Meet Annabelle Crouse and Colleen L. Donnelly

 . . . My story has been whispered behind doors and hands, always by others. This time it’s Mine to Tell. . .

 Wild Women Authors is pleased to welcome back Colleen L. Donnelly and Mine to Tell, a 2013 mainstream historical release out of the Wild Rose Press. Up first is journalist Annabelle Crouse.

Good morning, Ms. Crouse. Tell us a bit about yourself, starting with where you’re from. A rural area outside of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Tell us a bit about Mine to Tell. Annabelle Crouse is determined to reopen her great-grandmother’s boarded up house—and her shunned life. Many years earlier, after an unexplained absence, Julianne was relegated to a separate home by a rigidly unforgiving husband, and the Crouse women have suffered the disgrace of her assumed guilt ever since.

     Despite her family’s strong disapproval, Annabelle is driven to pursue her mission through cobwebs and dust, finding the clues and the coded story left behind by her great-grandmother—Why did she go? And why did she return? Annabelle has to know.

Only one person, a man she grew up with but never noticed, stands with Annabelle as she discovers the parallels between her story and her great-grandmother’s—two women, generations apart, experiencing what love truly is.

What did you think the first time you saw Trevor? I saw the perfect hero because I saw what wasn’t there. I took his handsome exterior and transposed it to every part of him, imagining a prince inside and out, one who would stand guard for me and slay the dragons of my past. Instead he shied back, and the farther he went, the more he began to resemble the dragon that slew my great-grandmother.   

     Long after she, Julianne Crouse, was gone, I found and read her story. She had a real hero named John. He truly did wear princely armor, and every choice he made, he made with her in mind…no matter how painful.

What were your second thoughts about Trevor? Things went from bad to worse. My hero became a stranger at my side, never entering my lonely places within where I needed him. He sidled closer to my family instead, agreed with their suspicions of my great-grandmother and that I was just like her—a woman who would forfeit a good man for another. My great-grandfather Isaac first breathed that fiery shame on Julianne and consequently all the women in our family when he accused her of adultery.

What were Julianne’s second thoughts about John? To love the man who loved her. To love him when he came for her, cry for him when her family sent him away, and hold on to what she could of him when her family married her off to the old widower down the road as settlement for a debt.

Did you feel it was love at first sight? I did. My feet didn’t touch the ground until Trevor and I became engaged. But before that, close was never close enough.

     And as for Julianne, most definitely. She wrote of her childhood when she first met John and his quiet attentiveness that won her heart and trust.

What do you like most about him? The Trevor who broke me became broken himself. The Trevor who acted like Isaac in the way he treated me, put his own shattered pieces back together into someone who resembled John. Julianne liked the solid, quiet love of John that let go, yet never did.

How would you describe Trevor? His hair and eyes were dark, his frame tall and slender, his attitude often boyish and always with a grin. The boy disappeared in the new Trevor. He grew into a man who could be someone’s prince. Julianne first described John as kind, patient, and wise as a boy. Then as marvelous, noble, strong, and sensible as a man.

How would he describe you? Initially, Trevor would have described me as the fun girl who would someday become the perfect wife. He made the same mistake I did at first—he saw me as he wanted me to be. Now he sees that girl as a woman in her own right. John described Julianne as a whole person he wouldn’t shatter. He fed the parts of her that craved the arts, recognized her hunger for more of life and satisfied it. He would describe her as unchanging with age, for he saw her through the same heart all his years.

What made you choose journalism for a career? It was in my blood. And it’s in the title of this book “Mine to Tell” meaning the story in all of us. I inherited not only the desire for whole relationships from my great-grandmother, but also the compulsion to bring them to life with words.

What is your biggest fear? What my family feared. They became immobilized by fear of shame. I won’t turn back to that.

How do you relax? The outdoors. My great-grandmother’s house is surrounded by fields and small woods. That’s where I go to be alone with my thoughts.

Who is your favorite fictional character? Hester Thrale, a vivacious woman corralled in a stilted marriage in “Dr. Johnson’s Dear Mistress” by Winifred Carter. My goodness! That’s what happened to my great-grandmother! Me, too, if I hadn’t dared to break the pattern. Hester not only survived, but thrived.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received? Expect nothing. I know that sounds odd because we are to expect and live full lives. But when expectations become demands, especially on others for that life we want, it’s time to set them and ourselves free. Hope all things, believe all things, but don’t demand anything.

Thank you. Annabelle for taking time away from your busy day to speak with us. Now it’s time to chat with Colleen.  

What movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer? “The Help” impacted “Mine to Tell” more than any other. I saw that movie and read the book just as the desire to write something special was germinating inside. The voice of “The Help” gave that desire legs, and before I knew it, “Mine to Tell” was born.

What event in your private life were you able to bring to this story and how do you feel it impacted the novel? Adultery. Though I had to face the brutality of it full on, I gave the subject a glancing blow in “Mine to Tell.” I looked at betrayal from several angles—family rejection, fear of unfaithfulness, emotional vs physical betrayal—then showed the long range impacts and the narrow road to healing.

Tell us a bit about your publisher: how did you hear about them and what influenced your decision to submit to them? I first encountered The Wild Rose Press at a writers’ conference. The audience seemed favorably familiar with them, and as I listened to their presentation I could see why. However at that time, romance was the only genre they published. I promised myself if they ever opened their doors to other genres, I’d bolt through it. They did; just as I finished “Mine to Tell.” So I fired it off to them immediately, and it was accepted equally immediately. They have since published every book I’ve written.

What book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? That might be easier explained by author rather than title. Though I have a stack of books in line, my eye is open to Laura Strickland and Louise Penny books in particular.

Lastly, what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves? As I finished edits on my most recent release, “Letters and Lies,” I knew at least one of the other characters in that book had stories to tell. So I’m at work on the tale of the homesteader who jilted my “Letters and Lies” heroine, turning a man who looked like a failure into a hero.

Colleen brought along an excerpt from Mine to Tell

“Mine to tell,” Kyle said suddenly. It was a jolt. I was yanked from my mental tumble into a pit of unredemption. Alex looked up too, a quizzical expression on his face. “Julianne left a story behind,” Kyle continued. “Some of it speculation and rumors by people who don’t know, and the rest of it by her own hand. It was a love story. One that was countered with suffering.”

We were all quiet. I looked at him, my heart melting as I heard his masculine voice speak of love and suffering. I wanted to lean across the table and hug him, but I was too afraid.

Alex leaned back in his chair. “What my father went through didn’t feel like love when we were little.”

“But maybe it was,” Kyle persisted, his tone smooth and even. “Does love always turn out the way we want it to?” Then he looked at me. “Julianne Crouse was a fine woman. We haven’t finished her story, but she suffered, and she was fine indeed.”

Tears came to my eyes. “Thank you,” I squeaked. Kyle stood and walked around the table to me. He helped me stand as he thanked them for their time. He retrieved Julianne’s picture, took my hand, and together we went to the door, Alex and his wife following us.

“I hope you’re right,” Alex said, running his hand through his thin, brittle hair as we stepped outside. “My father had some things to come to terms with, but he was a good man. A better man later in life, when he told us he was sorry. I never knew for what.”