Warren Adler's Heart of Gold... I Hated It...I Loved It! An Amazing Provocative Story!

The Black Madonna
of Częstochowa, Poland

“She wanted me to recommend a smart Jewish lawyer,” Linda said. “So I recommended you.” Linda had been going on about her trip to Poland to visit her aunt and how she had met this girl in a place called Jasna Gora, then later traveled with her on the Chopin Express to Vienna where they both caught the plane back to the States. 
“People who say that are usually Jewish or anti-Semites.” I told her. “Not all Semites are Jews,” she snapped. It was, I will admit, a very confusing distinction. 
Her name was Linda Czerwinski and she had the straight, turned-up nose, high cheekbones and the smooth, creamy skin of your average Polish girl under thirty. She was a nurse at Mount Sinai hospital where I had met her when I had to take a deposition from one of her patients. In her white uniform, especially those white stockings that clung to well-turned calves, she made my libido dance the dervish and I asked her out. 
On our first date she invited me into her apartment. “I’ve asked you here so that I may perpetuate the legend of the Polish woman.” 
“What legend is that?” I asked. She had already begun to unbelt, unbutton and unzip me. By the time an hour was over I had the legend fully committed to my memory, complete with visual images, verbal communications and footnotes. 
“We have to do everything and be better at it than most,” she told me in dead earnest. “Not like you Jewish boys whose mothers tell you how wonderful you are every time you move a muscle. Our men have to get their reassurance with this,” She patted me there. It was a unique piece of wisdom and I promised to remember it, especially if she provided me with periodic reminders, which she did with great enthusiasm. Often, because she knew how it moved me and how the usual pantyhose destroyed my reveries about what went on above the hem of that white uniform, she would wear white stockings fastened to a garter belt, a sight to make every Polish boy a patriot. Recalling the image made my heartbeat bang against my ribs and brought about other changes in my anatomy. I felt myself getting very anticipatory. When Linda slipped on the staircase at the hospital, I really put myself out to get her a good settlement. We got $35,500, which was pretty fine since the only clinical sign of injury was a black-and-blue mark on her right tush cheek, which I personally cured with gentle loving care. She hated the neck brace that I made her wear in public for four weeks, but she liked the diathermy, which she claimed made her sexy.
Since that was her normal state, it was impossible to confirm. Notwithstanding our relationship, I still took my third. Business is business. “I hope I’m not recommending a headache,” Linda mused aloud. 
“Why a headache?” There was a long pause at her end of the line. “She made some remarks that I don’t think you would take kindly. You know what I mean. About your people.” 
“So what else is new?”
“Don’t let it prejudice your willingness to help her.” 
“You know me well enough to know that I never let hate, bigotry or prejudice interfere with the normal pursuits of my practice. Besides, some of my best friends are Polack shiksas,” I snickered volubly, then lowered my voice. “Does she wear white stockings and a garter belt?” I didn’t get the reaction I expected. Just simple avoidance. My antenna sprouted into the ether. Something was awry. “I wanted to help her out. She’s staying with me at the moment.” 
“Did she have a misstep?” I asked hopefully. “Nothing like that. It’s something very big. She hasn’t told me. But she did say it involved a great deal of money.”
“And because any good Polack believes that all Jews care about is money, my name came to mind.” 
There was a belligerent edge to the remark. I often get touchy on that subject. Besides, there was something in Linda’s attitude that was sending strange signals. Maybe she had acquired another guy on the trip, someone that desperately needed her ministrations. “Maybe we should forget it, Miltie?”
“Lets not. It might ruin my people’s reputation.” She might have understood, but I wasn’t sure. I was being snarky and I think it floated over her gorgeous head. 
“Her name is Karla Smith.” 
“What happened to the tongue twister?” 
“Her father changed his name legally when he came to this country. She’s from Montana.” 
“Montana? There must be a Polish joke about that.” I was trying to get her back on the banter track, thinking that I might have misinterpreted my earlier conclusion. 
“This is not a joke Miltie,” Linda said, showing rare attitude. “With her father gone, she’s thinking about not going back home. Not until this other matter is settled.” 
“The money matter,” I prompted. “It’s all very mysterious. But I do believe her when she says it’s very big and very important. She’s that kind of person. The kind of person that would rather not say than tell a lie.” 
“Like me.” 
“Not like you Miltie. Not anything like you.” 
“There’s another ethnic slur in there somewhere,” I said. “On the one hand you tell me that she’s as right as rain and on the other you say she’s a Jew-baiting Polack.” 
“I didn’t say that. I said that she had made some remarks that indicate… well, that indicate...” 
“That she hates hebes.” 
“Nothing is black and white, Miltie. That’s not God’s design.” 
God’s design? It sounded ominous. “Where did you say you met her?” “Jasna Gora.” 
“Sounds like a rock group.” 
“It’s near Czestochowa.” 
