When Plans Go Awry: A Review by Veronica Jorge
July 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as book review, Denise M. Colby, new release, Veronica Jorge, When Plans Go Awry
WHEN PLANS GO AWRY by DENISE M. COLBY—A REVIEW BY VERONICA JORGE
WHEN PLANS GO AWRY
Best-Laid Plans Book One
DENISE M. COLBY
Scrivenings Press
2024
ISBN: 978-1-64917-391-1
A Review by Veronica Jorge
Olivia Carmichael couldn’t have wished for a better life. A beautiful home on her family’s estate. High society friends. And at age 19, the perfect fiancé. God is in His heaven smiling down at her and all is well.
Until tragedy strikes like a lightning bolt.
The sudden loss of Olivia’s parents is difficult enough to bear, but she can probably get through that with the help of her faith. But when her father’s fraudulent business dealings are discovered she loses the house, her status, her so-called-friends, and her fiancé. Where is God now she wonders.
Homeless and penniless, smeared with the shame of her father’s actions, and finding it impossible to continue living in her Cincinnati town that will never again accept her, Olivia answers an advertisement to move to California to become a teacher. She steels her heart to live an independent and loveless life because people cannot be trusted. And determines to make her own way in life without depending upon anyone…not even God.
Olivia prepares to fight to survive when she reaches Washton, California, but she is not prepared for the warm welcome she receives from the townspeople. Their kindness disarms her and she grows to care for the children she teaches. Add to the mix a certain young man who makes her heart leap with possibility and hope, emotions she promised herself never to feel again.
But can Olivia who vowed to stand alone learn to trust God with her life? And can she open her heart to love again?
When Plans Go Awry is a lovely debut novel about strength and resilience, the power of love, and the importance of faith in God.
And if you love an old fashioned love story, this is the book for you.
To learn more about Denise M. Colby and her writing connect with her at, www.denisemcolby.com.
Veronica Jorge
See you next time on August 22nd!
Other Books Reviewed by Veronica Jorge
My Dad’s Super Power
June 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Craft, inspiration
My father always said, “Know who you are. In whatever you do, do your best.” By his hard work and example, he instilled in me the importance of integrity and quality. This makes me scrutinize everything I say and write (sometimes to excess). But also causes me to dig a little deeper and write from the heart which makes for a satisfying journey.
When I showed interest in wearing makeup, he made me feel beautiful and confident without it. In his own special way, he taught me that natural and simple is best. So writing, I find, is like learning how to dress and color coordinate. You develop your own style. Mix and match colors to accentuate. Create different looks depending on the season and occasion. Dress to impress or just to chill out. And when you meet a special someone…dress to be “effective.” You want your writing to stand out, but not overwhelm. That would be like wearing too much makeup. Picture the character, Mimi, on the Drew Carey show, or the sea witch, Ursula, in Disney’s, The Little Mermaid.
“Be original. Be creative,” said dad. “And above all, when you speak, don’t ramble.” By which he meant that if someone asks the time, don’t explain how a clock is made. (That’s when I edit, edit, edit).
Many writers speak of having a muse, but I find that although my father is long gone from this world, the words and teachings which he wove into my being continue to guide and inspire me. This leads me to conclude that my dad had a super power: Words.
I hope I have inherited it.
See you next time on July 22nd.
Veronica Jorge
For all you’ve taught me, dad, this one’s for you.
A DANCE OF WORDS BY VERONICA JORGE
May 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as dance., music, Veronica Jorge, words, Write
Hispanola, which means the “Spanish island,” became the first Spanish settlement in America. It is my mother’s native country and today we know the eastern section of the island as the Dominican Republic; a fertile land abundant in mines and minerals and rich in a great variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, and flowers, where the sun shines brightly year round.
The merengue, the country’s traditional music, embraces you throughout the island for dancing is an entirely social activity independent of holidays or festivals. Any gathering includes dancing because Dominican’s don’t just listen to music, they live it. Emotionally, the merengue celebrates life wherein you partake of the rhythms of love, family and friendship. The most skilled dancer moves in unity with their partner, as one.
