Hi there!
Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Today, we play host to a stop along Rachel's Random Resources tour featuring a Women's Fiction title from an author who got her start a bit later in life, and never looked back...but here's the thing. It's not JUST a spotlight on the title, but a spotlight on the AUTHOR as we take a closer look at her "perpetual reinvention" and perhaps glean a pearl or two of wisdom for our own journeys through life. Sound good? Great! So, first the spotlight, then we meet and greet author Phyllis H. Moore. Ready, set...read all about it!
Birdie & Jude
by
Phyllis H. Moore
NA/ Adult Women’s Fiction Up Lit
About the book...
A moving novel of loss, regret, denial, and discovery on Galveston Island, from the author of Opal’s Story and The Ember Months.
Birdie has lived to regret many of her decisions, but she doesn’t regret offering a stranger, Jude, shelter from an approaching hurricane. Their serendipitous meeting will form a bond that will change their lives forever.
In a character driven story with memories of the protests and inequality plaguing the 1960's, Birdie’s reached middle age and questions her life. Jude is striking out on her own, but has been derailed by a fatal accident claiming her only friend. Although their backgrounds and lives are vastly different, they recognize something in the other that forges a friendship.
As their relationship solidifies, they share glimpses of their pasts. Birdie is a product of the '60's, an aging hippie, with a series of resentments. She had a sheltered childhood in an upper class family. Her parents longed to see her make the Texas Dip at the Mardi Gras ball. Jude, however, entered foster care as an infant. Her parents, victims of a murder/suicide, left her and her siblings orphaned and separated.
There is something about their connection that strikes Birdie as familiar. Can souls know each other in different lives? Birdie struggles with the awareness that she has had regrets and hasn't lived an authentic life, while Jude faces an uncomfortable truth about her own. It has all the feels.
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GUEST POST
A Perpetual Reinvention of Myself
by author Phyllis H. Moore
Before I started writing at the age of sixty-two, I had a few jobs. I have a master’s degree in social work. Working for thirty years in that field exposed me to all types of people and their problems. It is a fertile history of characters and dysfunction. Most of my work was done in the rural area and small towns in Texas. Those towns all had unique personalities, and I interfaced with the courts, the schools, and the medical community. I’m inspired by the people I met and they come across in my stories, not literally, but in pieces of inspiration.
After retirement from social work when I was fifty, my husband and I restored a house in a small historical town in south Texas. We opened and operated a bed and breakfast and received visitors from all over the world. It was a unique experience to meet people and share the history in the town. After running the bed and breakfast for seven years, we retired to a small ranch. It was the perfect place for me to start writing and explore storytelling. I’ve been hooked ever since.
Two years ago, my husband and I moved back to Galveston Island, where we raised our children. The island is a unique setting with big city amenities, but a small town vibe. It’s a creative community and offers forgiveness for all sorts of pirates.
Since I began writing, I’ve published fourteen novels, an anthology of short stories, non-fiction, and a novella. It’s been a learning curve for a technology challenged person, but I can honestly say, I’m learning every day. I belong to a writer’s critique group, take workshops and creative writing classes each semester, and am constantly working on improving my skills.
In my next life, I’ll start this passion earlier. I do believe I’ve been here before and will have several more chances to get this right. In my retirement, I embraced being a beginner again. I couldn’t ask, “Is that all there is?” I had to ask, “What am I going to do next and what the heck do I need to know?”
In my novel, Birdie and Jude, Birdie recognizes a new friend, Jude, as someone she knew in the 1960’s, the only person who understood her. Because her family wanted her to live the life they’d dreamed for her, Birdie was never able to live her authentic life. The regrets made her a bitter older woman, but will she have another chance to live her own passions? I’m sure of it, because in my opinion there is no right and wrong, everything is a learning experience.
This is one of my favorite stories. It was inspired by several things that happened to me and friends. It’s a braid of three inspirations, the approach of a hurricane, coming of age in the 1960’s, and the sudden death of a friend.
Writing women’s fiction, I’m inspired by strong female characters. Like me, they grow during their own stories and I hope they inspire others. I think Birdie is an inspiration to her friends and herself. She certainly has been to me. Readers can find all of my novels and my blogs on my website here. There are other evolving females in those stories. In the meantime, I’m tackling new apps on my cell phone.
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Phyllis H. Moore wants to live life experiences more than once: doing it, writing about it, and reading about it. The atmosphere of the south draws her in and repels her. The characters are rich with dysfunction and redemption, real. She’s had two careers and two retirements. Both careers gave her inspiration for her novels: The Sabine Series, Sabine, Billy’s Story, Josephine’s Journals and Secrets of Dunn House, Opal’s Story, Tangled, a Southern Gothic Yarn, and The Bright Shawl, Colors of Tender Whispers, The Ember Months, Birdie & Jude, and an anthology of spooky short stories inspired by real places and events, The Bridge on Jackson Road. In 2018 she also released a new genre for her, A Dickens of a Crime, a Meg Miller Cozy Mystery. She has authored one nonfiction book, Retirement, Now What? Phyllis has been published by Caffeinated Press in the anthology, Brewed Awakenings 2, Fifteen Tales to Jolt Your Mind Awake.
Phyllis is a retired social worker and former owner/operator of a small bed and breakfast. She’s lived in the rural areas and cities of south Texas. She currently lives on Galveston Island with her husband, Richard. She blogs on her web site. Follow her on Pinterest and Facebook.
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Special thanks to Rachel at Rachel's Random Resources for the chance to bring this tour to you. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, this promotion, or those on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above. Be sure to check out the rest of the tour as it makes its way through the blogosphere...
Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!
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