About this item
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected - and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret and her children. For months, Henry scours the surrounding wilderness, until all hope is lost and his wife and children are presumed dead. Grief-stricken, he books passage to California. There he marries Nancy Foreland, a young widow with a new baby, and it seems they've both found happiness in the midst of their mourning - until Henry's first wife and children show up, alive and having finally escaped captivity.
About the Author
I'd been writing full time for fifteen years when The Wives of Henry Oades sold to Random House in 2008. I now know that's not particularly unusual. Many writers put in at least ten years before their first sale. And many if not most have an unsold novel or two under the bed. I do. That's not particularly unusual either.
I was a National Airlines and Pan Am flight attendant for seventeen fairly hedonistic years. I retired at thirty-six and went back to school, graduating with a degree in English Literature from the University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee. I was burning to write, and thought my novel would take a year, two at the most.
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher." -Ambrose Bierce
I was a lunatic for a good many years. I finished two novels and started a third - The Wives of Henry Oades. The story itself drew attention from literary agents, but the structure didn't quite work. I'd written in first person and not linearly. The narrative jumped around too much, negating the drama. I stopped sending out queries and spent another two years rewriting - linearly this time, and in third person. I signed with the first agent I contacted, a sharp, hardworking woman whose business acumen I admired.
I live on the west coast of Florida, happily-ever-after with my husband, John Moran.
