Guest Post: Patricia Selbert of House of Six Doors

I'll be reviewing this book (with a giveaway!) later today, but first a little about the book from it's author, Patricia Selbert!


Synopsis:  Thirteen-year-old Serena is torn from everything that’s familiar on her island home. She leaves her beloved grandmother, her father, and two of her siblings to move with her mother and older sister to Florida and then to California.

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Thank you so much for reviewing my book on your blog. 

It’s an honor to visit in this way.

I’m often asked, “Is The House of Six Doors your story?”

My answer is that the characters are fictional composites while the story is inspired by my life. My mother was the inspiration for the Mama character. She was manic-depressive and suicidal. She was emotionally unstable and possessed no tools with which to manage her emotional states. For many years, I was so angry at my mother that I didn’t even want to think about her. However, writing the novel has been a cathartic experience and creating a character like Mama and writing from that perspective was the catalyst that allowed me to finally understand her behavior. 

I chose to write a novel instead of a memoir because, to me, a memoir recounts the author’s understanding of what happened, and a novel allows the author to recount the story, while fully developing each character, thus seeing the story from many different angles.

The process of writing gave me greater understanding of my characters and more importantly, compassion for them. Writing The House of Six Doors created a huge shift in my life and my hope is it will not only entertain but also evoke compassion in its readers.

As for my writing rituals, I do my inspired writing from 3:00am to 4:30am, then I go back to bed for an hour and resume my writing for another two to three hours after my kids and husband are off to school and work.