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Excerpt
The sound of the flight attendant on the loudspeaker startled Jamison Jones Scott out of her light sleep. Despite having traveled frequently in her lifetime, she still couldn’t sleep comfortably on a plane. The seat location— first-class or economy—didn’t make a difference. The plane was nearing its destination, so the passengers needed to finish filling out their declaration cards. Jamie was returning to Atlanta to stay at her parents’ home with only the clothes on her back, a computer bag, the few items of clothing in her duffel, and a stethoscope. She had nothing to declare.
Her seatmate appeared to be sleeping through the announcements. Jamie was jealous. The four-year-old in front of her turned around and started babbling excitedly in French. She must have noticed that Jamie was finally awake. With her head still fuzzy from her nap, Jamie couldn’t completely follow the child’s rapid words, but the gist was that she wanted something from Jamie. Something about a playdate? Jamie smiled at the girl and hoped the girl’s mother would intervene. No such luck; she was asleep as well. The child eyeballed Jamie expectantly. Jamie realized she and the seatmate had started this situation by playing with the dark-haired child while they were over the ocean. Now, when she didn’t agree to the latest request, the little girl scrunched up her face to cry.
“Nous atterrissons bientôt. Elle ne peut pas aller avec vous,” Jamie’s seatmate answered, eyes still closed. “Mais vous pourriez être en mesure de visiter. Je suis sûr qu’elle tu aimerait garder les enfants.” He grinned.
Jamie gasped while the young girl clapped. This guy had just volunteered her as a babysitter!
“Je suis désolé, mais il se trompe. Je ne serai pas disponible,” Jamie stated. “Je parie qu’il a une surprise, pour toi.” The child looked at Jamie’s seatmate for her present and clapped again. This reply made him open his eyes.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce que c’est?” the child asked. Startled, her pregnant mother woke up and turned around in her seat sheepishly.
I’m sorry, she mouthed. She made her eager daughter turn around in her seat and asked her to leave the other passengers alone. The girl was disappointed, but her mother handed her a shortbread, which made her forget the people behind her.
Her seatmate smiled, opened his eyes, and said, “I could have given her the stuffed bear I bought. I have a daughter the same age.” He stretched gingerly. “I can’t wait to get home. I’ve been traveling for too long. What about you? Looking forward to getting home?”
Jamie thought about her return to Atlanta. She hadn’t been home in a while, so she wasn’t sure how she felt.
Revel in the chaos.
Revel in the chaos.
Revel in the chaos.
Jamie tried to live by this motto for most of her life because her life seemed to invite chaos. She learned to expect—and sometimes encourage—complications. As the plane taxied to a halt, she repeated her motto to herself. This phrase, tattooed on her right hip, particularly applied now.
The international terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport had changed since she was last there. Her brother, Jonathan, would pick her up at the baggage claim—alone, she hoped, and not sporting a clingy girlfriend. Time to re-acclimate and re-establish family bonds. Dealing with an unknown woman in her face when she wanted to spend time quietly with her brother wasn’t at the top of her to-do list.
As she waited in line to get through passport control, she thought about how she got to this point—back in Atlanta after several years abroad. She had spent two of those years working with the non-profit organization Doctors Overseas. Jamie worked in several locations, including the Central African Republic. She had her reasons for joining the charitable organization; not all were altruistic, and she kept those to herself during her entrance interview. The horrors she witnessed overseas helped her put her personal chaos into perspective. She realized her issues were nothing compared to what people endured in other parts of the world. This realization allowed her to embrace her job and enjoy what she was doing, despite the frequent threats of bodily harm. To help maintain her sanity while overseas, she traveled a lot and spent six months in Italy working with a designer friend.
The agent summoning her snapped her out of her reverie. Handing over her passport, she said, “Nothing to declare. Coming back home for my mother’s birthday and Christmas.”
At the check-in counter, the inspector carefully examined her and her passport photo. Jamison understood the scrutiny. At the time of that picture, she had been at the height of her glamor phase with a history of modeling and a resulting, above-average concern about how she looked. In medical school, she often showed up at rounds with perfectly coiffed hair and more than a swipe of mascara and lip gloss.
