When the leaves drop from the trees, my story people start stirring. They are restless, particularly when I haven’t been letting them talk. I’ve kept them trapped in the basement of my mind for a few weeks as I celebrated a birthday, Thanksgiving and my son’s wedding earlier this year. Through it all they’ve been relatively patient, but their feet, and hands, are stirring against the walls of my brain.

If only there was more time in the day! How many times do we all say this? The characters from my Family Secret Series say it a lot. They have adventures, waiting to be shared. They wonder why I can’t work faster?

In my first book, Cobwebs – A Suspense Novel, set in Osage County, Oklahoma, the main character, Jamie Aldrich, goes to Pawhuska to visit her great aunt. There, she stumbles upon deadly secrets. The longer she stays, tending to her aunt’s affairs while the elderly woman lies in a coma following an attack, the more she feels she can’t trust anyone there. The story is Jamie’s, as well as her aunt’s, but other characters whom my readers met have stories, too.

Trudy, her aunt’s helper,  turns out to be slightly more than that, and wants me to write about the advantages of looking as if you aren’t very smart – when you are. Then there’s Vera, her aunt’s friend, who finally agrees to help Jamie on her search for the truth and ends up in the hospital. Vera has a backstory, too. There’s a reason she’s currently not married and in her forties. Not to mention, Toby Green, the sheriff, a.k.a. Ballroom Dance King. Life isn’t easy for a manly man when he prefers a dance floor to a football field.

And those are just the people from Book 1.

In Ant Dens – A Suspense Novel, set in Las Vegas, New Mexico, Jamie Aldrich must find her missing stepdaughter with the help of the girl’s mother, her deceased husband Ben’s ex-wife, Maria.

Maria can be demanding. She wants me to tell the very romantic tale of how she met Eduardo, her second husband –  while still married to Ben. Then there’s Paul, a handsome professor whom her deceased husband did not like, but who is very interested in getting to know the widow Jamie.

I can’t say much more. I don’t want to spoil either book for you — but here’s what I’ve decided to do to get these story people off my back. At least twice a month in 2015, this blog will feature a very short story from one of these character’s viewpoints. I hope you’ll come back to read their stories.

Meanwhile, enjoy the holiday season.