Author-DoreyWhittaker
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Author-DoreyWhittaker
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by Dorey Whittaker
‘It’s a story within a story’
Daisy Dillard knew she took after her father, and she was fine with that. She loved her mother, but her mother’s inability to handle thunderstorms, made respecting her mother difficult. Watching how this behavior was affecting her younger brother, when their father was away, made Daisy take charge of Teddy whenever a thunderstorm rolled.
Daisy was smart and determined, seldom fearful, but she did not know what had happened to her mother to make a rational woman turn into an utter mess at the sound of thunder?
On the other hand, young Teddy, now eight, struggled to put away childish things, because he desperately wanted to be included in the Detective Club his sister was creating.
Then there is Miss Victoria, for Daisy and Teddy, she was a means to an end, although they both thought highly of her, they could not have known that Daisy’s plans would change Miss Victoria’s long and boring life, stuck in Mobile, Alabama.
Daisy’s plan gave Miss Victoria something worth getting by up each morning; besides weeding and watering her garden.
This is a coming-of-age story, without the sexual agenda.
Attorney, Ted Dillard, travels back home to Mobile, Alabama, to put his childhood home up for sale. During his journey home, he is flooded with sweet memories of 1955, the year he learned that he was braver than he thought he was. Reviewing his amazing childhood, we learn how life-altering decisions were presenter. Both to himself and his fellow members of the Sycamore Lane Detective Squad. Seven children and one intrepid, albeit eccentric 92-year-old spinster, took on cases that would have challenged even Sherlock Holmes himself. That summer they proved that age, young or old, cannot stop you from reaching your dream...as long as you work hard and share the glory. This was not child's play. These kids were serious. The first cases they solved was the biggest story in Mobile back in 1955. That summer, fire destroyed the oldest building on the wharf; and Billy Seward, the meanest boy in town, was arrested for arson. Billy was hated by everyone, and for good reason! Even the squad members had a hard time envisioning helping Billy Seward out of trouble. But what if he didn't do it? Every member of the squad had to make a moral decision. Could they stand by and watch Billy get railroaded? That summer they started with a case of arson, but ended up embroiled in an International Manhunt. Come along and learn to tools these kids used to uncover lies, alibis, misdirection, abuse of authority, abduction, assault of the elderly, and overcome something we all have to face...our own fears. Come and meet Daisy Dillard, the squad's fearless and intrepid 12-year-old leader. Daisy was not going to let her age stand between her and her goal of becoming a world-class detective. Then there is Ms. Vicki, an 82-year-old spinster who had loved Sherlock Holmes since 1918. She had secretly dreamed of ferreting out clues and exposing the underbelly of crime right there in Mobile; using the same tools her hero had used. Fall in love with a unique squad of misfits who bring along their individual set of skills, and prove that nothing can stand in your way when you surround yourself with good people.
Award winning author without proper credentials
Born and raised in southern California, Dorey Whittaker currently lives in beautiful central Florida with her husband of almost fifty-eight years. She and Bruce have two grown daughters and four wonderful grandchildren and now they have five great-grandchildren. Dorey is one of the rare women who is not ashamed to tell her age - she is 80 years old and thankful for every year she has had. Once you hear her story you will understand the reason she feels blessed to have reached this age. She knows that life is a gift that can easily slip away, so she made the decision to live life to the fullest, be present as more than just a mommy, and be positive, make it an adventure - not a marathon. To quote from Stephen King's book, Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying." Dorey chose to get busy living. This has been my Bio for many years – clean – sanitized – truthful – but not truly honest. I wrote Wall of Silence in 1996, as a farewell to friends and family. At 51-years-of-age, doctors diagnosed me with an inoperable brain tumor, and told me had a short time to live. This was not the first time I was faced with such a warning, but it appeared to be the last – or so I thought. Like the character, Susan, I had married well and had raised two girls with love and patience – neither of which had I learned from my mother. My life had been a complicated one, but I felt driven to write this story as an homage to God for having allowed my life to change from hopeless to happiness, with a husband who had proven his devotion to me for 28 years, at that time. But I thought it was ending, and I felt compelled to share the truths I had been shown that had made my life change so drastically that I owed it to those who had stepped forward to offer a hopeless child a second chance. That was 30 years ago. Once we understood that the doctors had misdiagnosed the 13 MRIs, and I was not dying, I had to make a choice. Was I going to continue as before, or was I going to move forward, writing stories that mirrored my path? This July, Bruce and I will be celebrating 58 years of marriage. A gift I was not expecting but am extremely grateful for. This has become the theme of most of my novels, Heros stepping into someone’s life path and making a profound difference. At the end of Wall of Silence, I has one of her favorite characters say, “If you were not a victim, you better become a hero to someone who was, out of gratitude, for the life you were given.” I have never told my whole story, but as I turned 80, I knew that if I was ever going to write it, I needed to do it now. We all live on borrowed time, but at 80, you understand just how little time is left to do what you have been avoiding. I cannot cover my life-story in a line or two, but I, like the Miller Sisters, had lived with a secret that I was sworn to keep from the age of three. This secret impacted my whole life, but I had kept it; until things began to leak out. Huge secrets are like a whale. They are huge and strong, but even if you can keep them submerged for a while, they need to breathe air, and will, one day force that whale to break free and breathe. But I had believed her mother’s lies. I believed it was all my fault, and that instilled shame, so deeply embedded into me, that I seldom revisited my younger life. My mother was not a monster, but she was a broken person, and broken people break people. My mother was just trying to survive an unbearable situation, without much help, and my life was collateral damage. She felt that forcing me to “keep her secret, was the lessor of two evils.” But it was my life that suffered the consequences, because she instilled in me the thought that I must keep her secret, as if my life depended upon it. Hence the phrase, often used in my writing, “The lies we believe as children – Become Truth we live by as adults. My life story will be coming out in this summer of 2026, hopefully being published to coincide with my 81st birthday; June 25th. Watch for it, “God, Can You Hear Me?”
Exclusive Edition for Book 1 in the Trilogy, Defeating the Giants
The Miller Sisters find themselves on a collision course with their past. After years of childhood trauma, Susan had finally broken free of her dysfunctional family and had built a world of safety and peace. But one phone call, telling her that Lisa has been arrested for murder, shattered her carefully crafted world, and Susan know she would be drawn back into the chaos that she had worked so hard to leave in her past. But love forced her to address her past, for no other reason but to save her older sister, Lisa, once again.
Exclusive Edition Book 2 in the Defeating the Giants Trilogy
After the trial, Lisa must face her new life, stripped of facade for the first time since her childhood. Secrets were the only thing that stood in the way of brutal consequences. But even those did not make her life safe. Now everyone knows everything, and the shame and humiliation feel almost unbearable. She knows that God has forgiven her, but can she forgive herself? Can Hope ever be restored to her? Forgiveness is the key.
Exclusive Edition Book 3 in the Defeating the Giants Trilogy
Tobias was born in Harlem, delivered by his grandmother, because she did not trust hospitals. Being an emancipated slave, she held tightly to her strong beliefs, regardless of what her husband, Samuel Bascom, said about them. He understood that those beliefs had been forged into her and they were the only things she possessed that were truly her’s.
But the day Tobias was born, Samuel laid down the law with; “this child is not ‘cursed,’ look into his eyes, woman, don’t you see our Ruby girl in those eyes? In this house, there will be no talk of cursed babies.” Then gathering the baby up in his arms that had known years of hard labor, he declared to the universe, “This is Tobias Bascom, my grandson. In this house he will be loved.”
Exclusive Edition_Stonehaven Saga_Book 1
My name is Buzzard Bill, better known as The Shadow Dweller. I am a crotchety old buzzard, who has always been afraid to fly; not because buzzards can’t fly, but because my fear of flying caused me to clip my own wings so I would never be tempted to try. All the cajoling in the world could not budge this buzzard to fly.
Buzzards are unattractive creatures, but watching them soar, flying high in the sky is exciting to watch. On land they seem clumsy, vulnerable, and out of their element, but when flying, they seem to know how to use the air currents to their advantage; because Buzzards were created to fly.
Fear was the driving force that made Buzzard Bill clip his own wings. Fear is a common issue for most of us. When we allow our fears rule our decisions we are clipping our own wings.
We were created to soar, not just to trudge along, vulnerable to the criticism of others who also are afraid to soar. Just think how far you could go, if you stopped being afraid to let go and start flying?
A Mike Major's Mystery
Mike Majors is a member of the baby-boomer generation, although he was trapped between two worlds, his father’s world of post war trauma that no one spoke about, and the bright and shiny future that television was constantly pushing. Mike grew up on the mean streets of South Philly, where Coal factories loomed large, and their insatiable need for cheap labor, loomed over the boys in South Philly like their fathers who expected them to follow suit and live their father’s life - a life they had witnessed and wanted no part of.
For this baby-boomers, their coming-of-age story was Vietnam, a scary experience, one that swallowed boys whole, and returned them in a pine box; if at all. Mike was one of the lucky ones. He returned determined to break free from what was expected of him. Having survived Vietnam, Mike felt invincible, and he was going to fight for different future. He had no idea what that future looked like, but he knew two things; he knew what it did not look like, and he knew that his high school sweetheart, Tilly, was going to find their future away from South Philly.