MYSTERY AUTHOR NANCY NAU SULLIVAN ON CHARACTER INSPIRATION

Nancy Nau Sullivan's Mission Improbable: Vietnam is the third installment in the Blanche Murninghan mystery series—the first, Saving Tuna Street was nominated for best mystery, 2020, at Foreword Reviews. Nancy, a former newspaper journalist, taught English in Mexico, Argentina, and at a boys' prison. Learn more about Nancy and her books at her website where you can also find links to her at various social media sites. 

That Favorite Guy

My characters are a mix of people I've read about or seen on the screen—and know personally—with a great deal of imagination thrown in.

 

This week, I was reminded of how remote this dive into imagination can go—I turned on the television one early morning, and there was The Lone Ranger. I'd watched this show every day as a twelve-year-old, and now here was the masked man with Tonto riding away before my eyes more than fifty years later. Did they have anything to do with my Blanche Murninghan, a do-gooder mystery sleuth, and her sister-cousin, Haasi Hakla, a Miccosukee Indian? Oh well, I'd never thought of it until now. Blanche is on to her third adventure – this time in Vietnam.

 

Creating characters is awfully fun, and strange, and while each book has at least half a dozen saints and troublemakers, there always seems to be one who emerges as my favorite—the one who is allowed to say and do the craziest stuff. 

 

Lately, the flavor du jour is Stick.

 

And he's no “stick.” Walter Winchell “Stick” Dahlkamp is a hulk of an Army vet who stayed behind in Vietnam and opened a bar called “The Follies,” so named for the erstwhile news conferences that falsely reported the casualty of war. It's Blanche Murninghan's great luck to happen upon him in Saigon as she and her friend Jean are on a hunt to find Jean's mother. (Haasi stayed home for this one.) The search is the crux of the third installment in the Blanche Murninghan mystery series, Mission Improbable: Vietnam, now available for preorder.

 

I had a lot of fun inventing Stick. Firstly, I couldn't plop Blanche down in Vietnam without some sort of compass to solve her problem. Enter Stick. Blanche and Jean meet up with him at The Follies one night, and he gamely offers to aid in the search for Jean's mom. And so the adventure ramps up. Stick has a super-duper motorcycle, and he knows his way around Saigon and a rice paddy or two. He's also friends with a cast of Vietnamese—which aids in Blanche and Jean's search. In addition to helping Jean, Blanche is determined to find out the truth about what happened to her father during the Vietnam War. He is MIA.

 

In the invention of Stick, I drew upon my three brothers and four sons. They have college degrees and professions (business owners and managers and salesmen, one's a doctor and some have military backgrounds). And they're funny, profane, and good natured, for the most part. Stick's attention to getting business done and his do-right philosophy are based on my guys. But I have to admit, the real capper on this character comes from my love of Skink and Clete. 

 

Skink is a Florida ex-governor who runs away and lives in the Everglades, subsisting on roadkill and righteousness. He's the invention of Carl Hiaasen, my go-to, all-time favorite Florida writer. Clete is James Lee Burke's crazed NOLA character, an ex-con who doesn't stand for the shenanigans of lowlifes, especially when they meddle with his bestie, Dave Robicheaux, an ex-cop, recovering-alcoholic good guy. Clete is not above putting sugar in the fuel tank of a bad man's airplane to exact revenge and save the day. There is something compelling in honor among thieves and rascals.

 

I will not say good-bye to Stick with “The End” of Mission Improbable: Vietnam. I like him too much. I will have to figure out a way to bring him back into Blanche's life on Santa Maria Island. Stick loves the water, beer, and surfing. Good-bye, Saigon—at least for a while—and, hello, Florida? Here comes Stick.

 

Mission Improbable: Vietnam

A Blanche Murningham Mystery, Book 3

 

It’s 2003, nearly 30 years after the Vietnam War…

 

Blanche “Bang” Murninghan is sitting on the dock of the Peel ‘n Eat Pier on Santa Maria Island, sipping an excellent draft. She doesn’t see the woman eyeing her—not until she appears at Blanche’s side and forever disrupts Blanche’s peaceful idyll in this quiet Gulf coast town. Blanche's reputation as an amateur sleuth has gotten around...

