Many writers would disagree, but I find writing cathartic. A book idea is like pressure inside my brain seeking release. Once my fingers touch the keyboard, words pour through my fingers. Does this happen all the time? Of course not. But when I’m seized with the desire to write, my creative power feels electric. I can’t type fast enough to capture the ideas swirling through my mind.
Gardening allows my hands to create differently. Soil teeming with wriggling worms. Grasshoppers skipping along blades of grass. Earth crumbling through my fingers, getting under my nails. I relax, decompress.
When I began work on Murder Is Revealing, I knew my protagonist would also be a gardener. Dr. Myaisha Douglas is a widowed, empty nester who writes to cope with her loneliness. A member of her writing group is murdered, causing a cascade of problems for the group—and its members.
Though plants are not a pivotal topic in my novel, it thrilled me when my book cover designer, Karen Phillips, incorporated a gardenia on the cover. The sentiment not only touched me but also alluded to the book’s protagonist.
I started work on Murder Is Revealing around the same time I planted this Meyer lemon tree. Each white bulb is a potential fruit. Not every story I write will come to fruition and become a marketable novel, but I enjoy helping them mature. Hopefully, readers will likewise find my novel satisfying.
Physician and amateur writer, Dr. Myaisha Douglas must discover who murdered her college friend before police convict a member of her writing group for the crime. It is the height of the 2007 housing market crash and, with a murdered realtor, the potential suspects are many. Myaisha erroneously accuses the wrong person of the homicide and is almost killed for her mistake.
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