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WHAT KEEPS THE STARS APART 

Currently on submission. Please contact Tina P. Schwartz at the Purcell Agency for acquisition. 

Emily Westbrook has a secret. A newborn daughter she surrendered seventeen years ago. And Zach, Emily’s husband…rather, soon to be ex-husband, is fed up of hearing about her. Then for her thirty-fifth birthday, Emily receives the ultimate gift: a message from Hope. Emily vows to do whatever it takes to build a relationship with her long lost daughter. Only she wasn’t anticipating Hope’s request: to find her biological father, Trent. 

CUTTING EDGE SIX PART SERIES

Completed project.

Marilynn Daniels, a tried and true Minnesotan, has a never-ending to-do list: run the hockey booster club, scream herself hoarse in frozen rinks, manage a household (including a husband who stares blankly at the washing machine), and secretly battle ovarian cancer. With two sons chasing pro hockey careers–custom skates, private coaching, elite camps–and now mounting hospital bills, the bank account has run dry. Marilynn would sacrifice anything to keep her boys on the ice–even ‘borrow’ booster club funds. Just a temporary fix, she tells herself. Once, she dreamed of becoming a professional accompanist. Maybe if she’d had her own career, she wouldn’t feel so desperate.

Between prepping freezer meals for her post-hysterectomy recovery and dodging nosy hockey moms asking about the missing money, Marilynn has no energy for her youngest son, Nathan’s new girlfriend, Abby–the girl she found passed out on the couch last weekend. When the surgery reveals that her cancer is more aggressive than the doctors expected, Abby shows up with homemade baked goods and movie nights. Marilynn welcomes the help. Maybe she’s needed it all along, but no one noticed. The two form a surprising bond over romantic comedies.

When Abby confides she’s considering turning down a scholarship for an elite cross-country program to support Nathan’s hockey ambitions, Marilynn sees herself reflected back–a girl losing herself for someone else’s dream. As her health declines, so does everything she’s tried to hold together–her family, her secrets, her sense of normal. The booster club is catching on. And when a police officer shows up to arrest her for embezzlement, it’s no longer a question of if she’ll be caught, but whether anyone will understand why she did it in the first place.

All she needs is more time. The one thing she can’t have. 

FAR FROM THE WATCHTOWER

Completed project.

 For seventeen-year-old Sadie Jenkins, a scholarship to run cross-country for the University of Minnesota isn’t enough for her mother. She must achieve class valedictorian. Only then will she have repaid her mom—a single parent who has never once let Sadie forget all that she’s sacrificed. But one day, while picking up her computer from a repair shop, she learns the technician who worked on her laptop is her father—a former Jehovah’s Witness. Sadie’s number one cheerleader and confidant—her mother—is swept up in the romance of reconnecting with her old love. But as family secrets emerge about her father’s absence, Sadie’s tight-knit family begins to unravel.