“Gesundheit.” When she didn’t laugh, I knew that something had changed. Yet she knew she owed me some explanation and I waited to see what form it would take. Aside from her delicious sexuality, she was a deeply sensitive girl, totally without real guile...
“It’s the great spiritual center of Poland, the religious heart of the country. There is a monastery there and the famous painting of The Black Madonna, which has miraculous powers. I was there.” 
This was no tourist’s explanation. She was clearly enthralled. Apparently my sweet little Polack shiksa had found religion. 
“You can’t believe the spiritual force of it, Miltie,” she lowered her voice. “It’s changed my life. I’m not the same person, Miltie.”

~~~

Heart of Gold

By Warren Adler

I abhor slurs or stereotyping of race, religion and other common groups that are ridiculed at a minimum, or worse...This novel is being read at a time when we are seeing threats and actual acts of hatred toward our Jewish communities...and others... Reading the beginning of this book, my personal ire was high from reading headlines such as the following...

Leaping to West Coast: 29 Bomb Threats Against Jewish Targets Across U.S. in Fifth Wave

Where does the hate come from? It's one of the reasons I love reading books like this one where confrontation is made!

When Milton Gold meets a new client, Karla Smith, a Polish immigrant, he knows two things--he was surprised that he was instantly attracted to her... and second, that she hated Jews. 

So why seek out a Jewish lawyer?

I loved the character Milton Gold and his evolution through the book from a shady, shyster lawyer...to...well, I'll just say a quite different person. His sense of humor in dealing with those who tried direct or indirect references to his being Jewish, adds a splendid, cleverly played diversion of what was to come...

Karla Smith, whose name came from a legal change when her father had come to America, had learned her hatred and prejudice at the feet of her father, as he told her story after story of being take to Auschwitz, describing the camp in detail and what he was assigned to do. He also told her about the various people there in prison, including the Jewish, Polish and Germans, describing each of their roles there. 

One of the demands of Karla's father was that she attend and become an active Catholic. At the same time her father became more and more withdrawn from the world. But as he grew ill, he became worse in explaining what she was to do and where she should go after his death...She was to go back... She was to find her inheritance...

The only thing, Karla felt there was so much more about what her father was telling her. It seemed to be more a quest, than to find money for her future. But she had no idea what he had been trying to explain to her...

What she did know was that when she went back, she was to have hired a Jewish lawyer to help, and she would be looking for gold coins... suitcases full of them... Estimated value $100 Million...

Milton had just been ousted by his partner in an apartment manager scam, so he was ripe for accepting Smith as a client, even though it was hate she showed toward him and, I felt, annoyance, that she didn't know why her father had demanded she hire a Jewish lawyer...

Then Gold started the game...of giving back what he saw he'd be getting...

“Can I see you today?” Her insistence was compelling. It was then that I remembered what Linda had said. Instantly Smith’s image was embellished with a riding crop poised in pudgy fingers over a beefy palm and a swastika adorning the upper arm of a brown coat.
“I’m not sure,” I said, deliberately dangling the uncertainty just to make her as uncomfortable as her advance notices made me. 
“Maybe a quick lunch?” she asked. 
I felt the pressure of her determination. Not frantic, just intense. Her suggestion triggered a sense of mischief. 
“Why not?”
“Just tell me where. I’m a stranger to New York.” 
I cleared my throat to mask a chuckle I could barely control. “Moishe’s.” It was a Jewish delicatessen on Third and 20th. She repeated the name, giving it a totally wrong inflection. This time I laughed out loud. She ignored me. 
“What time?”
“Let’s say one.” It was after twelve. Wherever she was, she would have to hustle. I said goodbye and hung up feeling good about my little joke...
God, I loved this city, especially in the fall. Always in that season I forgave her her cranky moods and bouts of meanness, forgave her her tough old indifferent hide. She was the perennial whore with the heart of soft putty, indiscriminate as hell in the choice of those she took to her bed. Yet she took them all on with equal passion and enthusiasm. No prejudice in that big baby. Hell, you couldn’t blame her for getting fed up once in a while. Even the impending threat of bankruptcy and all the mismanagement corruption and crime in play felt like the Big Apple was simply going through a bad hangover which was sure to disappear as time went on. That’s the way Wise Willy put it. 

Moishe’s displayed a rather large Star of David on its street pane. Through it, I could see the high counter and below the display cases stocked with the savory items that were the staple of every Jewish delicatessen in the world. In the rear was the sitting part of the restaurant, a hodge-podge of mismatched tables and chairs, offering a near-perfect reflection of its customers. There were overweight Jewish merchants and manufacturers, three-piece suiters like myself from the nearby law offices and brokerages, scruffy old ladies and bent old men, secretaries advertising themselves in trendy designer clothes bought at discount, some Orientals returning the culinary compliment to their Jewish brothers and a smattering of blacks looking as comfortable as they might be at a Harlem food emporium. Hanging over this odd collection of human jetsam was the ubiquitous smell of garlic. 

