Saturday, July 13, 2019

Today's Special - - Who's Your Daddy by Caren Crane, Jeanne Adams, & Nancy Northcott




DNA, Danger and Daddy Issues…


In 2006, a group of twenty RWA Golden Heart finalists formed a blog group known as The Romance Bandits. They blogged together for a decade, supervised by the arrogant Golden Rooster and supported by gladiators, the Goddess Sangria, hockey players, and a dragon. Although they no longer blog as a group, they always welcome an opportunity to do something together.

Today, Banditas Caren Crane, Jeanne Adams, and Nancy Northcott join us to talk about their new, three-novella anthology, Who’s Your Daddy. The anthology was Caren’s idea, and she coordinated it. She’ll tell us what inspired it and how she put it together.


Caren: Hi, Dishy folks! I’m fascinated by advances in DNA testing and how it has been used to solve decades old murders, as well as help people find family members they never knew about. One night at dinner with author friends, we talked about how fun it would be to write an anthology of novellas around the theme of DNA testing. This is a deep, rich vein for stories!

 



Presenting three tales of secrets revealed and histories uncovered by DNA testing.

A carpenter discovers his father isn’t actually his father. Coming to terms with the truth reaffirms his place in his family, but it also leads him to love with an old friend’s sister and helps him find a path for his life.

A lawyer learns his grandmother had a secret marriage before his father was born. With the help of a talented genealogist, he tracks down his ancestry. Will he find the truth about his grandmother’s secret before whoever’s trying to kill him succeeds?

A burned-out spy goes home for a holiday and re-encounters the woman he never dated but never forgot. As he and she grow closer, she realizes her niece, his ex-girlfriend’s child, bears an uncanny resemblance to him. When the truth comes out, it will alter three lives.

Caren, tell us about your story.

Caren: In my Cross Springs series, I created a very large family for the husband in “Baby Steps,” Tim Burns. Tim is the oldest of six kids and his dad died when they were all very young. For some reason, I had given all the siblings blond or light brown hair and blue or gray eyes except for one. When I started thinking about writing my novella, Eric Burns was begging me to center the story around him and the mystery of where his dark hair and dark eyes came from.

Jeanne, yours is the next story in the anthology. What inspired it?

Jeanne: Hi Everyone! My story is inspired by a couple of things. First is, I’m a genealogist. I’ve been researching my family tree for decades and loved using some of that knowledge to write my story in the anthology, Lost in Time. It was also fun to incorporate the “lost heir” trope too. That allowed me to add a little suspense, and a little drama to a fun, short love story. Derek and Alexis were deliciously interesting characters to write too, so I hope Dish fans fall in love with Who’s Your Daddy.

Nancy, your story rounds out the collection. Where did you get the idea for it? 

Nancy: Hey, everybody! As some of you know, I love action, so of course I had to incorporate that, which led me to create an agent who works for my Arachnid spy group. This agent, Jim “Dix” Dixon, has seen too much ugliness. He’s burned out. When your job is haunting you, where better to go than home? I grew up in a small town, and this story seemed ideal for such a setting. Sending Dix home also let me set up one of my favorite tropes, the “second chance at love” story.

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You can find Caren, Jeanne, and Nancy via their websites and social media.






To buy Who’s Your Daddy, click on one of the links below.

All other retailers - https://books2read.com/u/4je68v










Readers, have any of you taken a DNA test?

Were you surprised by the results?

One randomly chosen person who comments before 11:00 PM, July 14, will receive a Kindle copy of Who's Your Daddy



43 comments:

  1. I love reading about the results from DNA testing. All three stories sound wonderful and I'm definitely going to read them. I myself have never done DNA test but have been thinking of doing it.
    The Romance Bandits ? I enjoyed that blog. It's been awhile since I've heard that name.
    Carol Luciano
    Lucky4750 at aol dot com

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    1. Hi, Carol--Thanks! I've never done DNA testing either but also have been thinking about it.

      I'm glad you enjoyed the blog. We were sorry to give it up, but given the choice between writing and keeping the blog going at the standard we wanted, we had to choose writing. I miss it sometimes.

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    2. Hi Carol! We miss you too! As Nancy said, we all miss blogging together, but the time... Ha! My siblings have done DNA testing but I've not done it yet. Have the kit, so I'll be getting those results soon. Thanks for reading Who's Your Daddy!?

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  2. Hi, Carol! It's always great to run into our Romance Bandits friends. I'll admit, I jumped on the home DNA tests when 23andMe got popular a few years ago. One of my sisters has lupus and was invited to participate in a study done in conjunction with 23andMe to try to identify genetic components of lupus. The idea of identifying and possibly correcting defective genes just fascinates me!

    I do love that 23andMe sends me notifications when they have a new genetic test that shows whether I carry a particular gene. I guess it's a good thing to never have any of the variants, but I'll admit to sometimes being disappointed. It's also super interesting when they can refine areas of the world where people with certain segments of your DNA live. Mine is overwhelmingly northwestern European, but I'm intrigued by the Italian and Serbian bits!

