Personal Connections to Mason's Memories

Although nothing in my upcoming novel, Mason's Memories, is the least bit autobiographical, there are a few connections with my family and background. I rarely use names from my family in my books, but for this one I did. Greene is my mother's maiden name and also the surname I gave Mason because it fits, and it's a common name in Western North Carolina.

Dorotha Dix

 Mason came from Yadkinville, a     town about 25 miles east of where I   grew up. When Mason comes home from the Civil War, however,   neighbors mistake his flashbacks, and what we'd today diagnose as   PTSD, as being mentally unstable.   They wanted to have him committed to Dorthea Dix, the mental institution in Raleigh. Mental hospitals, even the best ones, were not where anyone wanted to be in those early days, so Mason sells out and moves to Colorado where he becomes a recluse.

When the designer sent me the cover for the book, the man portrayed there looked like someone from the Greene family in Watauga and Wilkes counties, or, in other words, my mother's family. In fact, my grandfather had some of those same features. How's that for coincidence? But it just reinforced my idea of using Greene for his last name.

This story, in fact, this whole series, is special to me. The series fits many of the plots I had already been thinking about, and I had an extra strong connection with Mason and Carrie as I wrote their story. I anticipate the readers also having that connection as they read it. Mason's Memories will be released on February 21, and it's available for preorder now.

Link to Mason's Memories

__________________________