My guest today is a good friend Author Janet Tronstad http://www.JanetTronstad.com. She has a lot to say about Family. And be sure to read the reminder about MEGA MAY and giveaways at the end. Here’s Janet:

“When Family Matters in Fiction

I didn’t realize when I wrote my novella, ‘A Dry Creek Family’ (in the book ‘Small-Town Moms’), that the story of a woman looking for the remnants of her family would touch so many chords with readers. My heroine, Maegen Shay, had been orphaned as a young child and spent years as an adult looking for two younger sisters who’d been placed in the foster care system separately. When she finally follows the paper trail to both sisters, she finds out that one of them has died after giving birth to two children, a boy and a girl.

My piece of the story (it’s a two-novella book) tells how Maegan came to love her niece and the man who was taking care of her. She does so despite her feelings of inadequacy when it comes to all things family. I think it is her awareness of her own shortcomings that gives Maegan an emotional connection to readers. How many of us feel inadequate when faced with the troubles in our family?

I certainly have to raise my hand along with Maegan on that one. I wish I had easy solutions for troubled nieces and nephews, for health issues, for financial struggles. I know Lyn features stories of strong women here on her blog. I have to think, given the response to ‘Small-Town Moms,’ that women today may not appreciate how much strength they have when it comes to living an ordinary life in the middle of a family crisis (whether one’s a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a sister, or a friend of the family). We all feel inadequate, but we don’t give up. We pray, we cry, we work on it. And that is our strength.

Take a look at the back of the trading card I put together for ‘A Dry Creek Family.’ It gives you a glimpse of Maegan.

If you have a minute, I’d love to hear what you think gives you strength in your family.”–Janet

A quick reminder–this is MEGA May. Janet along with almost all the other authors who are guests this month are donating books and goodies to my MEGA MAY Basket. I hope you’ll leave a comment to Janet’s question so that your name will be entered into the drawing. Be sure to add your email address using (at) and (dot) to throw off spammers.

Also if you look up in the righthand corner, anyone who joins my LynCote_to_Readers this month will be entered into another drawing for a current book of mine and one older title. I’m not going to be giving away any books till fall so don’t miss out on these two opportunities!
Tweet