When asked how I came to write Pearl, I tell people it was from asking a series of different questions. Pearl really began with five songs I wrote with the intention of writing a musical.
I live in San Angelo, Texas. My husband and I moved here when his brother asked him to run his oil company in West Texas. When I investigated the town before moving here, I was intrigued with the fact that the three main tourist attractions were the museum, Fort Concho and Miss Hattie's Bordello. One man told me that his uncle used to say, "If you were to put a roof over San Angelo you'd have one giant brothel!" This and the fact that the Concho River that flows through the middle of town is the only place on the planet that produces a pink pearl greatly impressed me. When you visit downtown San Angelo you feel like you are stepping back into the 1920s. The largest city in America not close to an Interstate, it is ranked as one of the top 20 time warped towns in the United States and still has the essence of the Old West.
While in the midst of writing my musical, I kept getting a nagging feeling that there was a much bigger story to tell. One Saturday morning, while drinking my first cup of coffee, before thoughts of the day start rolling into your mind, I heard, "Tell them why we did it...we weren't bad people..." over and over in my head. It was like a mantra. I know it sounds crazy but I felt there were three women talking to me from somewhere on the other side.
I went to the piano and withing 20 minutes I had written a song. "If you could wear my slippers for just one day, then you'd understand why I'm nice to the men and I make my living this way." In my head I asked, "What are your stories?" I heard, "I was a widow with a child...I was an orphan...I ran away with a gambler and was too ashamed to go home." Right then I had met my first three characters, Annabelle, Redbird and Betsy.
I had heard that some women of the day made millions in the business of "ladies of the evening." I began researching and discovered two sisters, Ada and Minna Everleigh. Their story fascinated me. They opened their doors to the exclusive Everleigh Club in Chicago on February 2, 1900 and made millions of dollars catering to wealthy gentleman. They became world famous and even the King of Prussia visited them when he came to America.
About this same time my son, Jordan, was earning his Petroleum Engineering degree At the University of Texas in Austin, where the Santa Rita oil pump is proudly displayed. Again I asked a question, "Why is the Santa Rita pump displayed here when the discovery was made hundreds of miles away. The Santa Rita discovery was the reason San Angelo became an oil boom town. Again I did some research and found an awesome story of perseverance that again intrigued me. Now I had, ladies and oil. Throw in sexy cowboys and I was on my way to writing my first historical fiction.
Is Pearl any good? Within 6 months I sold over a thousand copies. My readers kept telling me they wanted more so great I wrote a sequel I call Diamond. Currently I am working on Ruby to complete the trilogy.
Pearl is not a book about prostitution. Pearl is about human nature and understanding why we do what we do. Although we live in a world that is ever changing, our basic human nature never does. I wrote Pearl to open up the dialogue between women of all ages. I believe those of us with experience have a responsibility to mentor to young women. In other words, I believe we need to show them where the mines are in the battlefield of life. Pearl did that for her girls.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I will be posting something every week and I welcome your input. There will be discussions on the different character storylines, clips from the audio book and free give-aways.
