The Fall of a Hero

I've been missing from this blog for several months, and from much of the rest of my world.  I apoligize to my fans for disappearing, and I feel as though I owe you an explanation.  This may take more than one post, but I find myself wanting to talk about what happened over the last year.

You see, I lost my hero, the man I have looked up to and admired for more than 60 years.  My dad.  I want to talk about him, about who he was and what he meant to me.

Over the last couple years I have watched dementia slowly steal the man I knew.  It was heart-breaking to watch this vital, larger-than-life man reduced to a confused and debilitated man battling with his private demons.

In the end he slipped away in his sleep on the 17th of August.  It was both a tragedy and a blessing, and brought grief, relief, and guilt for feeling relieved, in equal measures.  I will always miss him, but the man I grew up with would not have chosen those last months of dependency and loss of control.

Dad wasn't a conventional hero.  He didn't fly planes, or charge into burning buildings, or chase bad guys.  But he was my hero.  There are many things I want to say about him, to tell you why he was important.

I thought I was ready.  I had the words in my head to tell you what I want you to know.  But I still can't.  Sometime soon, I hope.

In the meantime, I hold onto one thing: Just a few days before he died, I got a revised cover image for the first book in the new series (it's getting a couple tweaks, and I hope to have it to post later in the week). 

This is the first book under the Fifield name.  My dad's name. 

I was able to email a copy to my mother, and she took it to show Dad - the first time the name he passed down to me appeared on the cover of a book.

I like to think he approved.

Life Is Full of Mystery

Guest blogger Paty Jager finds a little bit of mystery in everyday life.  As an honest-to-god ranch wife in the modern West, she writes fascinating tales of the Old West, including a forthcoming paranormal series.

Wife, mother, grandmother, and the one who cleans pens and delivers the hay; award winning author Paty Jager has not only brought her husband of thirty years to maturity, but four children and over a hundred head of cattle and swine. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Every day of our lives has a bit of mystery or intrigue in it. The gas light is blinking in your car. Will you make it to the gas station or have to call someone to either pick you up or bring you gas? You're on your way home from work. What's for dinner? Did you put meat out that morning or will it be something leftover from the night before? Or You've been called to the boss' office. Are you getting a raise or are you getting the boot?

For a writer each unique person we see becomes a puzzle or mystery. We wonder about their occupation, their background, their family life. We invent lives for them and eventually use them in a story.

It is these mysteries and our inquiring minds that bring forth books.
My first published book was inspired by thoughts of—what if an accident prone woman pretending to be a young man was made Marshal of a small town? While the story is a historical western romance there is mystery woven throughout the book. Is the Mayor really what he seems; is the hero a hero or an outlaw? What happened in the hero's past? Will the heroine keep her identity a secret when it matters most?
The first contemporary western I wrote started after I heard on the radio about a youngster who ordered items over the internet with their parent's credit cards and the parents didn’t know until the items arrived at their home. A mystery. My book started with a nanny showing up to start a job and the ranch owner not having a clue why she was there because his preteen daughter and a neighbor ordered the nanny over the internet. Mystery- Does he let her stay or send her packing? Why did she pick a remote ranch to be a nanny? Why does he not want anything to do with a woman? Why does he need a nanny? All these mysteries are solved in the book.
I enjoy reading mysteries and I enjoy incorporating mystery into the stories I write. What was a book you read that wasn't categorized as a mystery but it had elements of mystery within the pages?


Paty has four historical western romance novels available through The Wild Rose Press and one contemporary western, which won the 2008 Best Contemporary Romance EPPIE. In June her fifth historical western, Doctor in Petticoats, will be released and her first book of a historical paranormal trilogy, Spirit of the Mountain, will be released in August. To learn more about Paty, her books, and to enter her website contest go to http://www.patyjager.net/ or visit her blog at http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com/



Christy, thank you for having me here today. I enjoy Georgiana Neverall and the interesting characters that keep her company.

Meet Georgiana Neverall!! (Read the opening to "Sink Trap!")

A Dirty Business

Always keep a Tyvek jumpsuit and a dust
mask on hand. Both can be purchased at
most hardware and home supply stores. You’ll
be glad to have them when you have to crawl
underneath the house, or through the attic.
When dirt and worse are flying everywhere, it’s
handy to have a tough outer layer to repel it.
—A Plumber’s Tip from Georgiana Neverall

1

“Georgiana? Georgiana Neverall , is that you under there?”

My mother, Sandra Neverall, the doyenne of Whitlock Estates Realty and one of the more demanding customers of Hickey & Hickey Plumbing, stood in the doorway. Her stylish stiletto heels, the only part of her visible from my position under the utility sink, looked impossibly out of place on the dirty concrete of the warehouse floor.

