A Day in Natalie’s Life #MondayMusings #OpenBookBlogHop #Inspiration

Welcome to another edition of Open Book Blog Hop. This week’s question is: “Tell us about the day in the life of one of your characters.” You can click here to participate in this week’s hop and read other responses.

Here’s a typical day in the life of sixteen-year-old Natalie, one of my main characters in my latest novel, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me. As the book opens, she’s a surly teenager with no direction in life. But after she finds out that her biological father teaches English at a university, her attitude changes.

No more does her mother have to wake her up for school each morning. Natalie sets the alarm on her iPhone and is up and ready to go by the time her mother knocks on her bedroom dor. Maybe she’s doing some last-minute preparation for a test. She eats breakfast with the family, laughing and chatting with her younger sister and parents, all the while pretending nothing’s wrong.

After a long day at school, she comes straight home and retreats to her room where she studies until dinnertime. Again, she eats with the family, pretending everything’s normal. Then, she goes back to her room and studies until bedtime.

I don’t show a lot of this in the book because the reader is too preoccupied with the disintegration of Natalie’s parents’ marriage and her grandmother’s failing health. Want to know more? Read the book. See below for details.

How about you authors out there? I’m sure inquiring minds would like to know about a day in the life of one of your characters.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description by

Two Pentacles Publishing.

 

 

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New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Copyright 2021 by Abbie Johnson Taylor.

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Photo Resize and Description by

Two Pentacles Publishing.

 

Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.

After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?

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