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    1. I did the 23andMe test too, Caren. The fact that the vast majority of my ancestry is English, Scottish, and Irish was expected, as was the French segment, but the Italian and Swedish came as a huge surprise. Maybe it explains why each time I visit Italy, my soul feels as if its being welcomed home.

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    2. PJ, I can't wait to visit Italy and hope I feel at home, too! :D The place I've felt most at home was in Passau, Germany. It's in Bavaria right on the border with Austria. I was traveling with my mom and we both felt it was like coming home. I have a feeling Scotland will feel the same way!

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    3. Ohhh, Scotland soooo feels like going home, Caren! You'll love it. Being from the mountains of NC as I am, the landscape was so familiar. I loved, loved, loved Scotland! Ha! PJ, I know from my sibs doing the tests that we're overwhelmingly Scotch, English and German and Subsaharan African with a smattering of Irish, and Swiss. No real surprises in the woodwork. I have to say that the place (other than home) that I've felt most at home, was Yorkshire. Then again, Pickering is in Yorkshire and I'm a Pickering. Ha! I'm looking forward to doing 23andMe for all that health stuff they do!

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  3. Good Morning! I'll be in and out today but wanted to welcome Caren, Nancy, and Jeanne to the Dish. I admit, I'm fascinated by DNA and was eager to see how you each had woven it into your stories. Thanks for stopping by to tell the Dish readers about them!



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    1. PJ, it's hard to convey to someone not fascinated by DNA just how interesting it all is. I have a bit of a science brain, so it captured my imagination right away. My husband, a diehard skeptic, is quick to point out that "indicators" mean little. That's true, since apparently I should have gray or blue eyes and mine are hazel. But whatever! LOL

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    2. *Waving madly* HEY PJ!!! So happy to be on the Dish again! Woot! Like you, I'm fascinated by DNA and it was soooo fun to put it in a story. Caren, my DH is skeptical too, but equally fascinated by the historical data bits, like where your DNA originates and all that. Ha!

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    3. Hi, PJ--Thanks again for having us! I've been enjoying the DNA chat you and Caren and Jeanne have going.

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  4. I loved all three stories! I'm a Cross Springs addict, so I knew I'd love Caren's! :-) Jeanne--Your knowledge on genealogy came through in your story! I was so impressed! And Nancy--I love a second chance story--and I loved Dix! Awesome job, ladies!

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    1. Thank you, Deb! So glad you liked it.

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    2. Thank you so much for your kind review! I loved Jeanne's and Nancy's stories, so I hope everyone enjoys the anthology. I think there is something for everyone in there. And aren't we all curious about our previous generations of family? My mom and I were looking at some family pictures from my maternal grandmother's family last weekend and it is so strange to see very familiar chins and eyes and hairlines and jawlines from photos taken in the mid-1800s. We're so lucky to have those pictures!

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    3. Isn't that the coolest thing, Caren? Everyone in my fam wondered where the shape and color of my eyes came from - green and slanty! - and we finally found it in a verrrry old picture of the Fortner family who married into all three of my family lines in Wilkes county. Very strange to see "my" eyes in that old photo!

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  5. *Waving Madly Again!!!* HEY DEB!!! Isn't Cross Springs wonderful? Caren so captures people and places in her stories. I was eager to read her story in this antho too for that very reason. Thanks for the compliment, Deb, I hope I wasn't too heavy handed! I love doing genealogy research and can't help it... Isn't Dix just fabulous in Nancy's story? Talk about a hero!

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  6. Hi Everyone! Thanks for popping by The Dish today and hanging out! I realized I hadn't changed my profile pic to the Who's Your Daddy cover! Ha! I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's DNA stories!

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    1. Jeanne, it seems like everyone has done a DNA test of some sort at this point. I know some people do NOT want to know all the medical stuff from their DNA testing, but I want to know everything. I mean EVERYTHING, all the time. Even the bad stuff. Hit me with it! LOL

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    2. IKR? If I know, I can prevent! Grins. and hey, mostly it's just a "leans that way" and I can look at it and say "nahhhh." Hahah! Then again, it could save your life, right?

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  7. I have not taken a DNA test but I have a few friends who have. one had her parents take it too and found lots of surprises.

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    1. Glenda, I never have either. I'm thinking about it, though. One of my cousins had it done and found relatives we didn't know we had.

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    2. Hey Glenda! Thanks for popping by! I've had some friends have some serious surprises too, like being almost all German when you thought you were Spanish! And another friend who found a bunch of relatives from her adopted dad and unraveling his adoption. Pretty darn cool!

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    3. Glenda, was your friend more surprised about her results or her parents'? I think my mother's and paternal uncle's results (my dad died in the 90s) were both surprising and intriguing. I would have loved to have had my dad's done, but he was long gone by the time consumer-facing testing came around. He was also kind of a tomcat, so we are waiting for unknown siblings to pop up. So far, only thousands of cousins!

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  8. I haven't taken a DNA test. I have a cousin who has traced my Dad's side of the family back to the early 1800's. Irish and Scottish. I know my grandfather, on my Mom's side, came from Croatia. I have his birth certificate and his US citizenship papers. My Mom's mom came from Germany. I have her US citizenship papers and her and her mother's prayer books. Both are in German. My great-grandmother's has each of her children's date of birth.

