Remembering Veterans on Veteran's Day - And Thoughts About PTSD
From the desk of Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
Today is Veteran’s Day, a day
Americans honor and show respect for our military heroes. I come from a long line of military personnel
and it’s an important day for me. There’s
probably a reason why several of my romance novel heroes (Guy's Angel, In The Shadow of War) happen to be veterans –
because it’s something I know. I’m
married to an Air Force veteran and I’m the daughter of an Army sergeant. I’m also the granddaughter of men who served
their country in both the Army and the Navy, related to many others who served
in the Air Force, Army Air Corps, and all the way back to the Revolutionary
War. One of the issues facing veterans
today is PTSD – post trauma stress disorder. In earlier decades, it was sometimes
called combat fatigue, shell shock, and other names. Today it affects many of our veterans and
especially those returning from places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our veterans matter to me and I was inspired
to write a novel focusing on this serious, very real and relevant issue. Devlin’s
Grace will be released this coming Saturday from Rebel Ink Press. Here’s a little about how I came to write
this story, the blurb, cover, and a little excerpt.
Inspiration for me can slow simmer
on a back burner until the idea develops or hit me square between the eyes with
powerful force. The idea for my upcoming
November 17 release, Devlin’s Grace,
from Rebel Ink Press, falls into the second category. First, I’ll share the blurb and then just how
I came up with the idea behind the story.
Blurb: When he rides out of the fog on his
motorcycle, Gracie Alloway almost mistook him for a demon rising from the smoke
and steam of hell. Except she's attracted to him from the first moment.
Devlin's everything she's not - wild and a little wicked. But opposites attract
because good girl, college student Gracie wants more of this bad boy.
Devlin
dreamed up a fantasy woman back in Iraq a lot like Gracie and she evokes a side
he hasn't shown anyone in years. She also dares to enter his personal space and
take liberties no other woman's dared. Although he struggles with PTSD and
other issues, Gracie won’t run and she refuses to abandon Devlin.
If she
can just tame him and help him battle his demons. If he can teach her how to
live a little bit more, they might just have a chance at a future together.
Now here’s how I was inspired – last
spring I headed over to Springfield, Missouri, about an hour’s drive to visit
with a local chapter of romance authors at their monthly meeting. Since I now live in a small town, I enjoy
getting out and about when I have time to spend in a larger one so I spent some
time driving around. At a traffic light
on Kearney, a motorcycle roared up beside me in the next lane as we
stopped. I glanced over and noticed the
rider’s helmet sported a pair of red devil-type horns. Intrigued, I couldn’t help but look a little
closer and I noticed the back of his jacket had Iraq combat patches. The light turned green, he turned, I went on
straight, but an idea had been firmly planted in my mind.
I’m an Army sergeant’s daughter and
a large number of my relatives have served in the military including my
husband. My romances have featured
military heroes before but this time I wanted to do something with a very real
issue, PTSD. Although they didn’t call
it by that name back in his day, my grandfather, a WWII veteran, suffered from
it. So did one of my cousins, my oldest
first cousin in fact, who served in Vietnam.
By the time I returned home, I had a
story building in my mind, about an Iraq veteran, a former Marine, Devlin and
the sweet young woman he met. I did a
lot of research to make sure I got details correct and during edits, I was so
delighted when my editor, a Marine wife, praised me for my accuracy. She even
thanked me for taking time to get it right.
Devlin’s
Grace is available beginning November 17 at All Romance Ebooks, Amazon.com,
BarnesandNoble.com, and Bookstrand.com.
Watch the book trailer here: http://youtu.be/4UjJBYY6hz4
Blurb:
When
he rides out of the fog on his motorcycle, Gracie Alloway almost mistook him
for a demon rising from the smoke and steam of hell. Except she's attracted to
him from the first moment. Devlin's everything she's not - wild and a little
wicked. But opposites attract because good girl, college student Gracie wants more
of this bad boy.
Devlin
dreamed up a fantasy woman back in Iraq a lot like Gracie and she evokes a side
he hasn't shown anyone in years. She also dares to enter his personal space and
take liberties no other woman's dared. Although he struggles with PTSD and
other issues, Gracie won’t run and she refuses to abandon Devlin.
If
she can just tame him and help him battle his demons. If he can teach her how
to live a little bit more, they might just have a chance at a future together.
Excerpt:
When he held
out the cup, Gracie noticed the scarring on the underside of his left arm. Dead white skin mottled with angry red
patches and rough ridges indicated he’d suffered serious burns. She noticed similar scars on the side of his
neck and wondered how much of his body had been affected. Everything she’d learned screamed at her to
say nothing, to ignore what she saw, but Gracie followed instinct. After accepting the cup, she put it down on
the end table and touched the old burn.
Her fingers brushed against the coarse skin and marveled to find it
cool. She expected heat, but it would’ve
gone long ago. Dev started to jerk away
from her, but when she touched him, he stopped.
Like a bird poised for flight, he remained still as she stroked the
damaged area.
Before she
could speak, he pulled his arm back and with a defiant glint in his eyes, he
removed his t-shirt. “If you want to see the scars, you can see them all,” Dev
said, voice harsh and hoarse.
He revealed a torso dappled with
terrible raised welts, both back and belly.
These scars were worse than the others.
Raised red ropes twined like vines over his flesh, fused and almost
melted. The agony Dev endured was beyond
anything she could imagine and Gracie’s eyes brimmed with tears. They spilled over, down her cheeks with
silent hurt. One glance at his face, set
hard and as stoic as a statue intensified her empathy. She laid her right hand on his back, his
scarred flesh beneath her touch and with her left she touched the center of his
chest.
Beneath her hand his heartbeat thumped, rapid but
steady. His eyes locked with hers and in
them Gracie glimpsed flickers of his personal hell. Confusion showed up, too, along with regret
and maybe shame.
Whatever
she did or said now would be pivotal, she sensed. Based on her actions he’d either leave and be
gone from her forever, something she didn’t want, or a new beginning would
emerge, delicate and fragile. If she
took time to think, she’d be lost so Gracie mined deep into her woman’s
soul. When words came, she spoke them,
her voice soft and yet as constant as the evening stars. “Oh, Dev, it must’ve hurt so much.”
“I don’t
want your pity,” he said, a snarl transforming his face into something wolfish,
alien. “Don’t feel sorry for me,
babe. I don’t need charity and I sure as
hell don’t need you to tell me some dumb ass feel good bunch of shit. So quit crying over me. Maybe it makes you feel better, but it makes
me mad.”
“It isn’t
pity,” Gracie told him. “I admire you.
It takes a lot of courage to overcome hurts like this. I hurt for you, but I don’t feel sorry for
you. I hate you had to go through such
pain, but I’m crying because I care.”
His hard face softened a little. “Why?”
In this raw
moment, she could give him nothing but honesty. “I don’t know, but I do.”
Then Gracie
leaned forward and bent just enough to touch her lips to one of the ugliest
lesions, the worst of the scars. He
shuddered as she kissed his chest and when she lifted her tear streaked face,
Devlin grasped her arms. He held her in
place and kissed her back, full on the mouth, without remorse or mercy. Gracie gasped with surprise. His lips burned hers as if she kissed a devil
fresh from the pit, but she liked it.
Her body answered his call and her arms moved to circle his neck as she
gave him back the kiss.
MY LINKS
leeannwriter@gmail.com
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my personal page is Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy plus I just kicked off an author
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Blog:
Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
Goodreads:
great post! Kudos to war heroes!
ReplyDeleteunlike you, i have no military connections, neither do i have the physique.
would you like us to follow each other?
lots of lovin'
www.ohpenda.com