Having the Prime of My Life

PLEASE WELCOME

CLAIRE O’SULLIVAN

TO

HAVING THE PRIME OF MY LIFE

Twenty years, oh wait .. 34 years ago, I moved to Oregon from California. I was making “bank” in California, but I hated what was happening and the kinds of risks to raising my small son. So I moved to Oregon. The pay for the same job was half, while my rent was the same in California.

I had a house for $450 a month in a forsaken part of California, and in OR a doublewide for $450 a month, next to the freeway.

Still, I kept a roof over our heads, paid off a small trailer home if we couldn't pay the rent, paid for healthy food, our electricity, and garbage, and went rafting down the river on weekends for fun. We always had a Christmas tree and gas in the car.

Now look. Mortgage for my home and acreage is $715 (only $250+ bucks more than the rent in 1990) - which we rent the most of it to our kids. Yet gas is not affordable, electricity is going up another 20%, food is sky-high, and maintaining the house is getting harder and harder with the cost of supplies forget the labor.

Thank the Lord we have chickens (for now, and daggum chicken-Gabby specifically, are so loud if the chicken cops come around they'd know exactly where to find 'em).

But in all that, we are mightily blessed. Blessed to have raised my son in the country, not the dodge-a-bullet 124*F city. And the now grown man-child and girlfriend needed a bigger house. Done. And a double blessing because they are here & they pay rent. Blessed because our town is small and we don't go to a ton of places. Blessed coz I don't have any inclination to raft the river any longer lol. I'll just look at the mountains and thank God for the stars and for the huge strawberry moon (named after the Ojibwe and Lakota tribes, harvesting strawberries after the full moon after the longest day of the year).

It's easy to look at all the negatives rather than the positives - the blessings. So stop looking at the news and fretting over prices. "... lift up your heads ... "

ABOUT CLAIRE O’SULLIVAN

Claire O’Sullivan lives near family in Southern Oregon. Her husband is now a bona fide country boy and chicken farmer. Claire trained with volunteer forensics locally, which she’s applied to her debut novel, romantic suspense, “Romance Under Wraps,” and to her medical thriller, “Rules of Engagement.” “Silk & Slippers” is a medical/forensics and crime fiction, in the series of “Romance Under Wraps.” The third in the Whiskey River Mysteries is “Whiskey River Blues,” a lighter look in the crime world.

Her books are more grit than gush. She’s always wanted to write a sweet romance, but dead bodies somehow always show up. Or, as in “Rules of Engagement,” the world is in danger from some type of conspirators. “Whiskey River Blues” may prove more promising as a cozier mystery with few(er) dead bodies and a few klutzy moments. 

Claire can usually be found reading a book likely a rom/com, a romantic suspense, military thriller, medical, police procedural, as well as a political thriller. Despite the grit, her works are inspirational. Now that Mrs. O’Sullivan writes full-time, she and her husband will always call Oregon “home,” because they are simply too old to move. But on the upside, they can visit family, friends, and the beach or mountains.

You can visit her at Twitter (@AuthorClaire1) or her website at https:/www.claireosullivan1.com   

ABOUT SILK & SLIPPERS

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says. “I am coming.” —Virgil

Whiskey River’s medical examiner Jack McCloud has PTSD, a dark sense of humor, and an even darker mystery surrounding his autopsy table. The body of a redheaded forensic science major collegiate has been found hanging from a second-floor railing with a peculiar set of clues near the scene.

Jack and Mercedes, his unwanted new assistant, determine it's not suicide, and when they team up with the Whiskey River Police Department to investigate the college girl’s case, the consensus is homicide.
As the body count continues to rise, Jack and Mercedes race to put an end to this vicious serial killer, even as they are drawn inexorably toward each other. But their fragile romance may be the very thing that undermines their efforts, especially when the tangle of clues point a deadly compass their way.
With their own lives—and the life of Mercedes’s baby son—at stake, they must use every forensic skill they possess to solve and stop the murders before the killer comes for them.