Family

 I tend to join Ancestry every few years to update my family tree. They're always adding new resources, so there's generally something new to find. One great-grandmother was a complete mystery when I started my family tree. My grandmother was adopted. A family friend told me her adopted father was in actuality her biological father. I found her original birth certificate and the father listed was a variation of his name so I thought that clicked. And there was a mother's name listed.

Before DNA testing was available, I was pretty sure I tracked down my grandmother's mother. And I listed her adopted father as her bio father on my tree, though I didn't have proof. Since then, DNA has shown that her dad was her biological father, and my guess at her mom was correct as well.

Here's the thing, I like knowing who I came from, but I also know who my family truly is. I look at those names on my family tree and can trace my roots to Ireland, England and Germany.  I can follow my northern family lines from a Brown University founder to Erie, PA. I can trace my southern family line from the Appalachian Mountains, to Erie. I know I've had politicians, doctors, sea captains, train engineers, homesteaders and share croppers in that tree. 

All that is great and truly fascinating but my family? My real family? Well, there's John. Papa John to me. He wasn't related through DNA, but he was my Papa through and through. He gardened. Every Christmas he brought me a poinsettia and every Easter a hyacinth. (Himself occasionally tries to buy me an Easter flower to remind me of Papa...and he invariably buys a lily. But that always makes me smile and think of Papa anyway! LOL) Then there's Elmer. He wasn't a blood relation either, but he was my grandpa. He lived on a farm in western Erie county. He mowed a golf course in the summers and had permanently sun burned arms. His mom was named Maggie Mae and I have the vaguest memory of her in a rocker.  Both of these "grandfathers" were my real family.

Family isn't DNA. I mean, I love knowing these people and their paths that all converged and led me here, but Papa and Elmer...they were family. 

I think my fragmented family tree is why writing stories about how families come together is such a theme for me. That's what the entire Hometown Hearts series is. In Crib Notes there's an unexpected pregnancy and a baby who finds a true father. In A Special Kind of Different there's a special needs character who brings together a special relationship and creates a family. In Homecoming a loss leads to the discovery that hearts have infinite room...loving someone new doesn't take away from others you've loved. And in this month's Suddenly a Father, Tucker was a teen mom who spent her adult years taking care of her son and her career. She's never needed anything—anyone—else. But she meets a man who truly knows what family is and is willing to put his entire life on the line for them. How can she resist him? (She can't. LOL)

Next year's stories continue that exploration of family in Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Something Perfect and Something for Christmas. 

Family. It's a fascinating subject that I will never get tired of exploring in my life and my writing. 

Thank you everyone who's come along for the ride! I hope you'll pick up this month's release, Suddenly a Father and the first three books as well!

Holly

Crib Notes: Hometown Hearts #1

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A Special Kind of Different: Hometown Hearts #2

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Homecoming: Hometown Hearts #3
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Suddenly a Father: Hometown Hearts #4

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Something Borrowed: Hometown Hearts #5
PREORDER. Available 1/21
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THE END by Susan Sands

I've been writing a story for almost seven months. Finally, after much research, and a gazillion hours

When the DNA is strong

of putting in the hard work, I finished the manuscript. My husband asked if I was feeling celebratory. My response was a blank stare. 

After I type the best two words (THE END), My brain goes hard into overdrive. Did I forget something or someone? Did I tie things up? Did I drop something I started along the way? Did someone have a cat and I never mention it again? That's before I dive deep into the editing. Then there's the timeline. Days, months, years. Did I stick with the continuity of it all?

That's when I ask some folks to read it with fresh eyes and give it to me straight. I can't do it alone. I don't trust myself after rolling around in the words for so long. Plus, there are multiple points of view, which makes it even more complicated. Every scene from each POV has to match up the next time I'm in their head. Pardon my brain fog...

But I'm excited about the story--or I will be once it's all cleaned up. 

It's a story of a woman who gets a DNA test as a gift instead of her expected engagement ring. Predictably, for a great story, the results aren't as expected. Not only does she figure out that she was adopted at birth, a minor detail her loving parents never found the right time to tell her, but she's got a sister who shows up on her "connections" profile. This leads her to her birth mother, who doesn't want her to know who her birth father is except to say, "He's a bad man."

But as fate and fiction would have it, she gets an alert on her profile soon after that she has another connection. A brother on her birth father's side. Now, there's a whole new branch on the family tree; one that's far more complicated. 

This is a story about family; the old, the new, and finding out that some things, as unwelcome as they seem, can complicate and enrich one's life in equal measure. 

Set in the Low Country around the Sea Islands.

Let me just say that researching unexpected DNA results was fascinating. I spoke to several people who'd found out they had siblings and parents who were different than they'd believed. One woman in Florida found four sisters she knew nothing about. Her father had impregnated women throughout the state. They expect to find more matches. 

I haven't done a DNA test personally, but I look so much like both my parents that I wouldn't expect any surprises, but I might do one for the sake of genealogy.

How about you? Do you have a good DNA story?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!! 

Susan Sands