My mother could turn a simple hello into a referendum
on my entire life. “Yes, Mother. Who else would it be but
your only daughter?”

I regretted it the instant the words left my mouth. She
knew how to push my buttons, and I knew she knew, but it
didn’t stop me from rising to her bait.

“We-l-l-l-l . . .” She dragged the word out, and I could
picture her arching one perfectly penciled eyebrow. “I’m
really not sure. My daughter spent a fortune on a degree
from Cal Tech. I’d hardly expect to find her in ragged
coveralls under the utility sink of a filthy warehouse, now
would I?”

I bit back the impulse to answer in kind. We’d read that
script too many times already. I’d recently discovered I
liked wearing coveralls and crawling under sinks, and she
thought I should wear aprons and serve meatloaf to an
adoring husband. Or at least make some use of that pricy
college degree.

“And yet, you have.” I abandoned the stubborn pipe
joint and wiggled out from under the sink, standing up to
face my mother, work boots to stilettos. “So, what was so
important that you dragged yourself all the way out here
to find me?”

She widened her eyes in an attempt at innocence. She
held the expression for a few seconds, but then realized I
wasn’t buying her act and gave it up.

I love my mother, and I truly believed she loves me.
But that didn’t mean we dropped in on each other, or
palled around together.

Or understood each other.

To tell the truth, I was surprised she even knew where
to find me.

“I went by that charity house first. I assumed you were
there.” She refused to call the project by its proper name,
Portland Homes for Help.

“I finished there before I came to work.” For a moment
I remembered the rich odor of fresh-cut pine and the scent
of new carpet. The house was nearly done, smelling like
hope and the promise of help for one deserving family.

“It’s charity, Georgiana,” she said, as though reading
my thoughts. She says that’s a mom talent that never goes
away. She’d been really good at it when I was a teenager,
but you’d think it would lose its potency when I passed
thirty.

Apparently not.

But it explained how she found me. The Homes for
Help crew ratted me out.

I nodded, bit my tongue, and waited for her to go on.

“I’m on my way out to the Clackamas Commons Development,”
she finally continued. “Gregory and I.” She
always referred to her boss as Gregory, not Mr. Whitlock,
and I wondered for a moment about the apparent level of
familiarity before I focused back on her words. “—so
we’re going to take over sales for all three hundred units.”

“Great, Mom. Really. If anyone can sell those places,
it’s you. I can picture the commissions stacking up.” I
grinned at her, to let her know I really was pleased. “But
you didn’t need to come all the way out here to tell me
that. You could have called.”

“It was on my way,” she lied, waving a freshly manicured
hand in dismissal.

Plum Crazy. The color registered without thought. I
hadn’t had a manicure in over two years—not since I left
the high-wire act of corporate competition—but it used to
be my favorite color. And it described perfectly the way
my mother made me feel.

I turned away and crouched back under the edge of the
sink. “That’s great news, Mom. Thanks for telling me. But
I need to get back to this job.”

I really didn’t expect it to work, and it didn’t. But it did
make her get to the point. Finally.

Her tone became all-business, as though someone had
thrown a switch. I found her ability to change so abruptly
a tad creepy. Then again, it was a useful talent.

“I just talked to Barry,” she said.

So she’d come to see my boss, Barry the Plumber, not
me. “He promised me the two of you would get this inspection
done by tomorrow.” She glanced around the warehouse,
her nose wrinkled in distaste. “And he said he’d
start on the house as soon as you finish here.”

She paused and I hoped we were finished, but she had
one more zinger before she left. “I asked for you on this
one, Georgiana, because I know you need the work. I just
hope you don’t waste too much time on that charity house
when you have a paying job waiting.”

She walked away, her heels clicking loudly in the
empty space, and I wiggled back under the sink. Charity, I
reflected, was not one of Sandra Neverall’s strong suits.

Be fair, I reminded myself, as I went back to work on
the corroded pipes. Charity was what forced her to go to
work after my dad died. The beloved Dr. Neverall of Pine
Ridge, Oregon, had treated his patients for free, and left
his widow with a stack of unpaid bills, and a load of resentment.

I promised myself I’d cut her some slack.

Or at least I’d try.

(Click to continue...)



Order "Sink Trap" now:

Welcome to Pine Ridge!

Hi, I'm Christy Evans!

Well, sometimes I'm Christy Evans. Most of the time, out in the so-called real world, I'm Christina York; but in the mystery world I'm Christy Evans.

Last year I signed on to write a three-book mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime: the Georgiana Neverall Lady Plumber series. The first two books are finished and turned in, and I'm working on the third book.

So Christy Evans Mystery is here to host discussions of mystery reading and writing, and maybe to give a few sneak peaks at Georgie, her friends, her family, and her home town of Pine Ridge, Oregon.

Come visit with us!