A fat little man, Moishe himself, led me to a table for two adorned with a pile of sour pickles on a bed of sauerkraut in a brown plastic dish. Facing the window, I munched on a pickle and waited, watching for her through the Star’s inverted triangle. I knew it was her by the way she moved, carrying with her this air of single-minded, unstoppable purpose, like a racehorse with blinders crossing the finish line. How dare she look like that? I thought. A glob of pickle stuck in my throat and I had to cough it into my fist. Something hard inside of me was heating up. A sour backwash of anger bubbled into the back of my throat. This was no unattractive lady, and it only irritated me further to find myself assessing her objectively. She was on the delicate side, with dark curly hair clipped short and close to the head like a boy, although she wasn’t masculine in any way. In tight corduroy beige jeans and a brown turtleneck, her tight curvy figure moved with liquid grace as she came forward, growing cautious as she got closer, slowing as she approached the entrance. There she stood for a moment, nostrils flaring as she soaked in the peculiar odors, eyes squinting as she surveyed the unfamiliar conglomeration. She was, of course, equally out of place. 
A number of people turned to look at her. Maybe it was the way my face mooned up at her. Or maybe it was Linda’s description, but she picked me out quickly and came toward me. 
“Milton Gold?” she asked. 
When I nodded, she slid into the seat opposite me, smiled tentatively and met my gaze with total confidence. Close up, I could see flecks of yellow in her large brown eyes. Her nose arched gently to wide nostrils, below which her lips peaked in a cupid’s bow. A good tan covered her olive skin and made it two or three shades darker. Of course, she definitely did not look like the cliched image of the Polack Nazi Jew-baiter that I had conjured up in my mind as a result of my conversation with Linda. The surprise only fed my anger. “I hope this place meets with your approval,” I muttered. 
“Good as any,” she replied, unhitching her pocketbook from her shoulder and putting it on the table. Then she looked around again, making a more careful inspection of the surroundings. I half expected — and probably wanted — her to sniff her contempt. She didn’t. I decided it was because she felt superior to it, out of it, an uninvolved visitor. This conclusion did not do wonders for my disposition. Before we could get on with the obligatory small talk for openers, a henna-haired middle-aged waitress slapped two grease-stained menus on the black plastic table. She picked hers up, glanced at it with indifference, shrugged, and then put it down again. The waitress, typically impatient and intimidating, stood over us, pencil poised over her order book. “They make a helluva kosher corned beef sandwich,” I said, with a mischievous accent on the “kosher.” “The real thing.” I felt the urge to twist the knife. 
“I’ll have a roast beef on white with mayonnaise and a glass of milk,” she said. I wondered if this was her way of getting even. 
“You’re not serious? This is a Jewish delicatessen.” My remark obviously puzzled her. I exchanged confused glances with the waitress. 
“Sure about the white, hon?” the waitress asked. When the Smith girl nodded, she lifted her pencil and pointed to the window. “This is Kosher Bosher baby. Milk’s only for the Goyim.” She snickered. “But we can do you coffee, iced tea, all kind of soda...” “What she means is that they don’t mix meat and milk,” I interrupted. “An ancient tribal hangover from bygone days.” I looked up at the waitress. 
“She’s from Montana.” 
“That explains it,” the waitress said, “you look like iced tea.” 
“Fine,” she nodded, either ignoring or not understanding the little greenhorn by-play. I ordered a corned beef sandwich and a diet cream soda and the waitress padded away on her thick rubber soles. When she had gone, Karla Smith folded her hands on the edge of the table and we looked each other over. I felt certain that I was as much of a shock to her as she was to me. I noted that she wore a tiny silver cross high on her neck, just under the turtleneck fold. “Linda told me what you did for her,” she said slowly. 
For her, to her, or with her, I wondered. A flickering sexual impulse crossed my consciousness. “Everything, I hope.” I winked lasciviously. It made absolutely no impression. “We had…” I cleared my throat, mostly to add a little drama to my verbal missile, “… a brief involvement.” 
“She didn’t say,” she responded with no-nonsense assurance. I wasn’t certain, but since I apparently was spoiling for a fight, I thought it sounded a little like contempt. “Well we did,” I snapped. 
“It’s still none of my business,” she said calmly.
“It’s important.” I couldn’t think of why. Maybe it implied a certain level of acceptance in the world of Polack shiksas? 
“Not to me.” Here I was trying to get her riled and she was doing it to me without effort. 
“I’m seeing you only on her say-so, despite…” I paused, mostly to recover my perspective. I was only partially successful. 
A brief frown creased her forehead. Suddenly, I couldn’t get it out. “Despite what?” she pressed. 
“Never mind,” I said. I opened my palms. “Your smart Jewish lawyer.”

