2002 1st Place Fiction, Bold Media Book Award

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1949…Hispanic Grace and her five-year-old daughter, Glory, are living through A Three-Turtle Summer—a summer so hot Glory's pet turtles are dying. It’s also the summer that Grace’s sisters and mother join forces with Grace to help her dump Dwayne, her abusive husband, who her sister Pauline says is “meaner than a rattlesnake and dumber than adobe.” Besides her Hispanic family, a rich list of characters also assist in her escape, including: Sako, an American-born Japanese neighbor, whose former home was the internment camp at Poston, Arizona; two gay dance instructors; a Negro gospel singer who sells lip-smackin’ Barbecue out of the trunk of her new orange Cadillac convertible; and Rudolf, her older sister’s husband who’s a colonel in the Army. This women’s fiction story, set in Southwest Oklahoma, will appeal to women everywhere who are looking for a good story with a happy ending. A Three-Turtle Summer was the winner of the 2002 Bold Media Award for fiction. Note: This book is more accurately a fictional autobiography of my childhood in Oklahoma.