Those who know me in real life have asked why I’ve used the pen name Elizabeth Ellen Carter.
I’d like to introduce you to my mother Elizabeth Ann – everyone knew her as Ann.
She raised my sister (that’s Louise on the left) and me on her own after our father abandoned the family and she did so with a resilience and grace that was life changing for everyone who met her.
After her family, her great love was books.
The blessing that has been King’s Christian College encouraged her at the age of 29 to transition from a stay-at-home mum to teacher’s aid and then provided invaluable support for her to get a degree in library management.
My mother was the first in our family to attain a tertiary qualification.
And spending 25 marvellous years instilling the love of books and reading to the students who came through her doors, it was her special delight to see the second generation of children come through that library.
After my sister moved out of home, her bedroom became mum’s at-home library but the books didn’t stay their either. Mum’s second husband indulged her (and his interest in woodwork) by building shelves in the living room too and they quickly overflowed with books (and a family photo or three).
My mother read all types of titles – fiction and non-fiction – but her special love was romance. I’m pretty sure that she had every title Catherine Cookson ever produced.
Mum’s grace and resilience would be tested again when, out of the blue in 2006, she was stricken with rare and aggressive form of muscular dystrophy that robbed her of mobility, independence, speech and eventually her life.
On October 8, 2008, she passed away aged 59.
I picked up the last book she started only days before her passing. Family and the in-home carer would turn the pages for her.
I read Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love from cover to cover in her memory.
From that moment there was nurtured in me the desire to tell a story, one that my mother might have enjoyed reading. However, the drama of real life intervened, so it was only last year that work started on Moonstone Obsession.
Five years since her passing, Moonstone Obsession is nearly ready for release. The book is dedicated to her.
Her friends assure me that mum would be proud. I hope so.
Late at night I wonder what she would make of the story, then I close my eyes and smile.
She already knows.