~~~

Soon Milton and Karla were preparing for a trip overseas, interestingly with Milton fronting the money??? By this time I had settled into accepting the prejudicial banter, believing that it was definitely required in the story being developed...But where was Adler going, I wondered...

Then it quickly became apparent that others knew--maybe it leaked when Karla had her father's documents translated, or maybe there had always been those who were watching, waiting... because, before long, Milton had been able to identify at least three different groups that were trying to get to Karla...and one had already attacked Linda, trying to find out information and she was recuperating in the hospital as they left the United States...

And the treasure hunt thrills begin! Karla had already made one trip to verify that there really was gold where she'd been told. But getting it out was the real problem. Still Karla kept her plans and thoughts about all that was happening close to her, refusing to even share with her lawyer, yet determined to have him involved.

The attacks and close encounters occurring in America were just the beginning as contact was initially made with the Polish Government to negotiate a settlement. Some were quite courteous and anxious to work with Karla, while others simply looked and acted like the thugs that they were...and the danger increased the longer they moved ahead with their efforts to get the gold...

The darkness of humankind who seek retribution, gold, or power that money brings were everywhere... and soon, Karla was hearing stories--stories about her father! Would Karla and Milton live through it all? 

What I will tell you is that Milton loved Karla enough by the time it happened, to kill a man who was torturing her trying to make her give up the location of the gold... But readers will wait to know how Karla feels about him, even though they'd begun an intimate relationship fairly early in their trip...

While Milton is an open book, Karla is an enigma, frustrating Milton on a daily basis. Still, he struggles with his feelings for her, knowing he really knows nothing about her... Then he finds out that what he knows is not the truth...

Adler keeps readers guessing, holding their breath, and turning pages quickly, with his psychological suspenseful, intriguing story that is edgy, and unpredictable. I, too, was falling deeper and deeper into the storyline, hoping against hope that there was still time to have the book end like I wanted it to! OMG! What an outstanding story that pits country against countries, criminals against other criminals, while one ignoble but loving daughter and one shrewd Jewish lawyer walks (or sometimes runs) through each escapade, determined to follow the path that is being carved for them as each new individual and group shows their determination to obtain that gold!

A powerful ending that I was totally satisfied with...and that's when I knew I really, really loved this latest book by best-selling author Warren Adler!

GABixlerReviews

Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce turned into the Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated dark comedy hit starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In addition to the success of the stage adaptation of his iconic novel on the perils of divorce, Adler has optioned and sold film rights to more than a dozen of his novels and short stories to Hollywood and major television networks. Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas), The Sunset Gang (starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts), Private Lies, Funny Boys, Madeline’s Miracles, Trans-Siberian Express and his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series are only a few titles that have forever left Adler’s mark on contemporary American authorship from page to stage to screen. Learn more about Warren Adler at www.warrenadler.com.

