Happiness Key was meant to be a stand-alone novel.  Take four very different women, throw them together at a difficult time in each of their lives, and trouble ensues.  As a novelist it was my job to entangle the problems from the personalities and resolve them.  End of story.

Only not quite.  My publisher liked Happiness Key. So did I, and happily, so did my readers.  Stories about unlikely friendships remind us what a large and diverse world we live in and how we can still reach out and learn from each other and offer support.  So was there another story-or two-in this place, among these characters?

The answer was simple.  Absolutely.  There were so many threads still untied.  Did Tracy and Marsh find common ground after all?  Were Alice and Olivia able to move on after the traumas detailed in Happiness Key?  Were Rishi and Janya able to find love, despite a rocky start to their arranged marriage?  And Wanda?  What was next for Wanda after a new start with husband Ken meant that "extra" job she'd undertaken to get even with him had to end?

Of course there was also the empty house, Herb's house, that needed a new renter.  Who would apply, and what would happen to the community of Happiness Key with a new neighbor or even two in residence?

The possibilities were too delicious to overlook.  Fortunate Harbor was the result of that new exploration, and afterwards, not quite ready to let go, I began the third and final book of the trilogy, Sunset Bridge, to be released next summer.  Sequels are so much fun.  I rarely "plant" plot threads to resolve with another book.  They always plant themselves, then I have the joy of figuring out what to do with them. These three novels truly were and are a joy.  I hope you find reading them to be one, as well.