Welcome, Annette Drake.
I grew up in rural Missouri.
Whenever I traveled along scenic Highway 24, I drove past a dilapidated
two-story brick house just outside the small town of Dover. The house had white
columns and big front windows, most of which were broken. Every year, the house
fell more and more into disrepair. A tree grew out of the upstairs balcony. One
day, I saw a pickup truck parked at the abandoned house. I felt bold, and I
stopped. The man there told me the house had been in his family for years. Slave
labor had built it. The bricks were fired in a kiln at the end of the driveway.
To restore the structure would cost more than the family thought it was worth,
so the house slowly fell in on itself.
Years later, I woke from a dream
about a house just like this one. In my dream, a woman bought an abandoned
antebellum house, restored it and opened it to the general public. Among her
obstacles were the ghosts that lived there. This dream would become Celebration
House.
At the time I had this dream, I was
working as a registered nurse in the cath lab at a large hospital in Seattle,
Washington. I cared for patients whose hearts were failing them. Often, there
would be down-time between cases while we waited for the physician or prepared
the procedural room, and I would ask patients about themselves. I wanted to
hear their stories. I remember caring for a middle-aged man who told me he had
suddenly lost all of his energy and stamina. On a good day, the best he could hope
for was to get up, take a shower, and go back to bed. That was his day. He was
an intelligent, articulate man who had been robbed of his life. Although I met
him more than six years ago, I can still hear his voice.
All of these things came together to
build Celebration House, but I didn’t finish writing the book until life threw me
a curveball. I was fired from my position in the cardiac ICU at a hospital in
my community. After working a 12-hour night shift, my manager called me into
her office and told me I didn’t have the critical-care skills to care for such
ill patients. She introduced me to the manager of the ICU step-down unit and
told me to apply for a position there. Meanwhile, I didn’t need to return to
work that night or any other.
Now, I had time to write but little
money and perhaps less self-esteem. I needed a win. I revised Celebration House
and submitted to about five publishers. On April 10th, Tirgearr
Publishing offered me a contract. I said yes. Had I not been fired - had I not
failed in the role of ICU nurse - Celebration House would still be sitting on a
shelf in my closet. Unfinished and forgotten.
My main character, Carrie Hansen,
knows something about failure. Her health fails. Her marriage fails. Her dream
of being a mother fails. With these strikes against her, it would be easy to
give up, but Carrie is determined that there will be more to her life than
these disappointments. She is determined that more will define her than a
diagnosis. She leaves Seattle and moves back to her childhood home of Lexington,
Missouri. There she buys a derelict antebellum house and restores it. She
offers it as a venue for weddings or class reunions, a house for celebrations.
My goal for this book is to
entertain my readers. But I also hope that the men and women who read this book
will find comfort in its pages and agree that out of failure comes unimaginable
success. Success for me, for Carrie and perhaps for themselves.
Celebrate your life!
Annette Drake.jpg)
Annette Drake is an aspiring writer whose work is character-driven and
celebrates the law of unintended consequences. Her debut novel, Celebration House, will be published
this summer in e-book format for readers everywhere by Tirgearr Publishing.Annette left high school after two years to obtain her GED and attend Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. There she earned a degree in journalism before working as a reporter and editor for newspapers in Missouri and Kansas. She earned a bachelor of science in nursing in 1994 from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, and worked as a registered nurse in hospitals throughout Missouri, Alaska and Washington for 18 years before returning her focus to writing
Annette recently completed her middle-grade novel, Bone Girl, and is hard at work revising her steamy contemporary romance, A Year with Geno.
She is the mother of four children. The oldest just graduated from the University of Washington; the youngest just graduated from kindergarten. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. She loves libraries, basset hounds and bakeries. She does not camp.
You can follow her
writing at www.Annettedrake.com.
She welcomes correspondence at: Write2me@annettedrake.com.
Celebration House Blurb:
Carrie Hansen spent her life caring for cardiac
patients. Little did she know she would become a patient herself. After
recovering from her own heart surgery, she realizes she has a special gift: the
ability to see and talk with the dead.
Now, with her new heart failing, she leaves the
bustle of Seattle behind and returns to Lexington, Missouri, the small town
where she spent her childhood. Here, she sets out to restore an abandoned
antebellum mansion and open it as a venue for celebrations.
Carrie’s work is cut out for her. The 150-year-old
Greek revival house is in need of serious repair. Her sister, Melanie, tries to
bully Carrie into returning to Seattle, predicting “her little project” is
doomed to fail. Finally, Carrie’s health gives out on her, requiring emergency
surgery.
But she will not give up. Carrie’s unique gift
allows her to build relationships with the mansion’s original occupants,
especially Maj. Tom Stewart, the handsome Civil War soldier who died a hundred
years before Carrie was born. He encourages and comforts her, though not in the
physical way they both desire.
Then there’s the builder of the house, Col.
Bartholomew Stratton. If there’s one thing this 19th century horse trader
cannot abide, it’s the living trespassing on his estate. He delights in scaring
these intruders away, even if they are paying guests.
Will Carrie finish restoring Celebration House or
will it finish her? And how can she plan a future with a man who has only a
past?
Excerpt:
Driving
up to the house, Carrie smiled. She loved the long driveway, the poplar trees
on both sides. Behind the trees, the fences had fallen into disrepair. Just one
more thing she’d have to fix. She parked her car alongside the house and
stacked her groceries and camping gear on the front porch. Seeing a small barn
behind the main building, she decided to explore and see if there was room to
park her car inside.
Carrie opened the door and stepped
inside. Sunlight streamed in through the dirty windows. Even though the barn
had been vacant for years, she smelled hay and horses.
Looking to her left, she saw a man
shaving. He was bare from the waist up, his chest finely proportioned, lean,
and muscular. His arms were powerfully built, and his right hand remained
steady as he scraped the white soap from his angular jaw. His dark blue uniform
pants were tucked into black leather knee-high riding boots. He stood at least
six foot tall, and though Carrie hadn’t made her living in the carnival, she
guessed he was probably younger than her, likely in his mid 20s. He peered
intently at a small mirror tacked up on one of the barn walls. She waited to
speak until after he’d finished the last swipe with the ivory-handled straight
blade and had dipped it into the basin of soapy water.
“Good morning.”
He turned towards her suddenly, his
expression an equal mix of surprise and annoyance. He dropped the razor and
grabbed his shirt off a nearby nail. He turned his back to Carrie and pulled it
on.
“You can see me, ma’am?” he asked,
buttoning his shirt before stuffing it into his pants.
“Yes. Do you see me?”
“Yes, but I believe I have the
advantage. I am dead. You are not.”