Thinking of Our Independence Day While Reading The Seven Year Dress by Paulette Mahurin...

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:

 the last of human freedoms - 

to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, 

to choose one's own way. 

Viktor E. Frankl

It was strange, sad, reading Paulette Mahurin's latest book while we in America are singing and dancing, enjoying the freedom that America presents to us... Yet, Mahurin was able to take me away from our own freedom and immerse myself in the story of Helen Stein, one of the few who lived to celebrate Auschwitz Liberation Day. Sometimes, I lost myself so deeply into the story that I had to break away and read a cat mystery book, so that I could maintain some sense of separation in order to express my thoughts coherently.

Mahurin received the gift of this story directly from the woman who lived to share it with us. It is fiction based upon fact plus research to confirm and round out the story of what was happening. You will understand that, especially since Helen spent four years of that time of terror, underground, totally away from the world, alone only with her brother...

The book shares the intimacy of her life as she faced what had happened--what she saw, what she heard from other trusted individuals, but, more, what she herself experienced...

We all think we know about what happened during that time...but we don't. We can't. Even while reading this book, which is vividly detailed and written so authentically that many will think we are hearing the story directly from the woman sharing her story. While that means that the author has done an outstanding job in writing the book, it also has revealed to many of us a much more intimate, unforgettable tale of inhumanity that cannot be imaged except when we are forced to face the reality of it.  With a German heritage on both sides of my family, I can only get lost in heartache of what Hitler brought about that was so devastating that none of us will ever forget or accept it as anything more than the actions of the devil himself...and as we see, of his many cruel and evil followers.

--LOVIS CORINTH

The story begins when a young girl seeking a room to rent meets an older lady who has a room, but asks a lot of questions before she is willing to show the girl the room...

I was looking to rent a room. She was looking for family. I needed a place to live. She needed to fill an empty void in her heart. But it would take me a few weeks to realize the role I was to play in her life.

The author uses the Prologue to tell this story as they got to know each other and finally, the woman opens up to the young girl... The rest of the book is her story... began the day that the young girl spied the tattoo of numbers on her arm and realized what she'd gone through... One of the stories was about a picture frame holding a small scrap of cloth...it was once part of a dress...

Early 1920s Who could have possibly imagined that in three years a decorated veteran of World War I would become the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and years later become Chancellor of Germany and annihilate millions of Jews? Certainly not me, Helen Stein.

While Hitler was gaining popularity in the German Workers’ Party in 1919, I was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. My father, Irving Stein, at thirty-one-years old, was a government lawyer who adored his wife— my mother, Rose— a few years younger than he. Altogether, there were six of us. I was the youngest of the four siblings: Lawrence was seven years older, Shana was five years older, and Ben was four years older than me...

