I’m frequently asked if a particular book includes any autobiographical material. My response is usually a casual yes, even if I can’t always explain how or where. To be perfectly candid there are snippets of me (as well as a few unwitting friends and family) sprinkled throughout most of my novels. Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it happens unconsciously, but it’s always organic. And in my opinion reality simply makes fiction a richer experience.
WELCOME TO THE HONEY B & B is no exception. In fact, it might contain more true-to-life story and characters than anything I’ve created in the past decade. A sweet secondary character named CT has early onset dementia—in the form of FTD. And no he doesn’t deliver flowers. FTD is frontal temporal dementia, a condition we didn’t hear much about until Bruce Willis brought it into the limelight with his diagnosis.
My husband of 46 years was also diagnosed with this complicated condition. To say it’s turned our lives upside down is an understatement. Just when we thought we’d be trekking around in our motorhome, enjoying some new freedoms, living our ‘happy golden’ years… we were smacked down with this relentless ailment. It’s so aggressive and progressive that after only a couple of years, my husband is almost constantly confused, can barely walk or talk, and has lost the ability to pursue the activities he once loved—things as simple as a hike or a drive in his old pickup.
I’ve always been very honest about life’s challenges. And believe me, we’ve had a few. Some people say ‘more than our fair share’ not that you can calculate how that works. But I’ve always tried to be open about difficulties. Whether it’s a family member’s mental illness or addiction or whatever. I feel like we’re all part of the human endeavor and it’s good to know we’re not alone. For that reason I’ve written openly about afflictions. Maybe not in the last several years, since I discovered how much I enjoy “happier” books. As do my readers. But at the same time, I do try to keep it real. I don’t enjoy a saccharine sugarcoated story—either to write or read.
So after my ongoing attempts to explain to friends and family and neighbors… about what my husband and I are going through, I discovered how many were unfamiliar with FTD. I could describe it as “early onset Alzheimer’s” except that Alzheimer’s can take years to impact a life. And FDT is so brutal, so fast at unraveling a life. I witness its destruction daily. And so, as I often do, I decided to tell a story to reveal a truth. For that reason, my new novel WELCOME TO THE HONEY B & B deals openly with the condition and how a family learns to deal with it.
CT is a bee-keeping farmer who has loved his land and outdoorsy life—and his wife Honey. But he’s pretty mixed up and Honey, trying to handle it, needs help. And her daughter is tired of city life and ready for a new start out in the country, dragging a reluctant rebelling teenaged daughter with her. Why not go help her parents and reinvent the farm by transforming it into a bed and breakfast to help them with finances? What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot of things! But then a lot of things go right too!
A Contemporary Clean Romance Novel about Family and New Beginnings
After years in San Jose, Jewel McKerry is going home to Oregon to help care for her father who has early onset dementia. Easier said than done. Jewel's 13-year-old daughter is upset about the move. Her absentminded beekeeper dad is a humorous handful. Her mom is overworked and overwhelmed. Her finances are stretched tight. And, according to her father, the neighbors are troublesome.
To make some needed money, Jewel convinces her parents to turn the decrepit farmhouse into a B&B. Soon her old high school flame turned contractor steps in to help, but Jewel questions whether he is trustworthy. Those "troublesome" neighbors--a handsome widower and his teenage daughter--just might be the key to making all this work?
Along the way, they'll all discover that it takes a village to keep a man with dementia (and a goofy sense of humor) from unraveling everything!
Romance Contemporary | Christian [Baker Publishing Group, On Sale: March 4, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9780800746025 / eISBN: 9781493448647]
Melody Carlson is the award-winning author of over two hundred books with combined sales of more than six million. She is the author of several books, including the bestselling The Christmas Bus, The Christmas Dog, Christmas at Harrington’s, The Christmas Cat, The Christmas Joy Ride, and The Christmas Angel Project. She received a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in the inspirational market for her many books, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series and Finding Alice. She and her husband live in central Oregon.
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