Interview About Novel MRS. LIEUTENANT

Louise Wise at her site Wise Words interviewed me about my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT. Below is one part of the interview -- and after this part is the link to the entire interview:

Do you have a favorite scene in the book? Can we have a snippet?

Some of my favorite scenes would give away important plot points revealed later in the book. Instead I’d like to share the opening because it represents the beginning of the military life journey:

President Nixon announces he is sending U.S. troops into Cambodia ... April 30, 1970

“It has been said that when a man acquires a commission, the government has gained not one, but two – the officer and his wife.” Mrs. Lieutenant booklet

SHARON – I – May 4, 1970

They drive around the western edge of Lake Michigan, past the industrial suburbs of Chicago, down into the flat farmland of Indiana, their tiny convertible a bright yellow bug boring through the cornfields.

Sharon Gold moves her cramped right foot, and the Farberware coffeepot bangs against her shin. Then the brown paper grocery bag with its open boxes of cereal and crackers shifts across her seatbelted lap. For the 10th time in the last two hours she glances around the densely packed interior of the Fiat Spider, a car that seemed truly wonderful when Robert bought it last summer, before they had to rely on it as a moving van.

It certainly can't be said that they have all their earthly possessions with them. When you have a car as small as a Fiat, you take only the barest necessities: Suitcases with summer clothes and bedding tied atop the luggage rack. A few pots and pans and shoes in the minuscule trunk. In the well behind the two seats are stashed a tiny black and white television, already several years old when her parents passed it on to them, and the Singer sewing machine presented in the hope that she might someday learn domestic skills.

Their wedding gifts, their books and her stereo and albums, and the rest of their clothes remain at her parents' home, moved there from Robert's one-room apartment on Sheridan Drive they shared after their wedding.

The branch transfer to military intelligence from infantry has come through! Robert's orders are to report to Ft. Knox, Kentucky, for nine weeks of Armor Officers Basic to fulfill the requirement of a combat arms course before military intelligence training. "Why combat arms training?" she asked him when he received his new orders. "Surely you'll have a desk job. That's the whole point of getting the branch transfer." Robert didn’t answer.

Read the entire interview now.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and her social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing works with clients to use social media to attract more business. Read her social media marketing blog.