Renee Clarke Comes To Casa Claire

If you have read any of my books, you’ll know that I have this strange tendency of incorporating people I’ve known or met into the story as characters.

Some I know personally. some Biblically, others I have just met through a friend, or online or through social media where we just hit it off.

Renee Clarke is one of the latter. No, the latter, latter, latter. She belonged to a Writers/Readers group on what was then Twitter back when just the first three books had been published as The Claire Trilogy. I liked her Twitter posts and particularly enjoyed her Amazon reviews of my books, so we struck up an online friendship. Renee is a hand therapist from North Dakota. She is a devoted wife and mother of four kids who are wonderful college age athletes and include a traveling nurse named Kylee Clarke, who is working in Denver and I was lucky enough to meet back in March.

https://thewisenovelist.com/connections-are-magical/

Renee joined my inner circle of readers just after I completed a draft of Finding Jimmy Moran. She was so helpful and generous with her comments (as is the entire inner circle) Renee is now also a central character in Where The Ley Lines Meet.

Well, yesterday, Renee Clarke was passing through NoCo on her way to visit her eldest daughter, so given how much she has heard about Casa Claire we arranged for her to stop by and meet the crew.

She got the cook’s tour.

Meeting Jack The Spruce and the Gnomes,

And after kicking off her shoes and making herself right at home where all of the magic happens (no, not that magic), the writing,

with a little help from Blue,

Renee and I went out and met the star herself, Claire (and her PA little sister Honey).

She also met Lisa (she really does exist) and my entire Ozmandian family including her co-characters, Scarlett, Savanna and Stella who were extremely busy enjoying their newest slip & slide pool on the back deck.

I then took Renee in my magic Toyota Rav 4 (yep, from the books) on the grand tour of all of the local hot spots that appear and play a role in the novels, including a trip through Berthoud and to Hygiene, showing her where Helen’s fictional Oracle would be found.

We had a lot of laughs, talked a lot about the stories and about the other real/fictional characters, and before you know it, it was time for Renee to head South to meet up with Kylee.

But before she got back into her beautiful Volvo, Renee handed me a gift (completely unnecessary, but extremely touching). It is an inscribed bookmark.

Thank you Renee. It was an absolute pleasure.

Well, the sun is on the horizon, but thank God it’s Tuesday.

Time to get on the good foot.

You fine, five readers release that deep sigh of relief that Monday is behind you. Finish off that last cuppa and go take on the world.

I’m going to first go cuddle some kitties and then make my rounds. . . .