Lavandula

Looking for John Steinbeck is the first novel in Ginna Gordon's multi-volume Lavandula Series, the story of the Wyman Family, of Carmel Valley, California. Book One joins the family in the 1960s as the Wheel of Life turns at Sweet Farm, the Wyman Homestead. The focus is on three sisters: Rita, Nana and Fox, and their three daughters: Tate, Stevie and Jolene, cousins and friends, as they tell the story in their own words. Sweet Farm is a colorful compound full of women, their men, children, elders and friends. They breathe the air of Carmel Valley, filled with the scent of their lavender growing on ten fertile acres. The women are restless. The men are nervous. The girls are growing up in the 60s and their generation will become known as Baby Boomers, Flower Children, Hippies, Yuppies, the ME generation, they will be, affected by the Vietnam War, Rock & Roll, revolutions from sexual to political and other dramatic social changes. But, mostly, they will be dealing with their loves, their children and their homes as they are, touched by all the concerns mentioned above.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sweet Farm is the stage on which our players play. It is a Carmel Valley, California Lavender Farm of some local reknown. It is also the home of a revolving cast of characters all somehow related to the Wyman clan: farmers, artists, writers, musicians. They bond and clash in unusual ways as they create their lives one breath at a time. The women are restless. The men are nervous. The girls are growing up in the 60s and they and their peers will become known as Baby Boomers, Flower Children, Hippies, Yuppies, the ME generation; they will be affected by the Vietnam War, Rock & Roll, revolutions from sexual to political, and dramatic social change. But, mostly, they deal with their loves, children and homes as they relate to and are touched by those issues described above. Deke Interrupted, Book Two in The Lavandula Series, begins with Stevie mapping her first sexual encounter and Jolene working out some guilt, while Tate and her mother get a big surprise. There's more, of course. There's always more…

Bear Me Away to a Better World tells the story of two intensely creative people who meet in the 1950s, bond, and form a partnership that touches many lives. Fifty years later, at their beloved Villa Zanetta, a performing arts center in California's Sonoma Valley, someone is (presumably) murdered, but someone else is secretly loved, while another is disgraced, and yet another finds solutions. We find Hector sowing seeds in the Villa Garden, and Marcus discovering new artistic vistas, while Martha grieves a loss and Kendra hopes for a future. Circling the periphery of Villa Zanetta and its cast of colorful creatives are Hayne Williams and Diesel Edwards, the "duo" in the subtitle, who make discoveries of their own and hold it all together with the power of art, ideas and music. In today's confounding universe, Bear Me Away to a Better World wraps its arms around you to give you sweet joy and dear hope.