Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Jennifer Vido | Jen’s Jewels: HELLO, SUMMER by Mary Kay Andrews
Author Guest / May 8, 2020

Jennifer: What inspired you to write your new release, HELLO, SUMMER?   Mary Kay: A couple years ago I read an article in my hometown newspaper, The Tampa Bay Times, about the area’s long-time conservative Republican Congressman, who’d just passed away from cancer. At the Congressman’s funeral, his son gave a eulogy that mentioned his father’s “secret first family”–the Congressman’s first wife and his children with him, with whom he’d had no contact for decades. It was a stunning moment that sparked a family feud played out in headlines around the country. When I went looking for a juicy story for my newspaper reporter protagonist Conley to dig into, that story immediately came to mind. Of course, my fictional Congressman dies in a mysterious late-night accident on a remote country road, and there are lots of other differences, but that story kept me up at night, wondering “what if?”  Why does Sarah “Conley” Hawkins choose to return to her hometown? She doesn’t have any alternatives. She’s quit her job as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, broken up with her boyfriend and given up her apartment–all in anticipation of a new job she’s accepted with a new digital-only investigative publication in…