In her guest post, Cherokee Wisdom, she'll tell you why. . .
CHEROKEE
WISDOM
Readers often ask how much of
what I write is based on my life and experiences. I tell them all the real
estate stories in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series are true―they happened to me or to the Realtors I know―but the
murders and everything else is not. It’s
not really that simple, though, and that made writing “The Two-Faced Triplex”
incredibly difficult.
When I began my first book, “The
Death Contingency,” the protagonists were Nancy―me―and
Craig, my husband. But Nancy and Craig wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do―they just weren’t good at following directions―so I quickly made them Regan and Tom, hoping that would improve
our working relationship.
Their personalities evolved with
their names until they weren’t Nancy and Craig at all…except for one thing: Tom
still had Craig’s incredibly blue eyes. Regan mentions them often, and they were a major
clue to solving the murders, in “Buying Murder.”
Craig’s role in my mystery
writing evolved, too. He became my beta reader and eventually a darned good content
editor. We would spend hours whipping the books into shape before sending them
to my editor. The pre-editor part was tricky,
but we made up for that when we went to work designing the book covers. That
was the fun part.
Craig died of Multiple Myeloma a
year-and-a-half ago. I had the plot for “The Two-Faced Triplex” in mind before
he died, but for a while, after his death, I couldn’t concentrate enough to do
anything useful, let alone write. Once I did start on the book, it was
incredibly difficult to imagine Tom because, when I did, I saw Craig’s blue
eyes. As the book progressed, rather than writing faster, which is my normal
pattern, I slowed down.
Last year I did Ancestry© and discovered the rumored Cherokee bride in my ancestral
line was real. Perhaps that’s why I have always been so taken with this
Cherokee parable, so taken with it, that
I made it the last thing Tom said.
“It’s an old bit of Cherokee
wisdom,” Tom answered. “According to Cherokee lore, a grandfather explained to
his grandson that there are two wolves
struggling inside each of us. One wolf is vengefulness, anger,
resentment, self-pity, and fear. The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness,
hope, truth, and love. When his grandson asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’
his grandfather replied, ‘The one you feed.’
Before Craig died, he made me
promise that I would have a good life. Finishing “The Two-Faced Triplex” was hard,
but it was a part of keeping my promise and part of feeding the right wolf.
Regan signs on to play
consoler-and-chief after the body of Martha Varner, one of her favorite
clients, is found and the woman’s distraught daughter begs Regan to stop escrow
from closing on a purchase her mother was about to make. Martha Varner’s death,
at first ruled suicide, is quickly ruled homicide. The dead woman’s best friend
thinks she knows who Martha’s killer is. The police have a different suspect.
And Regan? Well, she has her own ideas about who killed Martha Varner. She just
can’t imagine how complicated playing amateur sleuth will make her life and how
dangerous her investigation will prove to be for her husband, Tom. The
Two-Faced Triplex is the seventh book in the Regan McHenry Real Estate
Mysteries series and probably the last of Regan and Tom's adventures. Dave,
Santa Cruz Police Department Ombudsman and Regan's best friend, makes a return
appearance and Harry, Regan and Tom's rescue cat is pressed into service as a
decoy. As usual, action takes place in Santa Cruz County, but clues lead Regan
to Carmel as she tries to find out what Martha was doing in the days leading up
to her murder.
Buy the Two-Faced Triplex thru Amazon
Buy the Two-Faced Triplex thru Amazon
~~*****~~
About the
Author
Nancy Lynn Jarvis was a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor® for
more than twenty years before she fell in love with writing and let her license
lapse. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University,
she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move
to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business
manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz at UCSC. Nancy’s work history reflects her
philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years, a
philosophy she applies to her writing, as well. This is the seventh book in the
Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series but she has taken breaks to write a
stand-alone book called “Mags and the AARP Gang” about a group of octogenarian
bank robbers, and to edit “Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their
Favorite Recipes.” She planned to start a new series, “Geezers with Tools” but
book seven in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mystery series kept calling her, so
Geezers was put on hold temporarily. She’s also editing an anthology of short
stories from Santa Cruz authors with the title and theme “Santa Cruz Weird.”
~~*****~~
Thank you for sharing your courage with
us, Nancy.
Writers, how
much of you is in your stories?
