A Love Letter from Tears of the River

My novella Passing Notes was released today!!! I’ve been celebrating the release of this story about a ghost that teaches a teen boy to write a love letter by inviting several authors of YA and NA books to create love letters based on their novels. Gordon Rottman has visited my blog a couple times before. Today he is sharing his love letter based on his adventure novel Tears of the River. Sounds like an exciting read! If you enjoy this letter, scroll back and read the letters from the other visiting authors, and please leave a comment.

A coming of age self-discovery story of frantic survival, the value of diversity, dependence on one another. Fifteen-year-old Karen Herber is exactly where she wants to be—in the Nicaraguan rainforest with a volunteer medical team. What she had not expected was a hurricane collapsing a bridge to wipe out her team and a mudslide burying a village. Only a Nicaraguan six-year-old girl and a forty-four-year-old woman with both arms broken survive the mudslide. Then she finds that Jaydon Bonner survived, a privileged, arrogant seventeen-year-old American tenderfoot. Academic and confidence concerns are already dragging Karen down and she was tagged a “weak leader” in Outward Bound School. Her doctor parents are pushing her into a medical career, of which she’s uncertain. Less than fluent in Spanish, but an experienced backpacker, the reluctant leader is challenged by Nature, animals, desperate men and her fellow survivors’ mistrust and cultural differences. Their only path to salvation is a risky boat trip down a rainforest river, 150 miles to the mysterious Mosquito Coast. Karen soon finds her companions’ experiences, so different from her own, invaluable with each deadly encounter forging a closer bond between them.

Jaydon Bonner slowly came to realize that Karen Heber saved his life, many times, along with Tía’s and Lomara’s lives. So, what would a 17-year old boy say to a 15-year old girl with whom a relationship evolved under adverse and even terrifying conditions? Please note that the typos and errors are intentional.


Dear Karen Supergirl,

Hey, I got back to Houston a few days ago and just herd you’re still in that hospital in Nicaragua. I’ve never herd of dengue fever. Your dad told me on the phone that it’s called break-bone fever. I sure hope your not in a lot of pain. You had your sare of it during those 10 days on the river. I don’t know how you did all that stuff. He called me to tell me what to look out for in case I get that fever. I don’t see how I can’t. I was just as bit up by mosquitos as you.

I guess I was kind of a jerk a lot of the time and didn’t help out much. It wasn’t untill you told me that we had to keep going no matter what, that no one knew whereeven to look for us, and the only people getting us out of there was what we did for ourselves. You said, Once you realize you have to do it, that you have no choice, then you can do any thing. Then you made me row just about all night and we did it, we made it. I thought for sure we couldn’t make it be cause we’d had barely any thing to eat and nothing left. The first thing I ate when we got back to Texas was a double-meat, double-cheese, bacon, avocado buger, and all the trimmings with fries and onion rings and two choc shakes. I guess I shouldn’t talk about that LOL, be cause you’re still in Nicaragua. You let me know when you’re back and I’ll by all that for you or what ever else you want.

Supergirl, you better get back in shape and come home for me. All I can think about is taking you to Homecoming and I want that more than any thing. I’m hoping you’re still serious about that, be cause you’re the only one I want to take. I keeping thinking about you coming back to free me from those thugs, you being chased by those insane dogs, and getting the boat threw those rapids, and saving Lomara when we fell in. I understand why you went after her instead of me. That’s okay. I managed even if I couldn’t swim. I hope you’re still willing to teach me like you promised.

Allways thinking about you and hope your not hurting to much and come home soon.

Luv, Jay

Karen corrected the typos and grammar in red ink and sent it back to Jaydon. Yeah, sure. I’ll go with you. I hope you got a haircut.

            Karena xx  

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