Clean

I wanted to do something a little different with the third and final book in the series.

Each of the three books, A Gathering of Light, A Light in the Mountains and the newest, The Light of a Fire Opal is a complete story that is not dependent on the other books in the series. There is a common thread that unites the three stories, but it isn't necessary to read the first one in order to comprehend the others.

Someone commented that, as much as she liked A Gathering of Light, I should have omitted the profanity. OK, I get that. Of course, I think the profanity is entirely appropriate to the situations in which it occurs. I challenge anyone whose hand is being crushed while he's being stepped on by a mule to NOT swear, but that's beside the point. The nature of the attack on the heroine of the story, and the two instances of profanity made the story somewhat less that CLEAN.

In the second book, A Light in the Mountains, there is an instance of premarital sex. Yep. Even in the late 1800s, people did sometimes take the lid off the cookie jar before they were "supposed to". There are also a few scenes of conjugal bliss that are a little descriptive. Nothing in any shade of gray, mind you, but there they are.

For the final book in the series, The Light of a Fire Opal, I wanted to write a story that would be compelling and yet clean. I ran into a little trouble there. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't quite leave out all the profanity. I used the word "tit", which isn't exactly profanity, but there is one part of the story where the only word that works is ..... shit. All together, the story contains one "hell", one "shit", two "damn"s and a "tits".

I guess I'm incorrigible.