Genealogy

22 Jan 2017: There’s nothing like hitting the “Publish” button.

There’s no greater feeling than hitting the “publish” button to put a finished book up for sale online. Having finally completed my newest project, I had the pleasure of doing so just that this week.

The Family History Quick Start Guide is now up for sale on Amazon for the amazing price of only $4.99!!

Check it out at: https://goo.gl/eSSZwa

Its creation was a true labor of love. I’ve been somewhat obsessed with my family history since I had to do a middle school social studies project on my family tree. Thirty some on years later, I’m an expert on the subject. It was suggested to me about a year ago that writers, even novelists, should write a how to book. Never having written nonfiction before, I wanted to give it a go. What I produced is an easy to read, funny and extremely helpful guide for those just beginning to untangle the story of their family history.

Check it out!

-Jennifer

31 Oct 2015: … Today I am Normal … Well, Sort of …

Today is Halloween, and on October 31st I almost feel normal.

Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I love headstones.

With that in mind, October 31st is about the only day of the year where my normal home decor look just that, normal.

I’ve been told I’m a quirky person, and one of my quirks is that I’m a rabid genealogist. It was genealogy and the endless search for the graves of my ancestors that lead to my love of old headstones.

Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, CT as seen by Jennifer Geoghan

Look at the artistry, the story carved in stone. Every era has a headstone style, every stone carver a style of their own. Just wander through a cemetery that spans multiple generations and you’ll see.

Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, CT as photographed by Jennifer Geoghan

Want to try something fun? Go into your local cemetery, find one of these old headstone and write a short story about the name on it. Try to imagine what that person’s life was like back when they lived on this Earth. In a way I think it’s how we can keep the names of those lost with us. I know I’d be thrilled if someone did this for me a couple hundred years from now.

But I warn you!

If you start hanging out in cemeteries, you may develop a deep love of headstones and start to collect them. Once you start to collect them, you’ll like to display them all year round. Once you start to display them all year round, the only day you’ll feel normal is today, October 31st.

Happy Halloween!

Me. Creepy even at age 5. I think I was destined to write vampire novels from a young age!

-Jennifer

Jennifer Geoghan, author of The Purity of Blood novel series, and If Love is a Lie: A Partly True Love Story (and headstone enthusiast.)

12 Oct 2014 … Walking the streets of Forks

I’m finally back home after my two-week road trip up North. Outside of visiting family and friends, I visited a lot of the places I wrote about in my books. I think it was on Facebook that I made the comment that as I was walking up and down the main drag in New Paltz, NY, I felt like Stephanie Meyer walking the streets of Forks. (Twilight author/town it takes place in)

It’s an odd feeling, one very difficult to describe. Halfway between fantasy and reality as you walk past places where events in your books take place. No, in reality they never really happened, but in my mind I’ve pictured those events dozens upon dozens of times so they’ve taken on a reality all their own … in my mind at least.

It wasn’t only in New Paltz that this happened, but up at the Mohonk Mountain House and most assuredly in Stonington, CT. I was completely overwhelmed with deja vu when I walked into the Lighthouse Museum. I hadn’t been back to Stonington since before I started to write book 3 (the one that mostly takes place there)

It also happened when I was in the Hopkinton Town Clerks office doing genealogy research and was looking through land transactions of Randall Wells and wife Lois Maxson, actual characters in my novels! Talk about the blurring of the line between reality and fantasy!

Anyway, I had a wonderful trip and did some good research for the fifth novel. I got some good details to really tighten it up to a place I’ll be happy with.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures from my vacation.

SUNY New Paltz … AKA New Paltz University

Lecture Hall at SUNY New Paltz

View of Mt Mohonk from the top of the Faculty Tower of SUNY New Paltz

Me in front of Capen Hall

New Paltz in the rain.

