Finding Charlie - Rationalizations

Before Olivia leaves Carmen, she finds one more piece of information about her sister's disappearance:

            I rubbed my palms against the top of my thighs. They were so clammy. I was worried for nothing, I told myself. She was nineteen and I hadn’t heard from her in a day. A day was nothing. “If you hear from her, tell her to call home, okay?” I stood up.
            Carmen nodded.
            Before I left, I tried the door to the car, but it was locked. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the window. There, sitting in one of the cup holders, was Charlie’s cell phone. 

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Finding Charlie - "This isn't like her"

When Olivia goes to Carmen's house, she gets a few clues about Charlie's disappearance. For one thing Charlie has left her car in the driveway. Carmen tells Olivia that Charlie was at her house the night before and had been up talking with her new boyfriend, Isaac, when Carmen went to bed. Olivia didn't know Charlie had a boyfriend, so this is news.

            I looked at my watch. My father would have gotten home by now. No phone call. “This isn’t like her.” I said it like a statement, but I was looking for reassurance.
            “I know.” Carmen wrapped her bare arms tightly around herself. “She always texts me back. Even if I text her in the middle of the night. She always keeps her phone with her while she sleeps and she will just text me back a smiley face so I know she’s listening.”
            Among a group of framed photographs on the surface of a dresser, there was a shot of the two girls with their faces pressed together, grinning. They were both missing their front teeth, which would make them, what, six or seven? Their faces were painted like butterflies, caterpillar middles along the bridge of their noses, antennae on their foreheads. It had been taken at the 4^th Avenue Street Fair; there was a copy of that photograph at my dad’s house.
            I turned back to Carmen. “How well do you know this Isaac?”

If you'd like to read more, check out the full excerpt on my KindleScout campaign:  https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1ZEZ9K2DLCYOB

Finding Charlie - What does Carmen know?

Are you getting worried about Charlie? Here's the end of what I posted last time:

            It was Carmen who came to the door. I could just make her out through the mesh of the security screen: dark hair flat on one side, wild on the other. She was wearing baggy shorts that hung low on her tiny hips and a red tank top.

            “Olivia,” she whispered. She reached to unlock the security door and I pulled it open. Her face crumpled and she stepped back. “Oh, god.”

And here's more:

            It was not the welcome I had expected. I tried to hold my voice steady. “Where’s Charlie?”

            Carmen blinked and her face smoothed. “You don’t know?”

            “No, I don’t know!” I was yelling. Suddenly, I felt like I wanted to hit her, this girl I’d known forever who was nearly as much a sister as my sister was. She knew something; she was hiding something, taunting me.

            Carmen put a hand to her chest. “Oh, you scared me. I thought you were coming to tell me something had happened.”

            “Something like what?”

            “I don’t know. I’ve been texting her all day and she hasn’t texted back. I’m worried.”

            “Her car’s in your driveway.”

            “I know. She was here last night.” And then, finally: “Come in.” She shut the door behind me and led me into the living room.

            “My dad was calling the house all day,” I said.

            She sat in the oversized recliner in the corner and pulled her feet under her, making herself even smaller than she already was. “My parents are away. I don’t answer the house phone. It’s never for me.”

            I sat down on the couch across from her. “Carmen, if you were worried about her, why didn’t you try to get a hold of me or my dad?”

            She looked startled by this suggestion. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”

            I sighed. Kids. “So she was here last night?”

            Carmen nodded, warily.

            “Did she sleep here?” 

            “Well, I thought she did. But, I’m not sure.”

If you'd like to read more, check out the full excerpt on my KindleScout campaign:  https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1ZEZ9K2DLCYOB

Finding Charlie - Who saw her last?

In the previous excerpt, Olivia poo-pooed her father's worry and to further placate him, she's gone to see Charlie's best friend:

            Carmen lived in one of those developments with three different housing plans repeated a few dozen times and painted in HOA approved pastels. It would be easy to get lost if I didn’t know the neighborhood by heart, having spent all the years since I got my license picking up or dropping off. I took the corner onto her street and was awash with relief: there, in the stubby driveway, was Charlie’s yellow Volkswagen bug.

