Creating characters is like making new friends. You get to know them by spending days, weeks and months together. Eventually, you have to say farewell for a time, but you never forget them. When you get back together, it’s like you were never apart and you quickly become reacquainted. You learn what things have been happening in their lives since you last spoke. You're happy for their successes and sad for their losses.
When I wrote Hidden Poppies in the Lei Crime Kindle World series, the character I chose to use from Toby Neal’s stable was Ken Yamada, an FBI Special Agent. I put Ken on a case where he ran into Major Charles Mathews, an Army officer Ken met ten years before. They’d been lovers briefly, but because of their careers and their hidden sexuality, they knew a relationship was impossible for them at the time.
Fast forward to today, when the Army’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy is repealed, when gay couples can marry and when the LGBT community is able to live their lives with less fear than ever before, and Ken and Chuck no longer have a reason to stay apart. So, they don’t. They come together in a beautiful and engaging way.
Over the last several months I’ve been getting reacquainted with Ken and Chuck. I didn’t realize how much I missed them. I love these two men. They’re so right for each other. Both have careers they love, both were willing to sacrifice the possibility of love and family to keep their jobs. And now, both realize they don’t have to make those sacrifices anymore. It makes my heart sing every time I think about how alone each of them had been for so long and now, they don’t have to be.
Hidden Designs is coming soon. Here’s the cover. I can’t wait to let Chuck and Ken be reintroduced to the world. Don't miss the first book, Hidden Poppies. And a whole slew of new Lei Crime Kindle World novellas have just been released. I’ll be reviewing a couple of them soon.
M. L. Doyle has served in the U.S. Army at home and abroad for more than two decades as both a soldier and civilian. Mary is the author of The Desert Goddess series, an urban fantasy romp consisting of The Bonding Spell and The Bonding Blade. She has also penned The Master Sergeant Harper mystery series which has earned numerous awards including an IPPY, a Lyra Award and the Carrie McCray Literary Award. Mary is the co-author of two memoirs; A Promise Fulfilled; the story of a Wife and Mother, Soldier and General Officer (Jan. 201) and the memoir, I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home (Touchstone, 2010), which was nominated for an NAACP Image award. Mary's work has been published by The Goodman Project, The War Horse, The WWrite Blog and The Wrath-Bearing Tree, an online magazine for which she serves as a fiction editor. A Minneapolis, Minnesota native, Mary current lives in Baltimore. You can reach her at her website at mldoyleauthor.com.
2 comments on “Hidden Designs - Cover reveal!”
Wow, love the cover! Evocative and beautiful! Cant wait to read it.
Thanks Jilly!