April's Affections and Intrigues: Love and Mystery Bloom
Merry Jones
Merry Jones has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pencil. “If I don’t write,” she says, “over time, I get agitated and irritable, as if energy is building up inside and I have to let it out.”
Accordingly, over the years, she has written a wide range of material, in a variety of styles and for diverse media. She began her career by spending about fifteen years writing and producing video and multi-media for corporate clients, but, when her second child was born in 1989, she decided to pursue her passion and began to write books.
All of Merry’s work deals with inter-personal relationships, particularly their unanticipated aspects. For several years, she approached this topic through light humor (including the best-selling I LOVE HIM, BUT…) and serious non-fiction (including BIRTHMOTHERS: WOMEN WHO HAVE RELINQUISHED BABIES FOR ADOPTION TELL THEIR STORIES). Now, she has moved into a genre she loves: shadowy mysteries.
Merry sees mysteries as more than merely page-turning stories. “Mystery gives the reader—and the writer--a safe environment to approach the frightening aspects of life. You know, going in, that normal order is going to be disrupted by something evil and dark. But you also know that order and normalcy will be restored. Unlike in life, where we never know the outcome, we can face fear and evil and darkness and overcome it, at least for the duration of the novel. But within those pages, the mystery gives us the opportunity to look closely at the nature of our fears, and of ourselves.”