C.H. Armstrong Books

Well, it’s official!  After a really fun ride of querying agents and publishing houses, today I signed and mailed a contract with Penner Publishing for my first novel, The Edge of Nowhere!  I’m so excited and I couldn’t be happier!

Penner Publishing is fairly new to the publishing industry and specializes in women’s fiction.  I’ve been very pleased with the professionalism they’ve shown to me and this project.  E-mails were returned promptly, contract negotiations were easy, and now I just wait to be assigned an editor to help tighten up the story.  If all goes well, this title should be available by November 2015.

SYNOPSIS
Victoria Hastings Harrison Greene knows her family despises her.  She’s even heard her grandchildren snigger behind her back about the “Immaculate Conception of David” – her fifth child, conceived between husbands.  But Victoria refuses to die before revealing the secrets she’s held locked away for more than 50 years; the secrets only whispered about in family folklore that have made her the feared matriarch of her family. 

Widowed with nine children, Victoria will do anything to provide for her children – even murder, and without remorse.  Each day brings greater challenges:  poverty, homelessness, death, starvation, degradation and disease.  Some challenges will require despicable acts to overcome. But at what cost?  Can her family understand the decisions she’s made to secure their futures?

While this novel is a complete work of fiction with a whole lot of imagination thrown in, it has strong historical elements and was inspired by the experiences of my paternal grandmother.  Widowed at 28, she was left with the care of her combined ten children and stepchildren during arguably the worst hardship ever to hit Oklahoma Soil:  The Dust Bowl.

An Oklahoma native I grew up on the stories of these tenacious people who survived the one-two punch of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and The Great Depression.  I was raised on the stories of my own family’s profound poverty during the era; especially as it relates to my father’s large blended family of (eventually) fourteen children.  Many of those anecdotes are included within this novel.

As the weeks progress, I’ll be giving updates on the publishing progress of this novel.  If you haven’t already, take a minute to sign up to receive notifications.  You can even join my mailing list!

Follow me on Twitter
“Like” My Facebook Page
Join My Mailing List