My mother, 
Celina Antonia Luna de Jorge, (isn’t that lovely? Like a song in itself), left her beautiful, beloved island, and part of her heart, when she came to America at the age of seventeen. Like most of our ancestors, her family traveled to America in the hope of a better future. I’m happy to say that she found it. (She had me!).
Mom is most fully herself, most fully alive when she is surrounded by her family and cooking us all of the traditional delicious foods of her country. She fills and satisfies us with her peace and joy. And like the savory aromas that waft through the air, she makes our hearts swirl to the rhythms of her warmth and love.
And that’s what I want my writing to be like; a dance of words wherein writer and reader move in sync and taste the flavors of love, friendship, loss and new found purpose, joy and laughter. Writing that, in spite of sorrowful events or hardships, celebrates life and fills the reader with hope that today is indeed worth living.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you!
See you next time on June 22nd.
4 3 Read moreThe Character Must Die
April 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as characters, letting go, Veronica Jorge, writing
I killed one of the characters in my novel.
(It was more like two, but I have no qualms about the second one.)
I came up with a death scene I really liked and just had to use it, so someone had to “go.”
I’m still not sure if it was in the best interest of the story, or if I’m just stuck on having to use a particular description.
As I reflect on the sequence of events and the wording, and debate the character’s fate; to live or not to live? I think about language in general and the nuances contained therein.
The English “goodbye”, like the characters in a book, can be so finite. Here today, gone tomorrow.
In contrast, parting words in other languages encompass a world of possibilities of that which is yet to be experienced. Whether it’s, auf wiedersehen in German, arrivederci in Italian, or hasta luego in Spanish, each expresses the probability, and the hope, that we will meet again. Even the Japanese rarely use sayonara, unless it really is “the end.”
In life, as in writing and in reading, I prefer the meanings that other languages provide for that interim we call separation. And I would like to think that the characters we create in our imaginations, that eventually inhabit the pages of a book, continue on, not only in our own minds, but in the minds, and perhaps the hearts, of our readers.
So, if I must terminate one of my characters, I’ll think of them as an old soldier who has faithfully served, and comfort myself with the words of General Douglas MacArthur.
“Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
And I realize that no matter how wonderful a story may be, as we grow and change, some of the characters we loved best as writers and readers do fade away and/or are replaced by others.
But, they never really die.
We meet them over and over again in the ways they have touched us and changed us, and have made us different and maybe, even better, for having met them.
See you next time on May 22nd.
Veronica Jorge
0 1 Read moreNemesis and the Swan: A Review by Veronica Jorge
March 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Book Reivew, historical, Lindsay K. Brandy, Nemesis and the Swan, YA Novel
Nemesis and the Swan
by
Lindsay K. Brandy
Blackstone Publishing 2020
ISBN 978-1-09-405947-1
Nineteen-year-old Helene languishes in a squalid French prison tormented by questions she cannot answer. Why was she arrested? Who could have made a wrongful accusation against her? And if so, why?
Together with Helene, we attempt to unravel the mystery of her imprisonment as we follow the journey of her life that led to this moment.
As a child, Helene, an aristocrat in revolutionary Paris, absorbed ideas of liberty and an egalitarian society from her governess. Words and ideas that created in her heart a different life from the one she had been living, and which she thought possible if only given the chance.
Perhaps such idyllic hopes and dreams are what caused her to fall in love with a commoner.
But how to deal with an unstable mother who cares nothing for her? Or a father, who although affectionate, views her as a means of securing his own wealth and maintaining his lifestyle via an arranged marriage for his daughter to a rich but base man?
To complicate matters further, she discovers a murder mystery within her family that may put her own life at risk.
When an acquaintance, who may be able to help set her free, visits her in prison, Helene pours out her fears and reveals all about her life. But in such perilous times, how can one know who to trust? What awaits her next? Freedom or the guillotine?
A riveting tale of the revolutionary days in Paris told from the perspective of a young woman, the author asks us to consider the importance of examining the way we each draw lines between good and bad, right and left, and us and them.
Nemesis and the Swan is a book you will want to read again and again, and again.
Veronica Jorge
See you next time on April 22nd!
