Michaels, Savannah

A Personal Note from the Author:

“House of Cards” is book one in my two-part series, Innocent Is The Child. As with most writers, the first thing I heard when I decided to pursue this career was, “write what you know.” So I did.

Many years ago, my husband and I were presented with an unusual and complicated situation. A friend of a friend had just given birth to a baby and needed a place to stay with her child while she recuperated. During this time, under darkness of night, she disappeared—leaving her infant in our home. No notes, no explanations, no phone calls. We waited two days.  Because of our own situation at the time, we felt compelled to turn the child over to the Division of Social Services when the mother failed to return. Ever since that time, I’ve wondered…what if?

We’ve never known what drove this mother to make the choice she did.  We have never learned the whereabouts or the end circumstances for that beautiful innocent baby boy.

“House of Cards” deals with the questions, decisions and frustrations of a woman who chooses to take the other road. She is the “instant mother” whose maternal instincts rule over law, logic, and fear.

Brandi Lynn Alexander is a special woman to me. It was only natural that I give her a special man, Zack Morgan: a man capable of seeing the gray areas of life and working with them.  I’ve been told that their pairing makes them so good and so kind, that they barely seem real. But they are real—I’ve worked with them, I’ve had the pleasure of their friendship and I’ve sat with them in church. They not only talk the talk, they walk the walk.

The second book of this series will deal with the birth mother, Karen Whitman. She is a teenager in a desperate situation with a heart of gold and the tenacity to provide the best (as she sees it) for her infant child. A victim of rape, her story is twice as hard for me to write, as I must relive unpleasant memories in my own life to bring Karen full-circle, face her past, heal, and rejoice in her future. Karen is a SURVIVOR. Her own story is forthcoming under the title of “Innocence Restored.”

What I found the most appealing about both parts to the series is the fact Brandi, Zack, and Karen held fast to one truth:  innocence is fleeting and precious. It should be preserved at all costs. To them, Baby Melissa is an innocent.  She bears no sins because of her conception or her birth out of wedlock. She is the glue that brings my “family of choice” together.