Stonington CT: The Old Lighthouse Museum

Stonington CT: The Old Lighthouse Museum … view from the Top

Stonington CT: Omega Street

Stonington CT: The Old Lighthouse Museum

26 Sept 2014: My Family Tree in a Book Cover

Today my fourth novel went up for sale on Amazon.com. YEAH!! You may know that I have written in a considerable amount of Wells family and Rogers family history into my book series. I took my real life ancestors and wrote their stories into the fictional story of my characters. I even have Randall Wells and his wife Lois Maxson, my fourth great grandparents as main characters.

If nothing else, I thought I’d share my book cover with you. Not only a writer, I’m a bit of an artist as well and on this book, I took the time to illustrate my own cover art work. If you look click on the cover and look closely at the big tree to the right, you’ll notice the names of my family in it. At the top is Randall and Lois. Below that is Russell and his wife Lydia. Then Jonathan and Martha Ann, followed by Williams and Pauline, Elliott and Florence. At the bottom is Myra and Raymond, my parents. My complete Wells family line. Mom back to Randall.

The smaller sapling of a tree has the names of my character in the leaves.

Purity’s Progeny The Purity of Blood Vol IV by Jennifer Geoghan

Professor Walker’s House

About the only building in the books that I made up completely from scratch is Professor Walker’s house on the edge of the cliff. These photos were what sort of gave me the inspiration for the location of that house. Of course the more modern design of the home was pulled completely from my imagination. Honestly, I took these photos while out hiking around New Paltz but can’t remember if I ever knew what this building was. Anyone out there recognize it??? If so, let me know.

Inspiration House on the Cliff near New Paltz

So you’re ready for book two already??

So you finished my first book and you’re ready for the next one??? Well, fear not. Here’s what you can expect in Book two.

The Purity of Blood: Volume II
Purity Lost
Christmas vacation now over, it’s time for Sara Donnelly to head back to New Paltz University. What promises to be a happy semester and future with the man of her dreams turns out to be just the opposite when Daniel mysteriously disappears only a few weeks into term.
Torn by feelings of betrayal not only for the man she loves for abandoning her, but also for the grandfather who isn’t telling her everything he knows, Sara finds her way into the arms of another. Desperately searching for stability in a life that feels as if it’s coming apart at the seams, Sara turns to her best friend Ben. Finally giving in to the feelings she’s always had for him, she finds a quiet spot in the eye of the storm. But can she be happy with a love that seems only a shadow of the tumultuous emotions she still feels for Daniel? After she discovers that Ben isn’t exactly who he’s claimed to be, Sara decides to take a chance on him, but mysterious forces in her life may already be taking that decision out of her hands.
This exciting second novel in Jenifer Geoghan’s popular The Purity of Blood series is not to be missed.

Psst … Looking for a good book to read?

Well, I’ve got a suggestion for you. The most fabulous book published in the whole wide world. Yes, it’s that good. Of course I’m a little biased as I wrote it. 🙂 This book is the first in a series of five novels. The first two are currently for sale on Amazon and the final three will be out before the end of the year.

The Purity of Blood, Volume I

Sara Donnelly was completely unprepared for what she found when she arrived at New Paltz University. Leaving her parents behind to start a new chapter of her life in New Paltz, a small college town nestled in the Catskills of New York State; she hoped to escape the horrors of her past in the unfamiliar surroundings of her new life as a college student. Little does she know that shortly after her arrival she’ll not only be forced to confront the horrors of her childhood, but everything she’s ever believed about the world she lives in as well.

Through her relationships with her mysterious professor Jonathan Walker and his teaching assistant Daniel Simmons, she discovers that her family’s ancient past is the future that’s awaited her in New Paltz all along, causing both men to unexpectedly find their way into her heart, but for very different reasons.

With a fiery temperament and spirit to match her red hair, Sara discovers her family history colliding with her present day in ways that even a genealogist such as herself could never have imagined. After all, who could possibly imagine vampires walking out of the pages of fantasy and into your present day?

The first in Jennifer Geoghan’s wildly popular The Purity of Blood series, the story of Sara Donnelly continues in Purity Lost and three other full length continuing novels soon to be published in 2014.