What Really Matters - One Mother’s Story
Yesterday, I was at my daughter’s school. One of her teachers nicely asked about my forthcoming book. Here’s what I said: “The book is set in the 14th century - the Middle Ages - it’s about a former nun who has lived in secret for 10 years. Then her son is killed, and she goes on a terrible journey to find out the truth about her life, and prove that her son’s life mattered.”
The teacher looked at me and cocked her head to the side. “That’s so different,” she said. “I thought since you work in business, you’d write a techno-thriller or something like that. Why this story?”
It’s a great question.
For several years, I commuted from my home in Olympia to Seattle. I rode the commuter train an hour each way. I worked a demanding job in high-tech with some very smart people. Lots of email, many hours on spreadsheets and business plans. Your busy job in today’s world is probably pretty similar!
But for an hour a day on the train each way, each day, I had time to think.
And I started thinking about what really matters.
Mothers. Children. Friends. Love. Our connection to each other. Our legacy in our children. 
I wanted to write a story about these things. Not about software, or iPads, or spreadsheets. I didn’t want to write about the ephemera of modern life — even though I love books like The Future of Us.
I wanted to focus the lens tighter. What happens when you strip life down to its essentials?
And I remembered a bit of history from the 14th century. Children died in a tragic house fire in a distant village. The families were in such agony that they took their dead children across England to the King’s throne to demand justice!
I could imagine their pain. The torture of losing your child. Their angry search for answers.
Children. Families. Loyalties divided in a village.
In the Middle Ages, there was no Facebook to distract, no email, no websites. Just the realities of what really matters.
So I started writing, in the early hours, as my train wended its way through the misty countryside.
The story became about one woman’s story. One mother loving her child. One tragedy. One relentless urge to find answers.
I wrote my book Sinful Folk because I wanted to think deeply about children, mothers, families, and loyalty. How far would a mother go to protect her child’s memory?
The character of Mear showed me what strength is hidden in the most unlikely heroines. She showed me how strong a mother can be. What power can be concealed in silence. She showed me what really matters.
Thanks for asking!
It had not been a long journey, but the memory of it filled her like an infection. She had felt tethered by time to the city behind her, so that the minutes stretched out taut as she moved away, and slowed the farther she got, dragging out her little voyage.
Source: goodreads.com
Review of Sinful Folk: An absolute “Must Read”!
I read it without stopping as soon as I got it loaded on my Kindle! What a terrific read, and this from a person who is not a fan of historical fiction, mainly because it often has so many inaccuracies. For me, too, the measure of a compelling read is that I continue to think about it long after I have closed the book, and in this case, I have thought of it often.
There were parts where I thought if one more brutal thing happened to Miriam/Mear I couldn’t bear it. To accept the plausibility of her treatment (and that of others like the character Nell), I had to remind myself of how harsh life was then, how brutal. I had to remind myself of the prevailing ignorance of people, how filled with superstition many were, and what a truly perilous time it was.
I loved it all, and loved spending my time in that strange and distant era, and got a wonderful education while being thoroughly entertained. Can’t ask for more than that!
— Connie Davis ( Review posted at https://www.facebook.com/SinfulFolk )
April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. They wait all night with open eyes. Now, with the rain at dawn, their voices make melody.
I turn back the reveled cloth of gold on my bed and walk to gaze beyond my glazed casement window. In the plaintive voices of the wood fowl, I imagine my mother calling to me, her words echoing across the years.
Every night, I slip into the empty winter land of memory.
The novel Sinful Folk is the story of a mother who carries a hidden secret and a terrible grief. In December of the year 1377, the village of Duns in northeast England suffered a great tragedy. Children died in a house fire. The villagers undertook a desperate journey to demand justice for their children's deaths.
