How a True-Life Experience Inspired My First Novel

In the spring of 2020, I realized I wasn’t going to come out of Covid isolation in good form unless I had something to carry me through. Since retiring from nursing a few years earlier, I’d devoted myself to writing, with one notable exception — I’d never tried writing fiction.

I’m an avid reader of women’s fiction, and had always had a secret desire to write a series set in northern New Mexico, which became my new home in 2019. Perhaps I’m still in the honeymoon phase, taking everything in with a novice’s eyes, noticing the little details that make this place more magical than any place I’ve ever lived.

When considering what I wanted to write about, in the spring of 2021, I brainstormed with my sister, thinking of ideas that were intriguing enough to inspire a series, and a seed was planted. “Remember when we were in the attorney’s office, and we found out that Aunt Sabin owned a house we knew nothing about?” I asked my sister. “What if it were more than a house — a surprise inheritance that required two sisters, like you and I, to reinvent their lives?”

And so, The Renaissance Sisters was born. I’d already spent a full year writing fiction, and I finally felt sure of my ability to tell a story in a compelling way. Now, I felt more confident in taking risks, and I had learned to trust my characters. Harper…