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I'm part of what my friend call "the sandwich generation". That's the generation of 50 to 70 yrs old who takes care of elderly relatives and young children at the same time.
I enjoy babysitting my grandchildren when they can't go to daycare. Being my children's backup babysitter isn't a chore, it's a ray of sunshine in my week, but taking care of two elderly relatives who live at the other end of the country is a whole different story.
These elderly relatives require special assistance, assistance that I'm not equipped to provide, assistance only available in a nursing home. Ironically, finding the right nursing home isn't any easier than finding the right daycare. One of my elderly relatives wouldn't be able to tell me if the care she receives is adequate any more than my 15-month-old granddaughter could.
The Covid years exposed the ugly management of too many nursing homes where basic care wasn't even basic. Some say you get what you pay for, but what happens when you can't pay more than you earn?
In Undeniable Trait, Willow is a young female plumber struggling to care for her elderly grandmother. Willow can't afford to stay home and not work any more than she can afford to pay for home care. Her only option is to send her grandmother to the only nursing home in her isolated northern town -- a nursing home that hides more than a few deadly secrets.
Hoping to start afresh, Dr. Zachary Auckerman moves to a northern Canadian town in desperate need of a doctor. Within days of his arrival, he stumbles onto suspicious deaths and illegal activities at the nursing home, and encounters a fascinating female plumber with a spunky personality and six fingers on her left hand.After suffering an injury fixing a toilet tank, Willow Mitchell falls for the new doctor who stitched her hand and called her to thaw his frozen pipes.Amid rumors, lies, deceit, and betrayal, Willow and Zachary hunt for the truth, unleashing deadly events that threaten their lives. Can they trust their hearts, and each other, before one of them becomes the next victim?The murder of her mother, a woman who seduced and extorted men, prompts Willow to dig into her past and seek her father’s identity, but the secrets surrounding her birth are buried deep in old medical files and locked in the ravaged mind of her grandmother who lives at the nursing home.
Undeniable Trait will be available next month (July 2024).
As for me, one relative is a work-in-progress who's giving me lots of grey hair, but the other elderly relative and my three grandchildren are in good nursing home/daycare.
Happy Reading,
J. S.