But in Africa, those concerns fell away. Right now, Jamie was makeup-free, and a baseball cap covered her hair. She was still beautiful, but now it was a girl-next-door beauty. Jamie had high cheekbones, almond-shaped dark brown eyes, a straight nose, a square jawline, and her golden-brown skin was still smooth. She wasn’t stomping down runways anymore, as in her past life, because she had shifted her priorities.
Her mother would hate it.
“Welcome to Atlanta,” the inspector said as she stamped her passport. “Have a pleasant stay.”
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with . . . D.W. Brooks . . .
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
I think writing strategies vary from writer to writer. It depends on how your mind works and what structure you work best from. I usually come up with a rough plan and free write from there. I noted on social media that "I have an idea of where I want the characters to go and then I let the characters tell me how they want to get there, After I review, the characters may be wrong and need to be redirected, but they do have a voice."
Editing is a big part of my process because I want to get my words on the page, misspellings and all. I can correct that later, but I don't want any ideas to get away while I am trying to correct grammar.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
Obviously, I have a bond with Jamison—she is based on me in a few ways (model, doctor, tall) but in every other way, she is different and full of drama! 😊 My friends and family who read my stories and know me see the similarities. Of course, she has to have more baggage because a character based entirely on me might not be very interesting.
Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
I am working on a novella set a few weeks after the events in Homecoming Chaos. It looks at some of the fallout from the novel, additional secrets that are unearthed, and the next steps between Jamie and the detective. I hope to have the first draft of that completed during the NaNoWriMo challenge 2023. Then, I will go back to the next novel in the series.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
Getting Homecoming Chaos completed and published was the main goal for this year. Now, I want to finish a novella and the next novel for next year. My plan is to publish a novella in between each novel and publish a novel each year. Hopefully, I will have a Christmas novella for the next holiday season!
If you could have dinner/dinner party with 7 fictional characters, who would they be?
I love reading mysteries and thrillers. I started with Nancy Drew and continued with Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, and Sherlock Holmes. If I had a dinner party with seven fictional characters, they would all be characters from the mysteries that I have read. To maximize these characters, there would have to be a murder mystery game as part of the festivities.
Stephanie Plum: This is the main character from Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. She is a bounty hunter but doesn't really have a lot of training in the area. She finds her skips and solves mysteries and murders, often by luck or accident.
Sherlock Holmes: This consulting detective has incredible powers of observation, deduction, and reasoning. It would be intriguing to watch him work with other detectives—if he could actually do that. Hopefully, his friend Dr. Watson would come with him if for nothing else to record the events.
Lucas Davenport: The main character in John Sanford's "Prey" series. Detective Davenport is a smart man, but he is very physical. A former hockey player, he has no problems laying hands on a perp.
Miss Marple: A frequent subject of Agatha Christie stories, Miss Marple is a whip smart, elderly woman who uses her understanding of human nature and latches on to comments that can provide insight into the case at hand.
Alex Cross: The main character in James Patterson's "Cross" series, Alex Cross, has a PhD in psychology and also works with the police department to solve crimes and catch killers. Generally, the killers are coming after him and his family, so this murder party would be a welcome reprieve.
Lindsay Boxer: Main character of the Women's Murder Club series by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. She's a strong, determined homicide detective in San Francisco.
Perry Mason: The main character in Erle Stanley Gardner's detective fiction stories. He is a defense attorney that often acts as a detective to clear his clients.
I think this would be an interesting party with characters from different eras. Having all that brain power to solve the case would be very exciting!
Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYWhere, money is not a concern? What would you do with this time?
There are a lot of places that I have on my bucket list. But for this question, I would have to pick California. My husband and I have a goal of renting a convertible car, driving to California, and staying for at least six months. This would play right into that. With a year's worth of time, I think we could start at the northernmost part of the state and work our way down south.
California is such a big state with so much to see; I am not sure one year would be enough! I have family members to visit while there, and many beaches to see, sporting events to watch, and restaurants to experience. Sunset boat rides await us as well. Our children can come visit for part of the time and we could spend time together. But this would be mainly an adult trip to take part in all the things we have talked about over the years.
But a lot of the time would be spent on beaches and in the mountains. I enjoy sitting on the beach with books to read. We would also spend time in the mountains as my husband is a skier. I am not, so I could write and/or relax while he spends the days on the slopes. After this fabulous year, I would expect to have at least one book manuscript finished as the cherry on top of the year.
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