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    1. Pamela, all that sounds very cool! I haven't done any genealogy research, but I did get my grandfather's birth certificate from a registry in the UK. It's great that you have all this material.

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    2. Pamela, what treasures you have! Both sides of my family have been here for a really long time (my father's from the 1600s and my mother's from the 1700s). I found out, while doing genealogical research, that Colonial records were very spotty, many were destroyed and some communities took much longer to get organized than others. It's hard to track someone who was born in New Jersey, then moved to PA, then OH, then eventually to IN without taking road trips. I haven't done that, because I KNOW my dad's sister has all those genealogical records in her possession. I'm not sure my branch of the family will ever get to see them, but maybe one of my cousins will share one of these days!

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  9. That's so cool, Pamela! I love those kind of hands-on artifacts. You can make a lot of genealogical headway with those kinds of things! Croatia can be tough though, going back in time, because of all the wars there. Germany, however is wonderful! They kept brilliant records and duplicated things so even with the war and bombings, most records survived. Yay! Good luck if you try to search it...it's so fun!

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  10. In my family, there has been extensive information gathered. I have a cast of thousands who are my relatives. I do not need to add anyone else. There is enough drama among those I know.

    Seriously, I have relatives who have done so much studying it is wonderful. I have a picture of a huge family reunion in 1907. If you look closely you see some of the same faces that you see on the people who are here right now.

    Right now I have no desire for a DNA test, but maybe someday.

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    1. How fortunate you are to have all that information, Annette.

      A few years before my dad's sister died, she shared a photo of my grandmother at three years old with me. Side by side with a photo of me at the same age, you would think it's the same child.

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    2. That is so great, Annette! For the really old pictures, I often have only an idea of who the folks are. My mother is still around to tell me, but I'm trying to put names and estimated dates on the backs.

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    3. Annette, I know what you mean about family drama. Who wants more of that?

      My mom's brother did a lot of research into their side of my family, and his son picked up where he left things. I've never sat down and asked him about cool stuff, but I should.

      I've never taken a DNA test but am thinking about it.

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  11. I wish consumer DNA tests had been available when my parents and grandparents were alive. I would have loved seeing those results. I've been contacted (through Ancestry) by distant relatives I had never heard of, looking for information about how we're related. It's fascinating (to me) how all the branches of a family tree twist, turn, and intertwine.

    One of my dad's brothers did a lot of research on our family and one of his sons has continued it. He has the marriage records of direct descendants from 1600's France, official documents of our ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, and a copy of the letter from the U.S. Government that changed our family name after the Civil War because of a clerical error when my six-times great grandfather was mustered out of the Army.

    Another distant cousin has done extensive research on my dad's mother's family. She traced one line to the Scottish highlands and met some of our distant relatives on a trip over there. I'm fascinated by it all!

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    1. Wow, PJ! That is so cool!! I'm trying to track my Ferguson ancestors. We think they came to southern plantations after the clearances (Outlander, anyone?), but the direct connection is still a little confusing. It's actually one of the things I'm hoping a DNA test may illuminate!

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  12. How fascinating, PJ! It would be great to meet distant cousins overseas that in another time we would not have known existed. I dream of such a trip!

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  13. I haven't because I have an aunt who has traced their family back a few generations. My hubby has taken a DNA test at the request of his oldest niece (she's only 2 years younger). They were surprised because German and Swiss didn't show up and that's where their maternal side is from. Instead they got Italy and Eastern Europe. Also they've been contacted by someone who received a surprise. The man she thought was her father wasn't and she was related to them somehow. Since there were 4 brothers who arrived together it could be one of the other brothers.

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    1. Eileen, a couple of my friends have had DNA tests and were surprised by the ethnic groups that turned up, just like the Ancestry commercial featuring the guy who talks about his lederhosen. You're lucky to have all that info in your family.

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    2. It's weird, isn't it? Sometimes you get what you thought...and sometimes you don't! We've got subsaharan African...no surprise as we're from the South, but Swiss? What the heck? The German was obvious with Outzes and Bumgarners and Loudermilks, but Swiss? Grins. guess that's why I love watches and chocolate, right?

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  14. Our family hasn't, mainly because we don't really anticipate any surprising results, LOL! I suppose we could certainly be wrong, but we aren't exactly leaping to try either! Can't wait to read this newest Banditas' collaboration, ladies!

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    1. *Waving madly!* Hey Fedora!! So great to see you here. It really is amazing what can turn up in those test. Having done all the research, I still was surprised by a few things, so you should go for it! Grins.

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  15. My DNA results revealed my Scottish roots. I’ve been drawn to Scotland and now I know why. My daughter recently had her DNA tested & no surprise showed I was her mom. Now she can’t tell me she thinks she was adopted.

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    1. I'm so LOL, Melanie! My brothers used to try to pull that one on me - "you're adopted!" - but I look JUST like my mom, so it didn't wash. Now if they'd ever said I wasn't my dad's kid, that might have hit home because wow, I look like my mom, but not my dad! Ha!

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