 

The woman is Jean McMahon, the daughter of an American soldier and a wealthy Vietnamese beauty. Jean needs Blanche's “determination.” Will Blanche go to Vietnam and help Jean look for her mother? The request hits Blanche hard. Her father was killed in Vietnam, and she’s never gotten over it.

 

In Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Blanche and Jean meet ex-pat “Stick” Dahlkamp. The adventure ramps up. They board Stick's motorcycle and cross rice paddies, the old stomping grounds for Stick, a former Ninth Infantry Division Riverine and now owner of The Follies, a popular bar in Saigon. He’s got friends in jungle towns who might help, and indeed they do. And don’t. Shady characters keep hampering the search, and Blanche can't figure why. 

 

They race on—to all the places Jean's mother met Hank McMahon, a former infantryman. Blanche is wondering if things will get better – now that they've gotten worse. But her stubbornness beats down the door. She is helping Jean, and she's following her father’s trail. He left without a trace. Or did he?

 

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MYSTERY AUTHOR LESLEY A. DIEHL GAVE HER SLEUTH A GUN...

Lesley A. Diehl relies on her country roots and her training as a psychologist to concoct stories designed to make people laugh in the face of murder. “A good chuckle,” says Lesley,” keeps us emotionally well-oiled long into our old age.” She is the author of several cozy mystery series and numerous short stories. Learn more about her and her books and stories at her website.  

Character Development in a Cozy Series: I gave her a gun, but she can’t shoot.

Here’s what I know about Eve Appel Egret’s character: She is the same spunky, in-your-face protagonist we met in the first of the Eve Apple Mysteries. Transplants from the Northeast and referred to as “Yankee gals” by the community, Eve and her friend Madeleine had opened a high fashion secondhand store in rural Florida when, on opening day, Eve found a dead body on their dressing room floor. 

 

From that point (A Secondhand Murder) until the most recent episode of the series (Murder in the Family) Eve has snooped her way through illegal game hunters, members of the Russian mob, drug and human traffickers and just plain bad guys in the swamps of Florida. Along the way she’s eaten her skinny weight in barbeque ribs and cole slaw, drunk a lot of sweet tea and a bit of scotch and found the love of her life. And then in the middle of her exploits she became a private detective, a choice I never saw coming, but now see as the right thing for me to have done as the creator of this series.

 

Protagonists in my other series have been snoopy gals, but never as snoopy or as filled with bravado as Eve. So why morph her into a private eve? Because, simply put, she deserved it. Her favorite weapon against bad guys (and gals) was her stiletto heels, but how long could Eve use her mouth (also a lethal weapon) and footwear to fight off mobsters and killers, not to mention a few alligators along the way?

 

Eve’s mobster friend Nappi Napolitani (is he really a Family man or simply a family man?) has been impressed for years with Eve’s sharp mind and her ability to put together disparate clues to track down criminals. She’s depended upon him and her police detective friend Frida Martinez as back-up for her sometimes impulsive schemes to take out killers, perhaps counting on them to produce the firepower to overwhelm armed opponents. Lately Eve’s enemies have gone from evil guys trying to escape the law to evil guys wanting to take down the law. And her. And her family. And that makes Eve mad, really mad.

 

In addition, for a cozy writer like me, I have grown impatient with amateur sleuths who through the series, always run across dead bodies. How many corpses can one woman stumble over in her line of work as a consignment shop owner? I needed others in the community to encounter dead bodies and for Eve to intervene, as when she took her Yankee environmental stance against mud bog racing (for those unfamiliar with it, it tears up natural habitat and breeding grounds for many native species) or in Old Bones Never Die in which Eve challenges a land developer. Most of Eve’s cases don’t need her to find the bodies. The deaths have emerged from events in the community.

 

Because I kept throwing more and more dangers her way, I decided Eve needed more than a pair of stilettos and a smart mouth to get her out of jams. So, I apprenticed her (with the permission of her loving husband Sammie, her grandmother and other family members, somewhat reluctantly her best friend Madeleine, and half-heartedly police detective Frida Martinez) to the town’s only private detective, Crusty McNabb. 

 

Due to retire soon, Crusty agreed to take on Eve, thinking he could assign her to sit surveillance on insurance fraud cases and keep her out of serious detective work, but he soon found Eve’s brilliance in solving cases an asset. And if her friends and family thought detective work would keep her out of trouble, they were, predictably, wrong. Eve still had her snoopy nature and her crime-solving nature, but she was missing one thing in her detective work: she needed a gun. A dangerous proposition for one as impetuous as our Eve. And, besides, Eve couldn’t hit a broad side of one of Florida’s famous mountains (translation, garbage dump hills).

 

“Open your eyes when you pull the trigger,” Crusty told her, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to shoot without closing her eyes.

 

So, I armed her, gave her detective training, and sent her to the shooting range, but I fear Eve is still the same gal she was when she moved to rural Florida. She has grown, of course, the kind of development a reader expects in a cozy heroine. No better at wielding lethal weapons, Eve now is mother to several children, which has taught her patience. She’s become a bit less in-your-face when confronting the people in her newly adopted rural Florida home, and she sometimes calls for help instead of going off like the Lone Ranger when she chases down criminals. 

 

But she still remains the Eve who is fiercely loyal to friends, old or newly acquired, an attitude she expects others to exhibit. Woe to the person who violates that code of ethics. And, of course, she still wears her stiletto heels and her gelled, punked hair. Eve still doesn’t quite fit into the swamps of rural Florida. We don’t expect her to. And she still can’t shoot.

 

Murder in the Family

An Eve Appel Mystery, Book 8

 

The past comes back seeking vengeance. To save her family and friends, Novice PI Eve Appel, pregnant with her second child, must outwit the bad guys in a final act of desperation, risking her life and that of the man she's asked to help her, her mob boss friend, Nappi.

 

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HOW AUTHOR JANET LANE WALTERS USES ASTROLOGY TO CREATE CHARACTERS

Janet Lane Walters has been a published author for fifty years. She writes romance. fantasy, paranormal and mysteries. Today she joins us to explain how she uses astrology to create the characters in her books. Learn more about her and her books at her blog. 

Using Astrology to Develop Characters

   

Many years ago, a friend and I studied astrology and made enough money casting charts for friends to travel to Ireland. Then life changed and became different for both of us. She became an attorney and I became a writer. But I continued to study and read about the various signs and adding many books on my shelves about the subject. 

One day a way to use what I was still learning occurred. I would use astrology to develop my characters. When my computer crashed and I lost my program for setting up the charts, I sort of put my interest away. Then I had some trouble developing a character from one of my early books. I decided the main elements for developing my characters was to use the Sun Sign, the Rising Sign and the Moon Sign. This worked wonders and is now part of the way I learn about those who people my stories.

   

Let me tell you how this works. The Sun sign gives their inner nature and this is usually where their secret arises. The character may or may not show this nature to the world. This is where their reasons for wanting to achieve their goal are either hidden or not shown in full.

   

The Ascendant shows the face they present to the world. The way others see them may not be what they truly are unless I give them the same Sun sign as the Ascendant. Many times the two sides of their personality can be in conflict, thus giving them a great internal conflict. 

   

The Moon shows their emotional nature. Think of the hero with a soft spot in his heart or the heroine who hides her emotions from others. The emotional nature can be in conflict with the character’s goals and usually points to the reason for this.

While this may not work for every author when developing characters, this method certainly works for me. In Forgotten Dreams Emma, the heroine, is a Cancer and Chad, the hero, is a Leo.

   

Forgotten Dreams 

The Moonchild Series, Book 5

   

Chad Morgan is tired of his Hollywood life and his role as action hero Storm. He's ignoring the contracts for two more movies in the franchise. He wants to take a different direction and make a movie of his friend's book. He has bought the rights. But his agent and the studio want more Storm. His personal life is also bouncing from one woman to another. His thoughts have turned to Emma Grassi, the woman he left behind in his quest for fame. He decides to return to Fern Lake and speak to his friend and renew his friendship with Emma.

