Charting the Course – Extras

Fun Facts, Playlist, Video, Awards, and Short Story

Awards:

First Place Catholic Media Association Book Award

First Place Colorado Author’s League Book Award

Reader’s Favorite Book Awards Finalist

Book Trailer:

Click HERE!

Fun Facts:

• The main character in Charting the Course is Liz who is the best friend of Josie, my main character in Into the Spotlight. I didn’t originally plan to tell her story but was inspired after reading Irene Hannon’s Private Justice series. The three books in her series are each written from the perspective of a different character. I thought this would be fun to explore and decided Liz would be the perfect character to delve into.
• I’ve also included Liz in a short story, Finishing the Journey, which can be found in the CatholicTeenBooks anthology, Ashes: Visible & Invisible. As the authors at CTB were planning the short story collection about Lent, I decided to pursue a topic that I’d always found fascinating – teens who decide to join the Catholic church. Liz, guided by Josie, was the perfect choice for that particular story.
• The premise of Charting the Course was something I had thought about for a while—having a teen see her parent through a different lens. A high school reunion seemed like the perfect backdrop with all the emotions and memories that can resurface adding an element of fun.
• My family and I did experience a cruise ship scavenger hunt. One summer, we realized that friends of our would be on the exact same boat, the week prior. They left us clues and we diligently searched the ship. Our search was very similar to Liz and Cole’s with some suspicious looks from crew members and enthusiasm from fellow passengers. However, our “treasure” was no longer in the location—which made us appreciate the cleaning crew aboard the ship.
• This was my first novel that did not include one of my pets. Since the story setting is a cruise ship, adding a pet just didn’t make sense.