I saw an article in the newspaper yesterday, actually I just read the heading . It posed a question about whether or not students should be forewarned about the graphic content of books they are required to read.

Personally, I would like to know what I’m getting into when I read a book. Being a mom makes me even more sensitive about book content. I’ve started many books that I stopped reading abruptly because of the graphic violence or explicit sex. I don’t need that. The story should be good enough without having to pander to our basest instincts.

I may be outvoted these days with the rampant success of erotica, but outvoted or not, I can still choose what I take into my mind. I want a good story, one that makes me think and feel in my heart. I want it to be something I’m still pondering late into the night because of the themes and messages.

As a writer, I chose not to employ the cheap and tawdry to entice readers. I didn’t describe the gunshot would in gory detail in my book. In real life I don’t want to see the details of a crime scene or an autopsy, and I certainly don’t want someone watching in my bedroom, nor do I want to step into someone else’s bedroom. So, why would I want to write those images for everyone to read?

The short answer is: I wouldn’t. So, I didn’t and I don’t.

When my book comes out, I hope you like it. I hope there is so much going on that you will feel as one of my reviewers does. He said, “I like that this is a mature love story. In the last hundred years, writers have forgotten that real romantic love is more than lust. … Courtship and birth of a child happen in the midst of an intense plot that doesn’t need any tantalizing bedroom scenes. Indeed, such scenes would get in the way of the gripping action of the plot.”

So, those are my thoughts. And now, hopefully, you have a better idea “What’s inside” my book, The Apple of My Eye.