I’m nearing the end of my first draft of part three of the FAMILY PORTRAIT series. The working title is EMILIA. This has been the most difficult of the three books for me to write. The family has grown to four characters, Karla, Andreas and their son and daugher, Tonio and Laura. Trying to tell the stories of four people, giving each one a voice and a destiny without losing the overall structure and theme of the novel and without getting hopelessly lost has been a real challenge. One thing is for sure, there is going to be LOTS of editing. Anyway, just to give you a taste, here is a (preliminary) blurb:

Turmoil reigns in the O’Reilly-Bocelli household. With her two older children, Laura and Tonio, grown and getting ready to fly the coop, Karla finds out she is pregnant again. Instead of devoting her time and energy fully to her painting career, she is forced to raise another child. Andreas, her husband, is looking forward to being a father once more but soon realizes that the little bundle of joy, Emilia, instead of enhancing the relationship to his wife of over twenty years, intensifies the tension that has been building between them. While the parents fight each other, Laura and Tonio try to keep the peace. But more trouble waits in the wings: Andreas catches his son kissing another man in a more than friendly way, and Arturo, Karla’s Peruvian father, has a heart-attack. While Karla is in Peru taking care of Arturo, Andreas gets a little too cozy with a young woman by the name of Susanna. Only when he almost loses Emilia does he come to his senses and embarks on a journey to try to keep his family together.

For those of you who want to find out what has happened so far, part one, AN UNCOMMON FAMILY, is FREE on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk on MAY 23 and 24 and part two, LOVE OF A STONEMASON is available for $2.99 on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk.