On the Wings of the Red-Tailed Hawk follows a woman on a journey to the New World in 1620 who encounters challenges that she could not have foreseen and must fight for her own survival. What inspired the setup of your story?

For over forty years, I have done genealogy as a hobby to learn more about my family, where we came from, and what we went through. As a part of that process, I realized how seldom women were at the forefront of histories stories even though they were often the ones holding the whole thing together. I felt like I needed to give these women, my ancestors, and yours, a voice.

Sarah is portrayed as an ordinary woman who has to rise above the standard stereotype to survive the harsh conditions she finds herself in. What do you find interesting about the human condition that you think makes for great fiction?

I think we often forget that it is the ordinary person among us who often does extraordinary things. Sarah doesn’t see herself as a victim of the many challenges she faces, instead, she seizes each of those challenges to grow and learn and in the process, she discovers who she really is, and what she is really capable of. That is inspiring to me and I hope to others who read my books.

When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?

I did not. This was my first novel, and while I knew the story would start on the Mayflower, I knew little else. I didn’t even know how the story would end until it did! As I “became” Sarah and began to weave into her story things that had happened to my ancestors, and to those of her time, the story just grew organically. Sarah is an amalgamation of what so many women of that time endured, the pain, the struggles, the joy, and the hope for the future.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?

On the Wings is the first of the trilogy The Centenary Chronicles-Tales of American Women. The second book which follows Sarah’s great-great-granddaughter Eliza during the American Revolution was published in November of 2023. Till I Come Home is another story of an ordinary woman faced with circumstances most of us could not even imagine and how she manages to face those challenges while finding a way to hold her marriage and her family together.

The last book in the Chronicles is out next week, Her Last Full Measure is a very personal book for me, heavily based on my own family’s experience during the Civil War and follows Eliza’s great-granddaughter Millicent and her family. Men get and deserve great accolades for the sacrifices they make in war and that theme runs through all the books. But, it’s the women, what they must do to survive while the men are gone that is truly remarkable and inspiring. It doesn’t always have a happy ending, it isn’t always easy, and sometimes it is raw and painful. But each of these books takes the reader into the heart of a woman they can admire, empathize with, and be inspired by, leaving the reader feeling hopeful with a newfound appreciation for what their ancestors did so they could be here today.

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