January 3, 2014

Do you know what today is?

It's the 80th birthday of Julia Scott Cheeks, who is at the center of my latest novel, Secrets and Sins.  She was born in the town of Eighty-Eight, Mississippi, on January 3, 1934, and back in 1955, when she was just 21 years old, she walked in on a scene that both traumatized and frightened her.  She didn't know it at the time, but there was another shock in her future, one that forever changed her relationship with those closest to her.

With that said, it seems only fair that the long-delayed release of Secrets and Sins ended up being on her birthday...

In this sweeping, 115K-word novel, Bettye Griffin introduces readers to the Cheeks family of Zion, Illinois: Eldest daughter Faye, whose placid, orderly life is about to be disrupted in a way she never could have imagined…middle child and only son Scott, who brings new meaning to the phrase ‘midlife crisis’…and youngest daughter Robin, who is divorced from but not exactly rid of her former spouse. At the center of the story is their mother, Julia Scott Cheeks, who along with her devoted husband Melvin, has tried to keep two scandalous family secrets hidden and has been successful for 55 years…but when Robin mentions the name of the former classmate she has a romantic interest in, Julia fears that the events she has tried so hard and for so long to keep her children from knowing are in danger of being exposed…

Secrets and Sins is available directly from Amazon for $5.99 (did I mention it has 115,000 words?).  At this time it is not available at Barnes and Noble, where uploads have been problematic for me.  Kindle owners have the option of ordering a MOBI file from my eStore for just $4.99, while readers needing an EPUB or PDF file can also order from my eStore.  There is no signup required to buy from my eStore, and instructions on how to load the file onto your device are listed on the site on a device-by-device basis under the Accessing Content tab.  The weather is bad this weekend in many parts of the country, and this is the perfect book to curl up with if you're staying in.

A polite request:  I love getting reviews, but Secrets and Sins contains some plot twists that I hope will catch readers off guard.  Please, please, please don't give any of them away in your reviews...let other readers be as surprised as you were.

As always, I wish you good reading!