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"The Road to Mama Bear"
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About the Author... Nancy Palmie
Nancy Palmie was born and raised in rural Wisconsin. In her second year of college, she dropped out, went on a spontaneous road trip, and landed in Boulder, Colorado, where she met her future husband. We won't discuss how many years ago that was but they both loved the area so much they stayed, bought a house, and settled down.
Ten years, three jobs, and two daughters later, Ms. Palmie returned to college, earning first an associates in technical writing, then a bachelor's in communications, and finally an MBA. During and after all that classroom fun, she followed her life-dream, writing creatively, which is the perfect antidote from her day job, technical writing. Though writing technical manuals and online help to support storage networking products is a fine profession, somehow it does not afford a person who possesses a sometimes-disturbing imagination the outlet she needs.
Palmie started on a smaller scale, with poems that were published in poetry journals and some short stories. Her stories grew and her characters became increasingly complex and the time came, suddenly and for sure, when it was necessary to develop them on a larger scale.
The Road to Mama Bear, a story told through a male protagonist, is a complete departure from The Open Season, Palmie's first published novel.
A description of The Road to Mama Bear
Matt Haldeman's life is not without heartache. His mother dies too soon and his marriage ends in disaster. For years he manages a difficult, high-tech engineering group. Taking all things into consideration, though, Matt is one lucky guy. He amasses a fortune by the time he is forty but when he begins to suffer from emotional and physical distress, he drops out at the top of his game.
Matt sets out to find all he had been missing. Hoping to develop a relationship with his estranged teenaged daughter, Matt, Kaura, and Kaura's friend Brittany travel through the western states. When the girls start to get on his nerves, however, he ships them back to their parents. He then ventures through Nevada, Montana, British Columbia, and Alaska, experiencing all he hoped to see and do. Needing to plan for the future, for he couldn't roam aimlessly forever, Matt finally settles in Seattle. With the help of his long-lost brother Christian, he spends a fortune in time and money restoring an old Ford pick-up truck. Upon completion, Matt takes the truck out for a ride and promptly wrecks it, nearly destroying himself.
After recuperation, Matt is altered. That, coupled with the untimely death of a good friend, he questions the only truth he had ever known. A fortuitous meeting at his friend's funeral led him to the ranch in the middle of British Columbia, owned by Mama Bear. At the ranch, Matt transforms. Years pass and Mama Bear dies, leaving the ranch to Matt. He takes time out to visit his loved ones for the last time in Massachusetts.
When he returns to the ranch, Matt is not at peace. He hears a voice, telling him that someone he loved would soon die. When his beloved sister Amy dies in a senseless car accident, Matt questions everything he thought he knew, yet it is Amy's death which ultimately brings him his final truth.
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