Day 15 of 84 Days of 84 Ribbons :Guest Blog Nicole Gerspacher

Today we have the privilege of hearing from a young novelist, Nicole Gerspacher. Nicole earned a Journalism major with a Criminal Justice minor at Cal State at Chico last year. Currently she is a staff writer on the Paradise Post, Paradise CA. I know you will appreciate her story. Welcome, Nicole!

My new novel, “Everything After,” follows the story of Kevannah Hayfield after her cancer relapses and is told she has less than a year to live. Being in her early twenties, Kevannah had a strange idea of what it meant to be an adult and fought tenaciously to uphold that idea, She attempted to protect both herself and the people she loved from the heartache of death by shutting herself off from others who acre about her. While reading Kevannah’s story, it becomes apparent that this ideal of blocking herself off from the others is a habit of hers from long before she was diagnosed with her illness.

The bittersweet irony of the story comes about when Kevannah finally matures into adulthood when it is too late. She falls in love with a man named Wilder, and reconnects with her mom and best friend,  providing other people the opportunity to hurt her, and trusting that they won’t. Her tenacity has not disappeared with maturity however, and she still fights desperately for everything she believes in.

Kevannah is the strong willed kind of girl that I wish I was more like. She isn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs, even when others don’t agree with her. Granted she makes mistakes in life, but her tenacity helps her to unlock some of life’s mysteries before she dies.

“Everything After” is available on barnesandnoble,com. amazon.com, and createspace.com for $8.99 printed copies and $5.99 eBook copies.

I feel that Marta in my novel, 84 Ribbons, and Kevannah in Nicole’s novel share several traits, among them tenacity. I also think they would have been great friends as they stepped into adulthood. Tell me what you think.