Genesis of a Title

It took me six years to write Unraveling Ada. One of the reasons is that I was determined to get it right this time. Another reason: finding my voice.

Once upon a time books were written in one of three voices (at least, as I remember it): first person with one character seeing all the events on a very personal level, third person with one character but with a less personal voice, and third person with what some course in literature I took eons ago called the God's view. This third format allowed the reader to see the events in the book from the view of various characters at various times and places.

The first three years I was writing what I then called The Golden Comforter I used the second approach—a third person accounting of one character’s experience. Until I started noticing how the rules had changed in many of the current books I was reading. I was finding novels with one strong first person character narrating while other side characters entered as necessary to widen the reader’s understanding of what was going on.

In Golden Comforter, I first wrote an entire book covering all nine quilting bees, each one with its own distinct story, but all of them connected by the Stowall family secrets. I finally had to admit that mysteries just shouldn’t take nine months to solve. At least I couldn’t bring it off.

So I switched gears and broke The Golden Comforter into nine potential books. And then I named the first for Ada, the missing quilter in the book. At first I titled it Ada’s Quilted Secret, because some of her secret is contained in her final quilt. But I settled on Unraveling Ada because it spoke to the central theme of quilting and secrets without leaving the reader thinking they were about to enter a romance. As those of you who have read the book know, this story is not a romance. It is a very complex and even dark mystery.

At any rate, in the end I decided the first person approach worked best for me, especially since I was able to add another voice. That of Eddie's. To read the first chapter (actually the Prologue) follow the link to Eddie's Voice under my Blinks.