Favorite Links
Over the years, many novels and characters have inspired and influenced me. My tastes are best described as eclectic, but I tend to read many more graphic and gothic mysteries. Of course, in those genres, the graphic depictions of older writers have been overwhelmed in today's era by the enormous amount of fantasy fiction. Below are links to authors from my family and a link to a societal problem on which my first work is based.
Michael Cronin is the pen name of Brendan Leo Cronin. He is a distant cousin and was a well-known mystery writer in 20th-century England.
Deborah Jarvis is my daughter-in-law and created the fantasy series, The KeyralithianChronicles
Another link explains the underlying crime in my first novel, Children of Granite. It is a written account of common practices in society in the latter half of the 20th century. Before the current problems in child trafficking became publicized, the Baby Scoop Era happened.
Michael Cronin
Michael Cronin was the pen name of Brendan Leo Cronin. He wrote from 1940 to 1980 and was a prolific British crime novelist. He created many memorable characters, including James Hellier and Sam Harris. His many works are collector's editions.
Two of his novels, You Pay Your Money and Johnny on the Spot, were turned into movies. In addition to the pen name Michael Cronin, he wrote under the names David Miles and ME Miles. Mary E. Miles was his wife.
Link to Michael Cronin's Books
https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1993980A/Michael_Cronin
Deborah Jarvis
Website: www.deborahjarvis.com
My name is Deborah Jarvis, and I am a high school and college literature and writing teacher who lives in New Hampshire.
The Crystal Pawn is the first book in The Keyralithian Chronicles, and was followed closely by the second book, The Ivory Queen.
My third book, Wolves Running, is the first book in The ShapeshifterSymphonium.
Other books are in the works at this time, however! The third
Keyralithian installment, The Ebon King, is getting closer to being finished and has a tentative release date for Fall 2026.
Forever Demond has a hopeful release in 2027, and there’s another installment of The Shapeshifter Symphonium in the works as well!
The Baby Scoop Era
What follows is a description from Wikipedia of a terrible time in 20th century society.
Beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, illegitimacy began to be defined in terms of psychological deficits on the part of the mother.[6] At the same time, a liberalization of sexual morals combined with restrictions on access to birth control led to an increase in premarital pregnancies.[7]
The dominant psychological and social work view was that the large majority of unmarried mothers were better off being separated by adoption from their newborn babies.
According to Mandell (2007), "In most cases, adoption was presented to the mothers as the only option and little or no effort was made to help the mothers keep and raise the children".
Solinger describes the social pressure that led to this unusual trend, explaining that women who had no control over their reproductive lives were defined by psychological theory as "not-mothers", and that because they had no control over their reproductive lives, they were subject to the ideology of those who watched over them.
As such, for unmarried pregnant girls and women in the pre-Roe era, the main chance for attaining home and marriage rested on their acknowledging their alleged shame and guilt, and this required relinquishing their children, with more than 80% of unwed mothers in maternity homes acting in essence as "breeders" for adoptive parents.
According to Ellison, from 1960 to 1970, 27% of all births to married women between the ages of 15 and 29 were conceived premaritally. This problem was thought to be caused by female neurosis, and those who could not procure an abortion, legally or otherwise, were encouraged to put up their children for adoption.
Read the full article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Scoop_Era