By Anne Shaw Heinrich
The collection of women featured in my second novel ‘Violet is Blue’ (out June 17, 2025) could not be more different, but they can’t avoid being connected. Limited to the confines of the same small town, they are bound to brush against one another in ways big and small. Some of them are more lovable than others, but together, they have the market cornered on complexity.
She’s blue alright. Violet Sellers, the young girl at center of the story, is troubled in ways that nobody her age should be forced to shoulder, but she’s keeping her secrets to herself. Her parents know something’s up.
Their once agreeable girl is surly, sullen, and aloof. It’s bad enough that she’s started associating with the unsuitable Jules Marks, a boy from Shakey’s Half, but when they see that their Vi has a skull and cross bones tattooed on her pelvic plain, they are consumed with finding out who put it there and desperate to keep everyone in town from knowing their business. Lonely and wounded, Vi discovers her shared penchant for self-harm with Jules. As their bond strengthens, they’ll do anything for each other, and they both know it.
Violet’s mother, Gloria, has challenges of her own. When her reliable girl starts rebelling, she’s forced to tend with an irascible husband, and to keep tongues from wagging while they try to find who gave her that damned tattoo. Her daughter’s friendship with Jules is more complicated than most know. Gloria’s known Jules and his mama, Lee, since he was a brand-new baby. Lee was just a teenager out of her depth with a newborn when the two mothers shared a room on the maternity ward.
Haunted by a long history of mistreating her own little sister, Ruth, Gloria’s instinct to make amends somehow goes into overdrive. She makes a nuisance of herself, showering young Lee and baby Jules with gifts and money, despite her husband’s objections that enough is enough. Once she discovers that the fertile Lee will never appreciate all she’s done for her, Gloria cuts off the gravy train and never looks back until an older Jules shows up on her porch. She’s got hard decisions to make to keep her family safe.
Red-headed Ruth Pullman never did understand why her big sister Gloria couldn’t warm up to her. She’s been poking and prodding at her since they were little girls. Ruthie’s pasty white skin, dappled with freckles was enough to garner nicknames like “Red” and “Campbell Soup Kid” from their Pop, making Gloria even more full of pinch and nip.
Despite Ruthie’s looks, she’s attracted the attentions of Reverend Richard Pullman. They’ve married and had themselves a blue-eyed blonde boy, James. Over the years, as the sisters tentatively peck at salvaging their relationship, something unthinkable happens that makes their childhood scuffles seem like child’s play. Never one to fight back, poor Ruth doesn’t realize that her own young son has evened the score and then some.
Lee Marks just doesn’t know any better. Her sick mama dies when she’s just a girl, leaving her in the neglectful clutches of her shifty father, Jim Marks. Despite the objections and interventions of her older half siblings Clarice and Larry, Lee prefers to run wild at home. When Jim takes in the questionable Lem Hauser, a resourceful, untamed outcast, nothing good happens. At fifteen, she’s pregnant with her first baby, a boy named Jules.
Five girls are to follow, but not before Lee is befriended by the older Gloria Sellers, who lavishes them with support until she sees Lee for what she is: a taker. Despite the efforts of her exasperated big sister, Clarice, Lee maintains a transactional relationship with Lem. He’s scrounged her up an old trailer in Shakey’s Half, but those children of theirs deserve more than she can ever provide.
Clarice Downs tries her best to give her little half-sister Lee what she needs, but it’s never enough. Clarice is just glad that their mother isn’t alive to see the mess they’ve got on their hands. A hard-working waitress at Slapp’s Diner, sassy Clarice finds herself on call to put out one fire or another for Lee and that growing brood of dirty, hungry children living out in Shakey’s Half.
At first, she appreciates Gloria’s lavish attentions on Lee and Jules but knows that kind of good fortune never lasts. She rightly suspects that Gloria’s making amends for something. Clarice isn’t alone in this world. Watching her little brother, Larry, grow into a man, fall in love, and step into a role he was destined to have fills her with pride, and a sense of family she’s wanted all along.
Sally Lend teaches home economics at the high school. She nabbed that job years ago to protect her tender heart from getting torn apart like it did when she met a little boy named Jules Marks when she taught kindergarten. She’s caught the eye of the school’s janitor, Larry Downs.
He’s a little rough around the edges at first, but she thinks he might just be a keeper. Forced to choose between Larry and her disappointed parents, Sally leans into the safest, surest bet and learns something new about love and full-circle second chances that she never saw coming.
Margaret Burns knows a saving when she sees one. She’s a Poulson lifer with a crusty exterior and clings to her routine. She takes a bath every night and only trims the long, gray braid that runs down her back when it threatens to get tangled in her feet.
Watching the world around her is what Margaret does best. When she sees her neighbor Sally Lend start getting visits from the school janitor, she can’t stop watching their comings and goings. Things get even more interesting as she watches from her kitchen window. She knows a saving when she sees one and what she does next is enough to make even the most hard-hearted weep.
Ranking these women from favorite to least favorite is difficult. As their creator, I know them so intimately. Armed with this depth of knowing, even I am left with unanswered questions dangling. But it’s my hope that I have provided a lens that allows readers to recognize in these complex, fictional characters the shadows of real people, places and circumstances that many of us have known. And from such recognition, might something fresh and forgiving spring forth?
Anne Shaw Heinrich has been a journalist, columnist, blogger, and communications professional for over 35 years. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times bestseller ‘The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn’ (Atria), Chicken Soup for the Soul’s ‘The Cancer Book: 101 Stories of Courage, Support and Love’, Midwest Family Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Writer’s Digest and Education Week. ‘Violet is Blue’ is the second in Anne’s three-book series, The Women of Paradise County, and will be released by Speaking Volumes June 17, 2025. The first book in the series, ‘God Bless the Child’, was released in 2024. Anne is passionate about her family, mental health advocacy, and the intrepid power of storytelling. To learn more, visit anneshawheinrich.com, and follow her on Instagram, TikTok and Threads.
