Differing Perspectives

My ninth published novel answers the question, "What kind of recipe do you need to mend a broken family?" Now titled ZUCCHINI PIE: GRANNY'S RECIPE FOR LIFE, it will be released this June by Covenant Communications. For me it marks a departure from the sorts of novels I've written in the past and a dip into a different form of writing. ZUCCHINI PIE is a family story, written from the points of view of four different primary characters.


The story begins when century-old Granny Adelaide is taken to the hospital. The scene below is told in the perspective of Emily Burnett, the sixteen-year-old youngest child in the Burnett family.

I was humming to myself as I finished dressing the slaw and warming the peas. That was when the phone rang. I answered it and a business-like voice on the other end asked for Mr. Thomas Burnett. I knocked on the door of the office.

“Daddy?”

Mom opened the door. “What is it, Em?”

“There’s a phone call for Dad. It sounds important.”

Mom turned back into the office, a worried look on her face. There was some murmuring and then she asked me, “Do you know who it is?”

I shook my head.

From inside the office, I heard Dad say, “I’ll take it.”

I went back into the kitchen to hang up the phone, but before I put it down, I held the receiver to my ear, just to be sure Dad had answered before I hung it up, and that’s when I heard him say, “Oh no. When?”

I felt my heart jolt, but I couldn’t stop listening. “Just a few minutes ago,” the voice on the other end answered. “Would you or your family like to see her before we call the funeral home?”

Funeral home. My hands shook as I dropped the phone and I heard an awful noise. It took me a second to realize I was the one making it, and in that moment, it occurred to me that there were worse things than having my family miss my concert.

I had never known anyone who died before.

Susan Aylworth is the author of eight published novels, all currently available in digital form for various e-readers. Her ninth book, ZUCCHINI PIE: GRANNY'S RECIPE FOR LIFE, is coming from Covenant Communications in June. Her tenth novel, RETURN TO RAINBOW ROCK, will soon be available as an original e-book, the seventh in the Rainbow Rock series. Find Susan at www.susanaylworth.com or follow her @SusanAylworth.