As with Barbara and Milly, Augie is not the woman’s real name. The character of Augie is the blending of the lives of two women. The ‘first Augie’ gives a brief glimpse into her mother’s life. It was the 1800’s. Her mother was born into an impoverished farm family. The wealthy land owner’s son offered them food and fuel for the family until the child was of age. The parents… Read More »BACKSTORY – Augie
I met Milly and her family many years ago. Milly, not her real name, of course, was the oldest of seven children. All of her brothers were in the military. When she was a young woman, Milly was a candidate to be a teacher. Once again, all names are pseudonyms. Milly was a pretty, dark haired, young woman. She was shy, not particularly outgoing and somewhat naive. When she was… Read More »BACKSTORY – Milly
Let me say, first of all, my real characters have been kept anonymous. Barbara, the first character in The Sand Clock, was a determined, feisty woman and her attitude, when young was, I-will-do-as I-like. I met the real Barbara when she was in her mid-sixties. She was the type of woman who held the family together with Christmas and/or New Year’s Eve parties. Early in her marriage, she was… Read More »BACKSTORY – Barbara
Tony Charelle is the protagonist who appears in all three novels. He is my last character for a back story. In England in the mid-1600’s, a young girl, the mistress of a wealthy man, died in childbirth. The midwife took the baby boy home thereby enlarging her brood of orphaned children. As the child grew, the other boys introduced him into the culture of street life. Highly intelligent, cunning and… Read More »BACK STORY – TONY CHARELLE
Junee McKnight was the youngest child in a large family. Her mother, Rita, and father, Larry, married in their teens when Rita became pregnant. Both sets of parents disowned their children for bringing shame on their families. Larry quit school and found a factory job. Rita, a young, pregnant girl, also quit school and stayed home trying to manage a household while awaiting the birth of her first child. Larry… Read More »BACK STORY – JUNEE MCKNIGHT
LESLIE Leslie was born in the early 1940’s. In her teens her parents were killed in a car crash and she went to live with her great-aunts Margaret and Violet Sills in the village of Newcombe. She attended high school in a nearby city where she met Junee McKnight. The two loners became good friends. After high school, Leslie enrolled in hairdressing school and Junee went off to university. After… Read More »BACK STORIES ON THE EMISSARY’S ENDGAME
Madelaine was a young woman of the early 1900’s. She, her sister and parents lived on an estate in the Cotswolds, England. She led a privileged life while she waited for her father and his business associates to choose a husband for her. It was a marriage arranged for business purposes. Her father saw nothing… Read More »BACK STORY – Madelaine
Elly Norman is the child of divorced parents. She is loved and adored by her mother and grandparents. After her parents divorced she never saw her father, Brian, and felt ignored and abandoned. The little girl felt the abandonment deeply and hid her hurt and pain behind smiles and impish behaviour. As she entered her… Read More »BACK STORY – ELLY NORMAN
Henry and Elinor married in their early thirties after Henry finished law school and set up his own practice. Henry often told his clients,”I run my practice and Elinor runs everything else.” As Henry became successful, they decided to have a child and Iris was born. She was named after Henry’s great-grandmother. After Iris moved… Read More »BACK STORY Henry and Elinor Bauman
Iris Bauman married at the age of twenty and was divorced by twenty-three. She began married life as a naive, trusting girl and three years later was a realistic young woman with a child. Iris and Brian Norman met while ice skating on a small lake in Victoria Park. It was a bitterly cold, bright… Read More »BACK STORY – IRIS NORMAN