#FearlessFriday Trip Across the Ocean by Miriam Newman

FEARLESS FRIDAY

I've had many guests for Fearless Friday on Discover... and a few have surprised me with their fearlessness. But I have to say this piece from Miriam Newman will win favorite in my heart. Not only am I part Irish (my grandpa as opposed to her Nana) but to pick up and take off all by herself and then ending up an author in another phase of her life is magnificent. Enjoy today's fun post and get inspired! 

In 2009, I was forty-one years old.  I had married a little later in life to a man with five children and pursued a career as a social worker for eighteen years, interspersed with writing poetry in lieu of tackling a 100,000-word novel.  I wanted to write one, but life and finances had to take first place.  I was a very busy professional woman. 

All that changed when my husband was diagnosed with leukemia.   For four and a half years, I was his wife, his nurse, his chauffeur, his counselor and his business manager.   In addition, I encountered health problems of my own and had surgery three times in eighteen months.  Between his troubles and mine, sleep was something I got whenever I could and there were many times it didn’t come, which was when I read historical romance novels for some mental respite.  I could still name some of those books, but won’t!  My own muse, whom I had named Persephone after the Queen of Hell, took a sabbatical during those rough years and I assumed she was gone. 

When he passed, my husband left some amount of life insurance, and I stunned myself (and everyone else) by getting on a plane and flying to Ireland.  Mind you, though my grandmother had been born there, I didn’t know a soul.  She had only told me to go there, and I went. 

Soon, I knew a lot of people, especially in the pub nearest where I was staying.  It seemed that Persephone wasn’t gone.  She was in Ireland.  In between drinking Guinness donated because people thought it was great that somebody was writing a novel, I began scratching out my first one on yellow legal pads—no laptop for this girl.  I hauled those pads into a sheep pasture with a fantastic view of cliffs, gazing at the ocean my Irish Nana had crossed to America, knowing my heart had come home.  I found that despite the cost of a protracted stay in Ireland, I preferred a whole heart to money in the bank.  Ah, well, I was a writer after all. 

“The King’s Daughter” was the first of thirty-two novels.  It was first of a series now numbering six and is still my beloved and favorite, as well as my best seller.  Being a Lord of the Rings fan, of course I call it “My Precious.”

Born to a dying queen and an ambitious king, Tarabenthia is heir to the crown of Alcinia. Yet when the idyll of her childhood ends she will defy her father, tipping the balance in a world poised on the brink of destruction. In a time of war, what would you surrender in the name of love?

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CONNECT WITH MIRIAM: 

Website: http://miriamnewman.com 

Website: http://thedarkcastlelords.net 

Blog: http://miriamnewman.com/blog 

Blog: http://thecelticroseblog.blogspot.com 

Email: mrmireland@aol.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMiriamNewman 

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/miriamnewman 

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/miriam-newman-cf7ca8bf-caab-4b7e-a6f2-7db5490d9215 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3146550.Miriam_Newman 

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/38ED8hG