            By the time I rang the doorbell, my relief had already turned to anger. What was she thinking? How could she let us worry like that- especially my poor father. He’d missed a day at work, something he never did, indicative of just how scared he’d been.

            I banged on the door, righteous adrenaline behind every thud.

            It was Carmen who came to the door. I could just make her out through the mesh of the security screen: dark hair flat on one side, wild on the other. She was wearing baggy shorts that hung low on her tiny hips and a red tank top.

            “Olivia,” she whispered. She reached to unlock the security door and I pulled it open. Her face crumpled and she stepped back. “Oh, god.”

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Finding Charlie - She's Missing!

As part of my KindleScout run, I'm sharing excepts from the beginning of my new novel, Finding Charlie. Olivia continues with her normal day, going to the office where she works as a physical therapist. It isn't until she leaves that she learns that this may not be a normal day after all:

            My father was in the waiting room when I left for the day. He looked so out of place- my big, strong dad in a room of broken, old people- and I realized he’d never visited me at work before. As I got closer, I saw he hadn’t shaved, which was abnormal for a week day.  And, come to think of it, he was not dressed for work, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that promoted a political candidate who had run and lost years ago.

            “Daddy?”

            He looked up as though he’d forgotten where he was, lost in the pattern of the carpet. “Olivia.”

            He wasn’t smiling to see me. I touched his arm. “What’s wrong?” I felt like I was bending over him, a little boy cowering over a broken toy. But he was taller than me.

            And then he stood up straighter and put his arm around me and was in charge again. I was relieved to be ushered out the woosh of the automatic door and into the warm evening air under his direction.

            Once outside, in relative privacy, he stood me in front of him and gripped my upper arms. “Charlie’s missing,” he said, getting right to the point.

            “She’s what?”

            “She didn’t come home last night. I can’t reach her on her cell.”

            I let out the breath I’d been holding, smiled warmly, condescendingly. “Daddy. She’s nineteen. I’m sure she just stayed out with a friend. Maybe she turned off her phone.”

            He let go of my arms then. “That’s what the police said.”   

            “The police?”          

            “They aren’t taking it seriously because, legally, she’s an adult.” He said “legally” like it was a made up word. Clearly, she wasn’t really an adult. Unfortunately, I tended to agree.

And so it begins. I'll share more on in the coming days as Olivia begins to lose her cocky certainty that Charlie's fine. To read the full excerpt and vote for me in the competition, go here: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1ZEZ9K2DLCYOB

Finding Charlie Excerpt

Part One - Olivia

Tuesday, April 22nd 2016:

It was the neighbor’s dog that woke me.

The curtained window was outlined in sunlight. The thick fabric had been advertised as “black-out curtains”, but there are some things that are simply too much to ask for. Even this early, there was no keeping the day outside.

Rick’s arm was heavy across my chest, trapping me in the bed like a stupid metaphor for this relationship. As if I needed it underlined. Officially, we’d broken up three months ago. But, in that time, I’d managed to wake up this way more times than I wanted to count.

---

And so begins the day Olivia discovers her little sister is missing. It starts like any other day, the self-centered worries that will seem irrelevant in just a few hours. She doesn’t know yet.

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Finding Charlie on KindleScout

In September, Finding Charlie won a crowd sourcing contest at Authonomy.com. I've had dozens of positive responses from literary agents who ultimately passed on representation. Before I go the self-publication route, I've decided to do a KindleScout run.

As a hybrid author, I've seen both sides of publishing and know there are advantages and disadvantages to either path you choose. I think KindleScout is somewhere in the middle and I'm excited to give it a shot.

Finding Charlie is commercial women's fiction, told with alternating narrators. When Olivia's younger sister goes missing, Olivia is forced to consider that she may not have known her as well as she thought. Charlie's disappearance feels a lot like their mother's disappearance all those years ago and it opens old wounds, pushing family members to reexamine the past.  

This is a family drama that deals with the repercussions of maternal abandonment.  It takes place during the summer in Tucson, Arizona - the longest season of the year. Readers of Jodi Picoult, Sue Miller, and J. Courtney Sullivan would appreciate this story.

My campaign has just launched on the KindleScout site. I'd appreciate if you coiuld take a moment to give your support: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1ZEZ9K2DLCYOB