Biography

I have worn so many hats over my active seventy years that I feel a little schizophrenic. I’ve been privileged to experience many incarnations. (Don’t worry my books are not about mental illness or eastern philosophy.) Fifty years ago, I was a pampered university coed sailing to Paris on the ocean liner France to spend my junior year at the Sorbonne. Next I was a happily married wife and mother in suburban New Jersey, raising my family, tutoring French and exhibiting my paintings in local art shows. Then I became a small tour operator escorting trips to France and India around the time of my divorce which took place in Florida where I had moved with my soon-to-be ex-husband.

While working, I had a torrid affair with the handsome French tour bus driver under the noses of the clients. (I wish, but my heroine, my alter-ego Barbara does.) Tour over, divorce finalized, I became the proud owner of an 18th century farmhouse (‘needs work’) in a teeny French hamlet. I pursued other romantic adventures in Paris and the provinces looking for a fun, ‘Monsieur Right’; and looking to redefine myself in the process. Back in Florida for the winter, I opened a little art gallery to display my artwork. I met an American man who checked all the boxes, NOT the much anticipated Frenchman. I had an epiphany. This new guy was rough at the edges but his inner qualities made me happy. His edges were rough in all the right places. We bought a different house in France together. This time, a medieval townhouse in a Michelin-starred village and we had more adventures in house renovation. Becoming very well-integrated into our friendly and adorable village, at least as summer people, our idyllic transatlantic life was cut short by my partner’s illness and death.

I moved from Florida back to New York to be nearer to my grown sons and eventually met a dyed-in-the wool New Yorker, with whom I rekindled my romantic life.He and I took up summers at the French house again. He was affectionately dubbed ‘numero deux’ by my French neighbors since he bore a passing resemblance to my partner who died. Life rolled happily and inexorably along. Cut to this moment when I am writing this biography lying on the sofa in my living room overlooking either the New York skyline or the Pyrenees, take your pick. From the vantage point of my present age and experience, I have come to at least two realizations (many more but I’ll keep it brief):

1. My life has been rather interesting. Many people didn’t have my foreign adventures. These exploits, although they seem just yesterday to me, now took place in another time warp. This adds an anthropological aspect to my love story. It is nostalgic, not only to me, but to everyone. It’s a romance and everyone loves a happy ending.

2. Painting is physical work. I am (slightly) less peppy. Writing is less jumping around than applying paint to the canvas. Both pursuits can involve wanting to tear your hair out and getting up late at night in the grip of a ‘great’ idea, but there are no brushes to wash when typing.

The aforementioned being acknowledged, I decided to turn my creative juices from the art canvas to the computer keyboard. I’ve had so much fun and feel so full of ideas that I’ve created an art mystery novellas series. My first French adventure story about an art-related mystery in my French village, Missing, A Modern Art Masterpiece in a Medieval French Village, was solved by Barbara and Sam, the heroine and hero from French Lessons. The next book in the series, Vanished, A Valuable African Sculpture Stolen in Southwest France, has Barbara and Sam helping recover a powerful tribal art object which holds the key to a fabulous oil deposit which might benefit a disadvantaged African tribe. The third art mystery novella changes the scene to southwest Florida where Barbara and Sam live in the winter and where the world-famous Ringling Museum of Art is having financial difficulties. It is titled Lost, An Ancient Artefact in Florida Bay.