Saying Good-Bye by Jeannee Sacken

I love to read series. As a kid, I read The Bobbsey Twins and Laura Ingalls Wilder, then Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames. As an adult, I’m always up for the newest Lady Darby or Lady Emily historical mystery, a Kate Burkholder thriller, or one of Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooter books. Truth be told, I’ve got at least twelve series going. In a series, authors are able to dig deep, deep, deep into their characters, letting them evolve from book to book. Sometimes they bring forward secondary characters and give them a featured role. Best of all, I never have to say good-bye to beloved characters because there’s always a new adventure on the way. 

Despite my love of series, when I wrote my first novel, it was a standalone with a character named Annie Hawkins Green working as a human rights attorney for the United Nations. It was a great book. But I had quite the wake-up call when one of my beta readers said there were two stories and they didn’t hang together.

She was right. So, I shelved the manuscript and moved on. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the main character. A few years later, I pulled the manuscript off the shelf to see if there was anything worth salvaging. That’s when I discovered I still liked Annie Hawkins Green. Except she’d moved on, too. She was no longer an  attorney, but a photojournalist. Okay, I thought, that’s good—I know photojournalism. Then she surprised me by insisting that she’s a war photojournalist, which meant she needed a war zone. We settled on Afghanistan. After a ton of research, I set to work writing Behind the Lens, the story of Annie Hawkins Green as a seasoned war photojournalist on assignment in Afghanistan.

It was supposed to be a standalone. But sure enough, Annie’s story expanded, and she announced that this book would be the first in The Annie Hawkins Series. Double Exposure soon followed, allowing me to create narrative arcs within each book and also an over-arching narrative for the series. I dug deep into the characters, most specifically into Annie’s guilt at leaving her daughter to grow up with her ex-husband and his new wife, her need to atone for an award-winning photo she believes may have caused the death of a feisty, young Afghan girl, and her struggle with PTSD. I was also able to expand her love affair with U.S. Navy SEAL Captain Finn Cerelli, who writes the most romantic poetry. And secondary characters from the first book started becoming more prominent in the second.

I had visions of continuing The Annie Hawkins Series for six books, maybe more, and was almost finished writing book number three, when August 15, 2021 happened. That’s the date the Taliban rolled into Kabul and re-took control of Afghanistan—a horrific day for many Afghans, especially those who had worked in any way with the coalition forces. Not to mention, that Afghan women knew they’d lose all the rights they’d gained in the previous two decades.

Sitting in the comfort and safety of my studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I knew the manuscript I’d written was wrong, completely tone-deaf. Toss it, I did, to write The Rule of Thirds, which tells the story of Annie’s return to Afghanistan to cover what promises to be the story of her career: the Taliban’s arrival in Kabul. Given that this is the end of Afghanistan as she’s known it, this assignment is most likely the last time she’ll be there. 

And that seemed the perfect place to end The Annie Hawkins Series—a series became a trilogy.

A year ago, when I was launching the second book in the trilogy, an interviewer asked: “Do you honestly think you can say good-bye to Annie and Cerelli?” 

I laughed. “Of course, I can! They’re fictional characters I created.”

But the interviewer got me thinking: it was a lot harder to say good-bye than I thought it would be. Annie and Cerelli have become a part of me. Annie speaks to me in the dead of night, shares her double Maker’s Mark neat, and corrects the settings on my cameras when I’m on photoshoots. Cerelli has been known to take showers with me. He’s such an amazing book boyfriend.

When I finished writing The Rule of Thirds, I refrained from typing “The End.” I just couldn’t do it. The characters and the story were too real for me. Instead, I started thinking of Annie and Cerelli’s future, the adventures they might encounter. I seriously couldn’t let go. But finally, my wonderfully insightful editor told me to type those words and be done with it. I did. And yes, it was painful.

Ultimately, I did the only thing I could when I said good-bye to Annie and Cerelli and the rest of the cast: I wrote another book. A standalone? Or the first in a new series?

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THE RULE OF THIRDS

Despite her PTSD, seasoned photojournalist Annie Hawkins heads back to Afghanistan. The Taliban’s takeover of the country is the story of the decade, and Annie is determined to cover it. She’s also desperate to keep an eye on her twenty-two-year-old daughter Mel, whose first job out of college has taken her to Kabul.

The very air of the city is heavy with fear as the Taliban draw closer. The danger becomes even more personal for Annie when she discovers her daughter at the airport after a bombing. Then, her activist friends Bahar and Fatima face arrest and probable death sentences for their work in support of women and the coalition forces. When she tries to help them escape, Annie realizes that she’s in the crosshairs, too. With her longtime love Admiral Finn Cerelli in Washington, D.C., Annie has to rely on her crew’s Afghan fixer and her own wits to save as many lives as possible.

Reviews for The Rule of Thirds”:

“The Rule of Thirds is a stunning novel . . .  With masterful prose, Jeannée Sacken pits her protagonists, still freshly grappling with PTSD, against the Taliban and ISIS. The result is heart-pounding action paired with tender storytelling. Beautifully wrought and unputdownable, The Rule of Thirds earns 5 heartfelt stars!” 

Carol Van Den Hende, award-winning author of Orchid Blooming and Goodbye, Orchid 

“Annie Hawkins is every writer’s dream character: tough as nails, badass extraordinaire, riddled with guilt, and filled with love for her daughter and the man she adores.”

Barbara Conrey, USA Today bestselling author of Nowhere Near Goodbye

“The Rule of Thirds, the final book in Jeannée Sacken’s powerful Afghanistan trilogy, is a gripping, immersive, vividly rendered story that has everything a reader could want—complex and deeply human characters, a richly drawn story world, and a riveting plot with inner and outer stakes that keep us rooting for Annie Hawkins and the people she loves. Expertly told, The Rule of Thirds is a tale of courage, loyalty, determination, and resilience with an ending that’s unexpected—and perfect.” 

Barbara Linn Probst, Sarton Award–winning author of The Sound Between the Notes and The Color of Ice

 

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Author Bio:

A former English professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeannée Sacken is now a photojournalist who travels to the ends of the earth, documenting the lives of women and children. She also photographs wildlife and is deeply committed to the conservation of endangered species. Described by MKE Lifestyle magazine as “Indiana Jones with a camera,” Jeannée has summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro, canoed the Zambezi River, kayaked the North Pacific, and driven through far-western Mongolia in a blizzard. Many of her adventures have been fictionalized into her novels.

Her debut novel, Behind the Lens, the first book in the Annie Hawkins Series, has won numerous awards, including the 2021 American Writing Awards Novel of the Year and The Hawthorne Prize. Double Exposure, the second novel in the series, won the Firebird Awards for Best Suspense, Romantic Suspense, and Women’s Fiction. The third and final book in the series, The Rule of Thirds, launches on October 3, 2023.  

Visit her on her website  jeanneesacken.com

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing