Introducing Waterworks: Stories of Healing, Recovery & Living Water

Dear friends,

I’m so grateful to share something with you that has been stirring in me for a very long time. I'm thrilled introduce Waterworks, my newest book. Though one of these stories was published in a juried literary anthology twenty years ago, I’ve quietly carried most of this manuscript through many seasons—adding, refining, waiting. I was simply not released to publish it until now. God’s timing is always perfect, even when His formation takes decades.

Twenty-five years ago, after a decade of spiritual drift and uneasy corporate-ladder climbing, my life simply stopped working. The exterior looked ordered; the interior was unraveling. When I reached the end of myself, I encountered Jesus and felt an indescribable rush of peace and joy. Eventually, that first wave of bliss gave way to a sometimes disruptive and challenging lifelong journey of formation and recovery.

I am not unique.

All of God‘s people go through a variation of this process, often repeatedly— essential spiritual surgery, if you will, sanctification for God's greater purposes. This is the witness of scripture and the many believers through the course of history. Like them, God’s presence— and the predictable opposition it invites—both upended and steadied me, over and over, shaping me — sometimes gently, sometimes violently — sweeping away everything I once trusted so He could rebuild what was true.

Whatever the source of the storms, including my own hand, God used all of it to accomplish good in, for, and through me.

That path eventually led me to check out of the mainstream and move to the quaint mineral-spring art colony of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. I settled into a spacious, light-filled rancher on nearly four acres, dotted with natural springs and overlooking a quiet pond. The town itself has a long, water-rich history: George Washington once owned acreage there, and people still dip their feet into Washington’s Bathtub, a stone-carved pool fed by the ever-flowing springs. Just off Main Street started with historic buildings, galleries and coffee shops,, locals still fill their assorted vessels at the public pumps near a small park graced by cool, spring-fed pools and runs where folks splashed in the summertime

My ex-husband had studied painting at Pratt, and I had been writing since childhood. In that season of stillness and water and quiet creativity, I wrote It’s in the Water, the story that started me off and was then featured as the first in a literary anthology.

This felt like confirmation so I started to write what has now become Waterworks. The original manuscript sat neatly printed tucked in a cabinet while other matters and calls took center stage.

A little piece of me and the places I’ve been shows up in every story.

Always a Water Baby

Water has followed me since infancy. Born in southern California, I lived on Balboa Island before moving to Maryland as a toddler— home to the lush Chesapeake Bay and a slice of Atlantic coastline.

For years, I lived in historic Ellicott City, just a stone’s throw from the rocky Patapsco River, which flooded the town repeatedly, narrowly sparing my little Victorian row house.

I spent childhood summers on the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts, where my parents (water babies from Trieste and Naples) felt most at home. After more than a decade in West Virginia’s springs, I moved to Florida and—quite unintentionally—landed in Safety Harbor (only God!), founded on the historic Espíritu Santo (Holy Spirit) Springs.

Today, my small subdivision has a pool, a pond, and a hot tub within a quarter-mile radius. I’m happiest near, in, or on the water… even with nothing more than a good bubble bath or a late-night soak.

Ironically, I’m now navigating a water-intrusion issue beneath my home—water flowing under the slab and causing all kinds of disruption. Water finds me, and I find water. It cleanses, comforts, unsettles, sweeps away, inspires. It reveals what needs washing away, and what is ready to be rebuilt.

Waterworks was born from these waters—literal and spiritual.

These modern-day parables draw from a deep well of faith, recovery, healing, and grace. They are written for anyone navigating life’s floodplains: heartbreak, transition, spiritual fatigue, emotional recovery, or the quiet work of new beginnings.

Each story includes simple reflection prompts and a short prayer, and theres’s an inspiring Book Club guide at the end of the book for illuminating, meaningful conversations.

How to Get Yours!

I’m thrilled to finally share this with you:

🎄 Special Christmas Pricing through Jan 6 (Epiphany)

📘 Waterworks Paperback: $10.99

📕 Kindle Edition: $2.99

🛒 Order here: https://a.co/d/6XmXkUT

And for my recovery friends, I’m offering a limited number of signed Christmas bundles, including:

✨ Waterworks (signed)

✨ Sage Sayings & Slogans (signed)

✨ Beautiful holiday packaging

✨ Small extras & thoughtful touches

(look for more details on the bundle soon.)

Thank you for celebrating this milestone with me. I pray these stories bless you—

preferably near a body of water.

Grace & peace,