I came into the world in a time of great turmoil, civil unrest, and economic upheaval in the aftermath of The Great War that took the lives of more than nine million people. Ending the year before I was born, the war sent ripples throughout the countries that were affected, causing massive political, cultural, and social changes. Especially impacted was Germany, where a socialist revolution led to the formulation of a number of communist parties. The Treaty of Versailles (written by the victors, of course) placed blame for the entire war on Germany and levied a fine of 132 billion marks— more than 31 billion dollars— to keep the German economy from flourishing. To honor the restitution, the German Republic printed large amounts money. The economic effect was devastating. Hyperinflation made the German mark near valueless, and Germany fell into default. As a result, German territories were transferred to other countries. Because many Germans never accepted the treaty as legal and viewed the taking of their territories as hostile, the German Workers’ Party, later renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSGWP, referred to in English as the Nazi Party), emerged. Created as a means to draw workers away from communist uprisings, the Party’s initial strategy was anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalism, although these features were later downplayed to get support from industrial organizations. Harboring anti-Semitism from its founding, in the 1930s its focus would change to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist ideas. I remember my parents talking about those earlier events through the years, but I never understood the foreboding tone in their voices until much later, in late 1938, when all hell broke loose...

~~~

Helen was just a child, but she was a curious one, and wasn't hesitant to listen to adult conversations to try to discover whatever she could. But, still, there wasn't much to worry about then. Her next-door neighbors had a son, Max, with whom she became close friends and she moved through school years much like all of us...Max and she were inseparable, but there came a day when Ben came home upset because Max had started to treat him differently. Helen demanded to know what he'd said and he finally admitted he'd call him a goy... As time went by, though, as Helen asked questions, Max finally hinted that he liked boys and Helen surmised that he liked Ben...

But it was more that the atmosphere was changing. Jews were targeted on an ongoing basis, as more and more government sanctions were announced and acted upon... and soon Helen realized that Max had just as many issues with what was happening as her family did...

In that silence, I came to understand that Max and I each had something very real to fear as “undesirables” living in Germany at this moment in history. The difference was that, if he was very smart and lucky, he might be able to pretend that he was not an “undesirable.” I was smart, but would never be that lucky. But I could already see the price he paid for concealing his true self. He was guarded and moody, not the sweet Max I grew to love and call my best friend. His secret was eating away at him, but revealing his secret— even to me— could have dire consequences. Many minutes had passed before I took his hand. “Let’s go somewhere safe.”

Max was forced to play a role and join the Germans forces, while the Stein family was stripped of their citizenship and employment. Soon, Helen and others were, first, learning to sew, and then acting as seamstresses to keep the family going... But then people on the streets were shot, killed for no reason and finally, the Stern home was soon to be attacked...

Max had gained some credibility and had been able to learn much of plans...It was Max who contacted Helen, and later Ben, trying to get them out of town, which he succeeded in doing, but the rest of the family were killed and/or taken (only the sister may have been still alive.) Max and taken Ben and Helen to his family's farm and they lived in the lower storage cellar...for four years...with only Max who came as often as he could to bring them fresh food and other supplies...and one day he brought Helen a dress...

Max went to a bag he’d brought. “Something for you, Helen.” When he handed a dress to me, I started to cry. He knew I loved my dresses, how they made me feel appealing, special. Boys paid attention to me when I had a nice dress on. This dress was a symbol of normalcy, my femininity, and my past. And I prayed it would also be my future. I hoped to see a day when I would be free to be out in the streets enjoying my life in a lovely new dress. The two dresses I’d been wearing in the cellar were filthy. Scrubbing the cellar’s grime from them with soap at the sink couldn’t remove the stains that had become part of the threadbare fabric. Grease and years of dirt covered everything in the cellar. Safety was worth the sacrifice in cleanliness— Ben and I had agreed. But both my dear brother and best friend understood how much I missed feeling like a proper young woman, and how much a new dress means to a proper young woman...
I slipped into my new, clean, beautiful dress: a blue cotton floral print with swirls of designs surrounding flowers. My fingers moved over the fabric, encircling the rose petals and luscious green leaves on the pattern. For a brief moment, it wasn’t a dress, but nature— and I was encircled in it...

~~~

And it was that one act of love and kindness that led to danger! Because the farmhouse was invaded after Max had left (and later was killed along with his family as sympathizers.) The four years in the basement had ended, only to lead to much worse... Ben didn't make it, while Helen's simple, smart thinking to say that she was a seamstress saved her life...leaving Helen on her way to Auschwitz...

“My Papa told me life is precious.
I had to die many times to truly understand this.”

~~~

Paulette Mahurin has the talent to pull her readers into the story she has molded. This is a page-turner, although hard to read at times. It should be, shouldn't it? Because life is indeed precious and only a few of the millions that Hitler planned to murder, made it out to tell us exactly what happened. Horrific, atrocious historical events once occurred. This book forces you to live what those millions suffered. I believe readers will be better for reading it...I know I am! Highly recommended. Maybe even a must-read for most of us!

GABixlerReviews

Paulette Mahurin lives with her husband Terry and three dogs, Max, Bella, and Lady Luck in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science.

While in college, she won awards and was published for her short-story writing. One of these stories, Something Wonderful, was based on the couple presented in His Name Was Ben, which she expanded into the fictionalized novel in 2014. The first week out, His Name Was Ben, made it to top ten books sold in the Amazon Kindle store (topic: health/wellness/cancer). Her first novel, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, made it to Amazon bestseller lists and won awards, including best historical fiction of the year 2012 in Turning the Pages Magazine.

Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminister Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue. 

Profits from her books go to help rescue dogs.