"A Soldier's Italian Christmas" Backstory: The nun who inspired my heroine

I was a Christmas angel.

 

I was seven.

 

Green tin foil wings and a white robe. A red candle. I was convinced the sister at St. Michael's gave me green wings because I'm Irish. I wanted the gold wings so bad, but you don't always get what you want.

 

Except at Christmas.

 

This holiday I'm giving myself a present. I wrote a story that's been on my mind for a long time about a soldier an nun during wartime in Italy.

Cover Design by Ramona Lockwood

 

A Soldier's Italian Christmas.

 

They fall in love and there's this lost treasure and a Nazi major who's after the treasure and...well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 

Today I want to talk about the woman who inspired my heroine.

 

Did you have a fave nun at school?

 

I'll never forget Sister Regina Marie. I wanted to write so bad she let me work on my story every day during study time and encouraged me to be a writer. I was thirteen. That first blue-ink manuscript was the story about a girl who goes to Paris where she gets caught up in a Da Vinci code type mystery in an old chapel. It's hidden away with my favorite dolls and Superman comics, but the memory of those afternoons scribbling my story stays with me.

The sister was an unusual nun for her time, a woman who could see past what girls were supposed to do with their lives and what they could do.

I thank her for that.

She also inspired my heroine's character in "A Soldier's Italian Christmas." This is the story of a courageous young nun who defies the Nazi major and falls in love with a handsome Army captain during the winter of December 1943 in Italy.

You can read the prologue and part of the first chapter HERE on Amazon.

 

Buon Natale!

 

My Vine video: I love the snow!!