every cloud
Wild Raspberries
Wild Raspberries
The four grown children of Artemus Deconcini spend their summer at Moorings, the family’s Maryland estate, while he spends the season abroad. Nevertheless, his presence is felt.
Jillian is brokenhearted again. Another man raced off in pursuit of his lifelong dream. Moorings’ tower room acts as her sanctuary. With mementos from this lost love, she creates uniquely expressive wall art and finds determination to launch a dream of her own. Gus covets his privacy shield. He attempts to hide an amorous relationship gone recklessly off the rails. Betsy, dear self-absorbed Betsy, arrives with mother-in-law troubles, soon to be exchanged for a female empowerment lesson. Demetri faces recurring nightmares wrapped around Moorings. Or are they wrapped around his powerful father? Or will they unwrap the sins of his powerful father?
Every Cloud focuses on life’s complications, the spirit of family—drama and all—and justly deserved silver linings.
Wild Raspberries
Wild Raspberries
Wild Raspberries
When Callie MacCallum sews her first quilt after the death of her lover Jack Sebring, she doesn’t realize she’ll be drawn into a Sebring family battle between wife and daughter-in-law. She simply wants to fulfill her promise to Jack to visit their cabin in the West Virginia mountains, where their long love affair was safely hidden.
Instead, her emotionally reminiscent trip becomes crowded with the two Sebring women, a grief counselor, and the massive role Callie assumes. She must speak for Jack in order to protect his four-year old grandson Chad from his stubbornly manipulative and blame-passing grandmother and his recently widowed and power-usurping mother. Callie understands both women grieve the loss of Chad’s father. He died when a raging storm split the tree that crushed him.
Grief isn’t the only common thread running between the four women. One by one, their secrets are revealed on the West Virginia mountaintop.
proper goodbye
Wild Raspberries
proper goodbye
Every heart is asked, at some point, to leave something or someone behind while it yearns and aches for a different outcome. Beebe Walker is pulled into a compelling story of lost and found. Inside, she’s haunted by a farewell that never came. Her mother abandoned her and her father without a word when she was sixteen.
Beebe is surprised by a visit from her ex-fiancé, Vincent Bostick. He brings shocking news. Reluctantly, Beebe decides to move back home, to face the past and renew a relationship with her father. Time and again, unexpected sights and sounds invade her memories. They can be both fiends and friends, welcoming and alarming.
The first person Beebe meets upon her return is a young man who’s new in town. The story Yates Strand tells adds a new facet to Beebe’s search for a proper goodbye.
Summers Only
Summers Only
proper goodbye
Terri Miller is recruited by Frank Cordell to advocate for Michigan’s homeless. She’s homeless herself, so she possesses the qualifications. She also harbors a secret. If discovered, that secret will taint the very shelters Frank is charged with establishing statewide.
Self-imposed penance for past sins takes her on the road every summer. Shoe leather is her mode of transportation. Along this incredible journey, she’s caught up with Iris Cordell, Frank’s daughter, who idolizes Terri’s lifestyle. She saves the life of a car-accident victim, then befriends his teenage son, Yates Strand. When she contracts AIDS from a homeless woman, she meets Eddie Gaven.
Frank, Iris, and Yates prod her for her secret. But it’s Eddie with whom Terri shares a clue. It’s Eddie who will write her epilogue.
In Summers Only, Terri Miller touches the lives of those she meets. But can her lasting impression hope to support a bridge to personal redemption?
Summers Only
Chappell is the recipient of many awards and special commendations.
Chappell has received praise for her novels from a variety of sources.