Inspired by a true story
Title: Keep Forever
Author: Alexa Kingaard
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Genre: Historical Romance, Women's Fiction
Release Date: 28th March 2020
BLURB supplied by Xpresso Book Tours
Paul O’Brien’s
idyllic childhood in Southern California comes to a halt when his mother dies
in the summer before his senior year of high school and a very different
persona of his father emerges – isolating himself inside the house, turning to
alcohol for comfort, and barely noticing his only child. Simultaneously, the
war in Vietnam is sending shock waves around the world and young men from one
coast to the other are being called upon to serve. Paul enlists in the Marines
before receiving his draft notice.
Elizabeth
Sutton is eager to gain some independence from her father’s old fashioned
notions and looking forward to her first year in high school. At fifteen
years old, tragedy strikes with the loss of both parents in an auto accident,
turning her childhood into one of responsibility and worry overnight. The
four siblings are scattered when her nine-year-old twin sisters are sent to
live with their Aunt and Uncle on Nantucket Island, and Elizabeth is left
behind in Boston with their grandmother. Her older brother, Sam, enlists
in the Marines, eager to join the conflict a world away as opposed to dealing
with the one unfolding at home.
A bond develops
between Paul and Sam in Vietnam, and both are injured in a bloody battle that
costs Sam his right hand and sets the stage for a lifetime of nightmares and
sleepless nights for Paul. Matched by similar tragedies at a young age,
Elizabeth and Paul’s first introduction by Sam upon their return from Vietnam
is the beginning of friendship and love that survives five decades.
After marrying,
welcoming their first child, and inheriting a small beach house, the couple
adapts to their new surroundings, but distant memories of Vietnam continue to
haunt Paul. In an era when veterans refuse to speak of their pain and the
government denies that thousands of soldiers are coming home irreparably
damaged, he is left to deal with the challenge of caring for his loved ones
amidst his his erratic flashback episodes and moods. As their lives unravel
from the lingering effects of PTSD, Elizabeth learns to accept the burden that
Paul brought home, and together they make their own memories to keep forever.
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AUTHOR INTERVIEW
ALEXA KINGAARD,
a California native, currently resides in Carlsbad and is the mother of a son
and daughter who continue to be her biggest fans and cheerleaders.
October 13, 2011, was the day that changed her life forever when her
ex-husband, a Vietnam veteran, took his life during a PTSD flashback episode.
Inspired to share this tragedy that continues to rob husbands and wives of
their spouses, children of their parents, mothers of their children, brothers
and sisters of their siblings, and comrades of their friends, Kingaard
relied on her own experiences to shed light on this crisis. The burden brought
home is not partial to Vietnam, but is an insidious aftershock endured
by combat veterans of all conflicts.
Kingaard continues to pursue her literary career, writing about nostalgia and
the human condition, the common denominator of our lives.
Could
you tell us a little about Keep Forever in 20 words or less?
It’s
a 50-year saga of a Vietnam Veteran and the burden he brings home to his family
and loved ones.
How
did you come up with the title for your book Keep Forever?
I
changed the title three times, but nothing captured the feeling I was trying to
convey - it’s about memories, good and bad, and how our lives are shaped with every
memory we keep. KEEP FOREVER is a fictional account of my Vietnam veteran, and
he had a habit of wrapping bills, letters, file folders, and cards with a
rubber band and writing across the top, ‘KEEP 4-EVER.’ My son suggested I spell
it all out, because the numeral 4 might make it look like a children’s story. I
make a reference to this in the book.
What
genre would you place Keep Forever into?
Historical
Romance, Historical Fiction and Contemporary Women’s Fiction. Even though
readers have been both female and male, from thirteen to eighty years old, it
is from the point of view of the veteran’s wife and her struggle to keep the
family bound together in the wake of her husband’s PTSD episodes and erratic
mood swings. It’s a heartwarming, though sometimes sobering look at the reality
and coping mechanisms of living and loving a veteran with invisible wounds.
How
long did it take you to write Keep Forever?
I
never considered myself a writer before I tackled this story, and had it not
been for the suicide of my ex-husband triggered by a PTSD episode in 2011, it
probably never would have been written. My grammar and spelling were never a
concern, but piecing a story together was a thought process I undertook mostly
in my head. As part of a Veteran’s Writing Group, I listened for three years to
the stories and memories they shared, until I finally had my beginning, middle
and end. Once I had a clear mental picture of how I needed to portray this
delicate topic, the first draft was complete in about three months. I did seven
more drafts over the next few months, learning about the publishing industry
along the way. After engaging the assistance of a professional editor, I
self-published at sixty-eight years of age. Interestingly, that was never my
goal. I just wanted to get the story down on paper. After I wrote and published
my second novel, MY NAME IS ROSE, with a hybrid publishing company, I decided
to polish KEEP FOREVER with a deeper dive into the characters and content and
re-release a second edition in the hopes of reaching a wider audience. This
story is my heart – now it finally seems right.
As
you have said Keep Forever is based on your ex-husbands experience did you look
at old photographs or refer to a journal/diary, or rely on anecdotes that your
ex-husband had shared with you?
Jeff
was one in a million, a bright light even with his idiosyncracies. Most of his
humor was meant to mask his pain and trauma from Vietnam, none of which he ever
shared with me. I have a treasure trove of old photos, both before and after we
were married, and my memories of him go back decades. Our children constantly
remind me of how wonderful it was for all of us to have him in our lives.
Did
you need to do any further research for Keep Forever?
I
needed to verify specific dates in the Vietnam timeline, just to make sure I
was accurate, but much of what I wrote about was either personally experienced
or observed. It was my generation. When I wrote the two chapters that covered
the battle that would set the scene for the rest of the story, I read it to my
Veteran’s Writing Group to get their honest opinions. They were stunned at the
explicit description, both with the physical backdrop and the mental anguish of
the characters.
Who
designed the Cover of your book? Did you have a lot of input into the process?
A
professional book design company in New Zealand, Damonza, did this second book
cover of KEEP FOREVER for me, as well as for MY NAME IS ROSE. I worked with my
publisher throughout the process and the agonizing first unacceptable versions.
There was a lot of back and forth, until we finally agreed on this beautiful
image, with the dog tags and helicopters. Some authors find the book cover
design a daunting experience, but it is intuitive to me, and much easier than
marketing and social networking!
What
can we expect from you next and in the future?
I
have four more stories percolating in my head, but settled on one to pursue. I
started it a few weeks ago, and am twelve chapters into the first draft. It is
another nostalgic story, Historical Romance and Historical Fiction, that takes
place in the late 1940’s. It was a nugget of an idea that expanded to a
full-blown novel about two women. One lives in the US and has multiple
miscarriages over a five year period. When her last pregnancy is tragically cut
short, she and her husband are met with negative comments when they try to
adopt from agencies in the States, and at 29 years old, are told that they have
“aged out” of the system. In the meantime, a young woman in Canada gives birth
out of wedlock after the man she thought she was going to marry abandons her
when he finds out she is pregnant. Up until the mid-seventies, many young
Canadian women were forced into unwed mother’s homes, where their babies were
given up for adoption. If you weren’t married or had parents who were willing
to fight the shame and stigma, the children were left behind while the young
mothers returned home with empty arms. I think readers will like this one,
another story about human nature, love and courage. I’m writing it during my
quarantine – four weeks and counting – and
hope to have it published in early 2021.
Where
can your readers follow you?
