily, I can say some of that busy-ness has been writing. I won’t say what I’m working on other than to say one of my series is getting an additional trilogy.
Unlike some of my writing friends, I am not going to set daily or monthly word-count goals. I seem to be able to keep my pace and move my stories along, so I’ll just continue to work with that and see how it goes.
If anyone has any questions, just use the Contact page and drop them my way. I’ll try to address them either with an email or in a future post. Thanks for visiting – Aidan