Little White Lies

Today we have the wonderful, and always entertaining, Johanna Garth joining us. If you don't follow her blog, you should, she's brilliant and funny and my 'mom' hero, (not to mention one hell of a writer.)


Thanks so much to Rachel for hosting me here at Writing on the Wall. Rachel noticed my newest book in the Persephone Campbell Series, Losing Hope, released during those crazy pre-Christmas days and was kind enough to invite me to her blog as a guest.

 






My publisher is offering free downloads of Losing Beauty today on Amazon so if this blog post sparks your interest you can make a quick detour and download the first book in the series today for free.

 







Over the weekend a conversation with a friend sparked the perfect Losing Hope meets blog post kind of topic.

 

We were talking about her new gym. "The instructor of this class I'm taking makes us lie down on exercise balls. Then we have to spell out our names with the ball while balancing on top of it."

 

"You're lucky your name's only six letters," I said.

 

"That's the thing! When he asked me what my name was I said it was Ann without the E. It was a 50% reduction in stomach ball spelling time. I lied so automatically it was like a protective instinct, but now he calls me Ann."

 

Everyone knows there is a time and place for little white lies. The two-sizes too big sweater with the odd purpley-pink Christmas tree your great-aunt picked out JUST for you. You love it!! Of course you do.

 

The trick with white lies is knowing where to draw the line.

 

Is it okay to lie to your fitness instructor? What about to those chatty sales assistants who want to write your name on the dressing room door while you try on clothes? When is it a white lie as opposed to a no-holds-barred lie?

 

Moral line-drawing fascinates me. The characters in the Persephone Campbell series spend a lot of time crossing back and forth between the lines we draw to delineate acceptable moral behavior.They lie, manipulate and scheme. Sometimes there are consequences for their actions. And sometimes, like life, they get away with murder. Literally.

 

Persephone, the main character in the series, has spent two books searching, not just for her history and her place in the world, but for a way to negotiate the moral ambiguity regularly presented by the other characters in the book. Her world is a place where evildoers have redeeming characteristics and, even the people she trusts most, are capable of crossing into shady moral territory.

 

By the way, if you're searching for me in the dressing room, you'll find me behind the door marked Desdemona or Sabrina or, from time-to-time, even Agnes.

 

What lines do you cross and how do you know when you've gone too far?