Emma is now a nurse practitioner sharing an office with her doctor friend. She has waited for Chad to return and has decided this isn't going to happen. She's decided to confront him and put an end to the dream she has remembered and he has forgotten. Life takes a twist when Chad 's auto accident on the outskirts of Fern Lake bring them together. She wants out. He wants in.

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PSYCHOLOGY OF A SERIAL KILLER WITH CRIME AUTHOR LUKE MURPHY

International bestselling crime novelist Luke Murphy played six years of professional hockey before retiring in 2006. He’s also an award-winning sports columnist, a radio journalist, and a teacher. Today he joins us to discuss the psychology of serial killers. Learn more about Luke and his books at his website.

Psychology of a Serial Killer

As a crime novelist, creating and developing emotion-driven characters is key. Because I write character-driven books, characters are the lifeline of my story; they drive the plot. For me, a powerful antagonist is just as important as a powerful protagonist.

In an antagonist, a writer wants to develop someone the readers want to hate, someone who the reader wants to root against, but find out more about. So when thinking about a serial killer, a writer must try to get inside the head of an individual who is so twisted, so manipulating that committing a crime feels like second nature.

There has been A LOT of research done on the psychology of serial killers, but really, there are still NO definitive answers. If you watch cop shows, then you know the FBI’s typical serial killer profile: white male, ages 20-30, target their victims within the vicinity of their living space, etc.

But in reality, not every serial killer falls into a single type, and these classifications don’t explain what leads someone to become a serial killer.

The thing with creating fictional serial killers is that the boundaries are limitless. For instance, serial killers can be: any age, any gender, any race, intelligent/unintelligent, educated/uneducated, organized/disorganized, employed/unemployed, loved too much/abused as a child, socially awkward/fits in anywhere.

They can be classified as: act-focused killers (killing is about the act itself), process-focused killers (enjoys torture), lust killers (sexual pleasure from killing), thrill killers, gain killers (believe they will profit), power killers (in charge of life and death).

Every writer wants his/her serial killer to be distinguishable, stand out in a crowd of murderers throughout literature, but many have these similar features: narcissistic personalities, callous, exploitive individuals with blunted emotions, impulsive inclinations and an inability to feel guilt or remorse.

When I first sit down to lay out the details for my killer, there are five things I think about:  a power junkie, a manipulator, an egotistical bragger, a superficial charmer and an average Joe.

The crime:

It can be organized, an attack planned methodically, from choosing victims, carrying weapons, transporting victims, and disposing a body. This makes it difficult for investigators to collect evidence. After a killing, they often follow the investigation in the media.

Maybe it’s disorganized, where nothing is planned. Victims hold no symbolic value, "wrong place at the wrong time."

The author’s killer must possess the cleverness and wit to be able to dispose of multiple bodies and outsmart the police by leaving little to no traces of evidence. They reel their victims into a false sense of security and once they have control, they kill, fulfilling their wants, desires, and impulses.

The Investigation:

Normally homicides are committed due to disputes that range from family affairs, gang violence, financial difficulties, and disputes between lovers. But serial killers are driven by instinct and a desire to kill. Due to these sexual desires and the need to fulfill their arousing fantasies, victims are usually complete strangers which means there is no link for detectives to investigate.

The Conclusion:

For me as a reader, I want closure. The subsequent arrest and proof need to be warranted and well planned in detail. Answers can’t be snared out of the blue; there has to be plausibility in the final outcome.

I want some background into the serial killer. Are their psychopathic traits due to DNA or upbringing? What were their parents like? Early childhood abuse or neglect might lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders or phobias. Problem during the early stages of growing up can cause a child to seek relief through activities of violence such as killing small animals.

How will the investigator get there? What mistakes will the killer make? It all has to tie together and leave the reader satisfied. It’s very important for a writer to make sure the reader is aware of the motivations for the killer. This could be as simple as the killer finds comfort in his/her fantasies and dreams that take them into a realm that only they can control.

If you read my novels, please let me know if I was able to fulfill my criteria in creating and developing my antagonist.

Wild Card

This time, it’s not a job.

After proving his innocence as a murder suspect, taking down an assassin, and being an instrumental part in solving a high profile murder, Calvin Watters believes he can finally move on—until Ace Sanders’ prison escape catapults him into action.

This time, it’s personal!

Something has always bothered Detective Dale Dayton about the arrest of Ace Sanders. Call it police intuition, but his inner ‘cop alarm’ keeps twitching. When Dale reopens the case, he’s introduced to new evidence that leads him into a political nightmare.

Who will play the Wild Card to survive?

While Calvin tracks Sanders across continents and into unknown, unfriendly surroundings, Dale remains in Vegas to uncover the truth behind police corruption, prison escapes, and hired assassins. But Calvin and Dale must be vigilant, because there’s a deadly, new player in town.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR LAURA HALEY-McNEIL AND HIP PADDED BARS

Laura Haley-McNeil is an award-winning author of romantic suspense and women’s fiction in novel length and in short stories. Her work has been featured in several women’s magazines. She has studied piano and ballet and has been a board member of two community orchestras. When she isn’t writing, she jogs, bicycles and crochets. Learn more about Laura and her books at her website. 

Frankly, my dear . . .

Romance novels and movies amaze me. Usually we meet two people who have never seen each other before, yet some unknown force draws them together against their wishes. Now the battle begins. We as readers can’t wait to see how the force resolves the conflict between these individuals and draws them together.

My favorite hero and heroine introduction is between Scarlett and Rhett in the movie Gone with the Wind. If you haven’t seen this movie, you can view the characters initial meeting at the barbecue at on youtube. 

Rhett boldly watches Scarlett and her friend Cathleen climb the stairs for their afternoon nap. Scarlett is accustomed to men looking at her, but Rhett’s stare is different. “He looks as if he knew what I looked like without my shimmy." Apparently, that sort of stare was bold in the antebellum South.

Of course, Scarlett only has eyes for Ashley. She’s convinced he doesn’t love her because he doesn’t realize she’s in love with him. With a plan to capture Ashley’s heart, Scarlett sneaks downstairs, while the respectable ladies are napping.

Scarlett leads Ashley into the drawing room where she expresses her undying love for him. To no avail. Ashley will marry his cousin Melanie. Following Scarlett’s outburst at his rejection of her, Ashley leaves Scarlett in the drawing room to stew. Her temper boiling, she grabs a figurine and throws it over the sofa facing the fireplace.

Unbeknownst to Scarlett, Rhett is lying on the sofa and the crash brings him upright. Scarlett’s surprise that someone else was in the room with her and Ashley turns into indignation, “Sir, you . . . you should have made your presence known.”

He wouldn’t think of interrupting the beautiful love scene he had overheard. When Scarlett tells Rhett he’s not a gentleman, he informs Scarlett she is no lady, which he doesn’t hold against her. What classic lines! Can you tell I’ve watched this movie a few times? Like a million?

Alas, Scarlett rejects Rhett and chases after Ashley. Scarlett has to reject Rhett otherwise there would be no story for us. The rest of the movie follows Scarlett’s campaign to win Ashley’s heart while Rhett waits in the wings for her to realize Ashley isn’t the man for her.

I’d love to know the great romance couples who live in your heart. Please share in the comments below. Happy reading!

Hip Padded Bars

Ingredients:

1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 egg
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 c. oatmeal

Mixture:
1 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
1 c. chocolate chips
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix first 6 ingredients together: blend sugar, butter and egg; gradually add flour, baking soda and oatmeal. Will appear somewhat lumpy. Place 1/2 of this in bottom of 9 x 13-inch pan. Then add the "Mixture" all over and top with other half of crumbs.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Refrigerate before cutting.

Note: Eat two so there is equal padding added to each hip.

Crystal Creek Christmas

When a blinding snowstorm shuts down the Crystal Creek Ranch’s cattle operation, the Whitlochs have one mission – save the cattle. ER doc Jake Whitloch joins in the rescue, but the form he finds in a snowdrift is no cow. It’s a woman, a woman who consumes his thoughts despite that two-carat diamond sitting on her ring finger.

Noelle Beaupré thanks the rugged doctor for rescuing her from freezing to death and the Whitlochs for taking her into their home, but now it’s time for her to leave the ranch. She longs to stay with the man who’s determined to protect her, but she doesn’t dare. Her deadly secret is in hot pursuit. Any delay and she’ll endanger the family who opened their home to her.

Noelle leaving Crystal Creek Ranch? Jake can’t let her go, but how can he convince her he’ll do anything to keep her safe?

Note: This book includes your favorite Crystal Creek characters from Book One of the Crystal Creek Series and several new characters, including Max Whitloch’s children from his previous marriages who come to the ranch for Victoria and Garrett’s wedding. All Max’s children will have their own books as they pursue their quests for love.

While Crystal Creek Christmas could be read as a standalone story, readers will enjoy it more if they have read Guarding Her Heart, Book One of the Crystal Creek Series.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON ON THE BIRTH OF A SLEUTH

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston is Anastasia's creator and sometimes Doppelgänger. Along with writing humorous amateur sleuth mysteries, she writes romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website and by following this blog.

Birth of a Sleuth

A few years ago Turner Classic Movies featured all the Thin Man movies, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. I wound up binge watching the series, fascinated by the chemistry between the two main characters. At the same time I was reading a book about George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of Hollywood’s great love stories.

In the Thin Man movies, Nora is Nick’s anchor, the common sense partner. With George and Gracie, George played the straight man to Gracie’s ditzy personality. However, in real life Gracie Allen was nothing like the ditzy character she played in the movies and on television. She was actually quite brilliant and an astute businesswoman.

Meanwhile, when I wasn’t reading or watching television, I was mulling over ideas for a new mystery series. Mash-ups have been all the rage in music for a few years now, and I began to think about mash-ups in terms of characters. What if I combined the characters of Nora Charles and Gracie Allen?

Thus was born Gracie Elliott, the amateur sleuth of my Empty Nest mystery series. The series is a wink and a nod to the characters of Nick and Nora Charles but with a modern day twist: this time the wife is the sleuth and her husband is her sidekick. On the outside Gracie is a bit of a ditz (okay, maybe more than a bit.) But like the real Gracie Allen, she’s actually quite smart. She just sees the world through her own unique, totally right-brained perspective which always makes perfect sense to her, even if it doesn’t to her college professor husband Blake.

The series is called The Empty Nest Mysteries, and like my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, it’s a humorous amateur sleuth series that takes place in a suburb of New York City. As a matter of fact, I’ve placed Gracie and Blake in the same town where Anastasia lives. Who knows? At some point the two amateur sleuths might even cross paths!

Gracie is a fledgling romance writer, bound and determined to become a bestselling author. She’s absolutely convinced this will happen relatively soon.

In the first book, Definitely Dead, Gracie hadn’t yet completed a manuscript. At the beginning of Literally Dead, the second book in the series and my newest release, Gracie has spent the past year crafting her first novel. Her hard work and determination pay off when her manuscript wins the Cream of the Crop award, a contest for unpublished writers, sponsored by the Society of American Romance Authors. First place entitles her to attend the organization’s annual conference, normally open only to published authors.

With husband Blake in tow, a starry-eyed Gracie experiences the ultimate fan-girl moment upon entering the hotel. Her favorite authors are everywhere. However, within minutes she learns Lovinia Darling, the Queen of Romance, is hardly the embodiment of the sweet heroines she creates. Gracie realizes she’s stepped into a romance vipers’ den of backstabbing, deceit, and plagiarism, but she finds a friend and mentor in bestselling author Paisley Prentiss.

Hours later, when Gracie discovers Lovinia’s body in the hotel stairwell, a victim of an apparent fall, Gracie is not convinced her death was an accident. Too many other authors had reason to want Lovinia dead. Ignoring Blake’s advice to “let the police handle it,” Gracie, aided by Paisley, begins her own investigation into the death. Romance has never been so deadly.

LiterallyDead is currently available for pre-order at Amazon, iTunes, and Kobo. It will be available as a paperback and through Nook October 1st.

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HEALTHY LIVING WITH JANICE--GUEST AUTHOR ROB COSTELLOE

Author Rob Costelloe sits in for our Wednesday editors today to discuss trust in marital relationships. Rob began writing fiction as a youngster and completed his first novel a few years after college. He’s the author of two novels, Coinage of Commitment, a National Indie Excellence Book Award finalist, and Pocket Piece Cameo. He’s currently working on his third novel. Learn more about Rob and his books at his website.  – AP

Separate Accounts

My books feature characters who want more from love that what they see all around them. Something stronger, something higher, something worth pursuing. Part of that pursuit is usually an effort to understand love. We can’t make it soar higher or make it last longer unless we figure out how it works. This usually means the characters need to take an intellectual as well as an emotional journey to attain the emotional altitude they seek. And this opens up all sorts of literary issues to explore. What conditions in their lives produced a hunger for such fulfillment? And, of course, what are they going to do about it?

As an author exploring such issues, I sometimes find myself reacting to relationship issues that pop up in the strangest ways. For instance, I happened to be walking through the den the other day and overheard a pundit on Fox News exhorting prospective newlyweds to be sure to set up separate checking and banking accounts. She seemed to be mentioning it as a kind of checklist item, probably part of an array of recommendations—many of them likely tax related—that she was reviewing for the benefit of people planning marriage. As a kind of afterthought, she said—as I got closer to the limit of my hearing range—that of course, in today’s hip, digital culture, with people more aware and better informed than ever before, separate accounts were an elementary safeguard for all parties concerned. As I walked out of range, I thought of another advantage to separate accounts. If you don’t see the mess your spouse makes of her account (and vice versa), then you’re not as likely to get upset about it and argue over it.

But then it occurred to me that this is one of those instances where the validity of your logic depends on the premises you set. Yeah, if your priority concern is to “protect” the individual members of a marriage, then separate accounts do provide that assurance. But how far should such “protections” extend?

Most murders are products of domestic violence, but does that make it wise for me to keep a pistol under my pillow to protect me from my wife? Also, it doesn’t take long for the realization to sink in that the protection is from each other. Do I need to be protected from the woman I’ve vowed to love and cherish till death do us part? More importantly, what message does establishing such protection send to one’s spouse? “Okay, let me get this straight,” I can hear her say. “You say you love me, that there will never be anyone for you but me, and that we are one flesh, but with your actions you are saying that I can’t be trusted not to abscond with all our liquid assets.” Worse yet is that she may not be saying that out loud, but instead storing it in her heart as a corrosive doubt.

So what’s the right answer? I think that depends on what you want out of marriage, and how much you are willing to risk and invest in the romance we pledge as a lifetime commitment. The guiding fundamental is that actions speak louder than words. In Coinage of Commitment, the female protagonist tells the love of her life that she is assuming a posture of emotional vulnerability and dependence on him. She does this to raise his commitment to her emotional needs to a level he had not contemplated. As a result of how he responds…well, better not to give away the surprise ending.

Coinage of Commitment

Wayne and Nancy grow up on opposite sides of the country, each certain they must have love better than what others will settle for. Something stronger, something richer, something worth searching for. During the turbulent nineteen-sixties, they meet while he is attending blue-collar Drexel, and she is at neighboring, Ivy League Penn. Although irresistibly drawn to each other, they must overcome obstacles posed by the class and social differences that separate them, as well as opposition from both families, and later, a twist of fate that will be the cruelest test of all. Can they reach the emotional heights they seek? Can they overcome time's downward pulling inertia? Coinage of Commitment is dedicated to all who ever wondered about the altitude love might soar to.

  

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