Dee's first attempt: Sweet Sunset

Sweet Sunset is my first novel, but I don't have a release date yet. I did get my book cover which I like a lot.

Sweet Sunset is mainstream WF. I refer to it as my dysfunctional family book. As in real life, there's humor, there's sadness and then as we like to say, this too shall pass and we move on. Here's a note from my main heroine, Myrtle Sue Henderson.

My name is Myrtle Sue Henderson. My husband Sam passed away a year ago. I discovered his insurance didn’t cover all his medical bills, so I found a job working as a cook at a middle school. Having been a housewife for many years, that’s about all I knew how to do, cook, clean, and take care of the family.

A few months after Sam passed away, his mother, whom I refer to as the mother-in-law from hell, was kicked out of her senior apartment. Why? Because she burned food on the stove, blew up her micr

Several times a week she tells me to cook food for her dead father and his long ago dead sisters who she insists are coming to visit.

Luckily, I have someone to stay with Hazel for most of the time I’m at work. She thinks he’s her dead son and adores him. He is good to her.
Two months after Hazel arrived at my house my oldest daughter, Presley, and her two children asked if they could stay with me, too. Her husband is abusive. She should’ve left him long ago. He and his father are taxidermist, so what did he give to his eight-year-old daughter for her birthday? He stuffed her dead dog, put wheels on its feet and told her that she could take the dog for walks. Emma was horrified and screamed when she saw the dead dog sitting in her room. But if you listened to Emma’s idiot dad you’d thought he just gave her the Hope diamond.

After moving into my home, Presley found a job and enrolled in college. A few days later, her drunken husband showed up at my house and beat the crap out of Presley, and then attacked me when I tried to get him away from my daughter.

Then there’s my daughter, Michelle, who we all refer to as Florence Nightingale. She’s a nurse and always looks for love in all the wrong faces. She announced that she’s pregnant and isn’t married. Her boyfriend left her for Michelle’s friend.

My son Sammy doesn’t want to grow up, but I’m making him pay back all the money his dad loaned him to buy a truck. Maybe he’ll find a woman who I hope won’t run from him.

When I decided it was time to return to church, I took Hazel with me. Two men sat beside us. Hazel hit the elder man with her cane and the two of them got into a loud argument during the pastor’s sermon. And that’s how I met Mike, a psychologist, who could spend his life practicing on my family. I’m happy to say he actually likes all of us. And me? I’m becoming very fond of him.

I just wish my dead husband would quit talking to me. It scares the hell out of me when he suddenly pops into my head. He did approve of me running up to Presley’s husband who pushed his way into the house in a drunken rage and I kicked him where it hurt. My son yelled “touchdown.”

I do hope you’ll enjoy reading about the journey of my dysfunctional family. I'm sure most of you have a few loose cannons in your family, too.

Dee Gatrell
owave repeatedly, and the other apartment dwellers feared she’d catch the place on fire and kill them. We couldn’t get her into an assisted living home, so she moved in with me. Hazel is a difficult person to live with. I swear if I can’t find her a home soon, I’ll have to take a vacation to the loony farm.