Donna Hechler Porter

Well, I finally got my wish – a book I couldn’t put down. I stayed up till almost midnight reading Against the Tide by Elizabeth Camden. To be blunt, I picked the book because of the cover. I know. I plunged into the shallowness of cover intrigue for a brief moment in time. The cover did not disappoint.

It finally happened. I put a character into a such a stressful situation, I had to get up and walk away from the computer. Poor David. And it was all Jackson’s fault, sort of. I love writing. I love the craft of creating the characters, giving them their own little strengths and weaknesses, putting them into situations they can’t seem to find any way out of.

“Nay, it’s not the Devil been leading her astray. It’s books! That girl has been nothing but trouble ever since she learned how to read.” From The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton. My life with books began before I ever entered school. And, like Elizabeth Winthrop, but to a lesser degree, they have caused me some trouble . . .

. . . Not only do mothers sacrifice their bodies to bring children into the world, but they lose THEIR time, THEIR interests, and have to broaden THEIR goals and THEIR world to include their children. A woman’s life is never the same once she has children, and for most of us our life is divided in half, our life before children and our life after children. It could be said that Keeping Secrets is a story of two mothers – Mary McKechnie and Abigail Cayle – both of whom sacrif

You know you’re a book nerd, or a writing nerd, when the most exciting thing that happens over the Fourth of July weekend is finding the old path your characters would take from Richmond, Virginia to Bedford, Virginia. But that’s what happened Saturday night, and boy did I do a happy dance.   

(republished here from a previous blog, c. 2014) Red Milking Devon Excerpt from Keeping Secrets --           “Come on, old woman.” Mary...

Now that my cover for Keeping Secrets is posted and out there, the question is bound to come up in the minds of my future readers. They might retain the thought in their head. They might whisper it behind my back. Or, heaven forbid, they might even access social media behind my back. Gasp!

(republished from a previous blog, c. 2014) For want of the nail the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe the horse was lost. For want of...