Book Nook: Izzy in El Mareo

Izzy’s trying to cope with life, love, and loneliness, but her fast life in Houston is rapidly spinning out of control. So when the twenty-three-year-old American takes a job at an international resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, she hopes her old life is behind her at last—and with it, all the self-doubts and insecurities that have plagued her since young adulthood. She’s wondering if she’ll be able to survive in a new job in a strange country, but for now, the city’s breathtaking ocean views by day and sexy club scenes by night look like paradise. Happy and energized by the unfamiliar sights and sounds of her surroundings, Izzy sets out to prove herself in the Spanish-speaking office. Soon she’s making strides at work, hanging with new acquaintances, and all the while gaining confidence as she successfully navigates the local culture (and the men in it). But soon the lines start to blur in paradise.  When an office gaffe threatens to ruin her much-anticipated trip home for Christmas, Izzy is forced to take stock: Was the whole move to Mexico a mistake? Can she find a way to get her career—and her life—back on track?

I have a chance to post this interview so you can learn more.

• What inspired your story?  I realized that if I had stopped to evaluate myself earlier in life I might have found more peaceful ways to live and create meaningful, lasting relationships more successfully.  I wanted to find a way to touch even one person and let them know mistakes are part of life.  My message is you cannot truly love others until you love yourself and I’m hopeful, prayerful, that even one person will read this story and find themselves in a better relationship with the mirror. 

• Is there a message/theme in your novel that you want readers to grasp? You have to love yourself and know yourself before you can truly love someone else.  Don’t run from things and try to hide them from others or yourself; own it all – mistakes and all! 

• What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books? My own personal healing and rediscovery of who I am

“The plane descended over the ocean, a deep, gorgeous blue fading into a turquoise hue as it neared the shoreline.”

There is something emotional about the ocean.  Whether standing at the point where it breaks upon a shore, or seeing its expansive ever-changing characteristics from the window of a plane, or floating on it in a boat or inner tube.  The ocean is mystical and deep and is a place I like go to reflect and listen.  Some may call it meditation, but I call it finding myself in her strength.  Energy is never created nor destroyed and all we are is energy.  Sometimes high energy buzzing with excitement or anger or irritation, and sometimes peaceful calm waves of satisfied energy and love.  Opening this novel by asking the reader to go to this place in their own mind was intended to set the stage based on where they are as the open the book.  Is their ocean choppy and churning with angst as it crashes on the shore, or are they contemplative and calm on the surface in the deepest blue?  My hope is they will find themselves in the pages of Izzy with similar feelings, similar experiences, and perhaps similar poor choices or situations that lead them to face their own deep ocean within themselves.  No matter where they are starting their journey with Izzy, this opening is intended to start the reader down that path of self-reflection.  Since most of Izzy’s turning points take place on the water or near the water I wanted that thread to be introduced very early on and weave its way through the story, pulling the reader along with it.  Water is life-giving and a source of sustainability for our cultures, our food and our history and is naturally a phenomenon we are attracted to.  Yet, we are still exploring and searching and wondering and discovering more about it each year.  I hope that is what each of my readers does with in themselves.  If they don’t yet, perhaps reading Izzy will be their first opportunity to do so.  It must be done intentionally with the desire to grow, even when it’s uncertain and scary and deep.  

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