Please note: this section is still under construction and the information below is bare at best. Currently, my efforts are focused on editing to produce a rough draft, but I will add content when possible. Below are informal blurbs about the character development and location. I have added these basic details by request of readers that want the information.

PUBLISHING

Thank you also to those of you who emailed your tips regarding publishing which have been helpful already! The sites I’ve explored with your guidance, the advice, etc. have been so useful. I had no idea so many of you were so entrenched in the process and want you to know I’ve kept a running file of your advice, so by all means, keep it coming!

I can publish through Lulu. It’s the least expensive option and offers me the most leeway. I can produce a quality publication quickly at a low cost. The novel will be available via my website, and possibly from other sources.

EDITORS

For those who have offered editing services for the publication, thank you! I appreciate your kindness. I do currently have editors that are going to assist, but I cannot tell you enough how comforting it is to know that you would help. For those of you who just wanted to edit and need work, I can connect you with other authors who have contacted me for requests. If you want work and they want an editor, that could be a beautiful thing!

This is a good time to thank the editors that helped me with the online version of this story. I want to thank Kirsten, Stephanie, Brigitte, Lisa, Melissa and Rachel for editing and Mariana and Elena for their hard work on the Spanish translation of Black and White.

INTERNATIONAL READERS/ACTIVE DUTY

I haven’t gotten through all of your emails yet, but I have a good idea that most of you are all over this beautiful world. That is so awesome. As mentioned above, I will be publishing through Lulu, and the book will be available through Amazon.com and my website when we’re ready and finished editing.

I know it’s not quite the same thing, but please know too that I will have the chapter summaries on my website, so please don’t worry that the book can’t get to you for a while. You will at least have resolution.

Amazon and FedEx are international services. It seems that the most common countries are Chile, Argentina, Dubai, Ireland, Japan, the UK, and Sweden, Italy and Australia. If you want the novel and can’t order it, please contact me.

For those on active duty that expressed concern about receiving the novel, please email me directly at vixenstories@gmail.com.

ALERTS

Given that the Black and White story was removed, the only to get information is to register through this website.

You can also register on this site for the RSS feed. This will generate to your iGoogle or other feed homepage (the orange button on the main page).

The thread for the story will remain active and teasers for the Patience and Practice series from the last chapters will be posted. Any reader may contact me at any time via email at vixenstories@gmail.com. Thank you for reading.

Setting: Northeastern Tennessee, USA

Click the map to be taken to Google Maps in order to explore this beautiful area with Wikipedia references and National Geographic photographs. If the photograph or Wikipedia icons do not appear when you are navigated to Google Maps, selected the “more…” menu on the right hand side of the map.

I have always gone to great lengths to publish extra content, character background analysis and psychological portrayals of both characters and events that take place during the course of the story. Once I have the rough draft complete and once that draft is released to the editors, I will be able to return and update extensively, providing tons of extra content. I know that you all are very excited to learn about the psychological and philosophical progression of both characters and promise to update that information as soon as possible.

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Summary of Black and White

Despite being jaded and disillusioned by the horrors of war, Jason Keller is profoundly grateful to be alive. After being gravely injured in the city of Ramadi, Iraq under circumstances he cannot fully remember, he is discharged from the United States Marine Corps with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Upon leaving the military hospital, Jason isolates himself in his ancestral home in Pandora, Tennessee. Far from family and friends, he undertakes recovery on his own, wanting nothing more than to be worthy of the life he has retained, working to “get right” by living a regimented routine. But his methods aren’t working, and the best he can seem to achieve is a state of numbness.

Enter Ava Taylor, a Vanderbilt college student on summer break. Born the oldest daughter to a Southern Baptist minister, she was raised in a strict, sheltered religious household. Away from the academic life and close family she loves, Ava is humbly enjoying her independence. In her own way, Ava is as isolated as Jason, living as she does through her studies, with few real-life friends around.

But Pandora is a small town, and it isn’t long before Ava and Jason meet. Despite his initial attraction to her, he is determined to remain alone, and forces himself to stay away from her. She cannot stop thinking about him, but her shyness and inexperience keep her from doing anything more than that. Thrown together once more under dangerous circumstances, Jason helps Ava, to the detriment of his own resolve. She is different from anyone he has ever known and he can no longer resist or avoid her. The tentative friendship they form eases their mutual loneliness, and soon they are spending most of their free time together.

Wanting to protect Ava from the darker aspects of his past and his PTSD, Jason still keeps her at a distance; especially once he knows that what he feels for her surpasses mere friendship. Their relationship begins a path that both must equally decide to follow.

Black and White is companionship, love, redemption, and hope. A philosophical romance.