Tuki (Back in the Game with Tweedle & Friends)
Life involves chapters that advance through stages. How we see the world as a teenager is different than how we process life a generation later. This progression lured me into writing a novel centered around my favorite character, number one of all the wonderful ones I have brought to life and page.
Twenty years after rocketing to stardom and shocking the world by abruptly disappearing into blue-collar anonymity, times are hard, money is gone, and Tuki Banjo’s rudderless life has collapsed into middle-aged, penny-pinching despair.
This is the baseline for the story in which my favorite character was compelled to star: A quiet, lonely teenage girl with a miserable, impoverished upbringing suddenly had everything, didn’t like it, and walked away. Two decades later Tuki is surrounded by mushrooming problems at a different stage of life. Faced with a desperate need to once again get off the mat, Tuki is a shell of the woman she had been at twenty. Now forty, the walls of life’s reality are closing in. Her will to continue is diminished. Tuki faces the life-defining choice so many do: surrender and cave from the outside in or rekindle a newfound determination to persevere.
As with most of my stories, this is a multicultural ensemble story with a positive, uplifting ending. The message woven throughout this story centers around the power of friends sensing they are needed and stubbornly insisting to help without being asked; and that a rich life is never measured by money but by heart, courage, and compassion.
The backdrop for Tuki (Back in the Game with Tweedle & Friends) is the beautiful tapestry of the Thoroughbred horse breeding industry. Tuki is safe here, happy here, and finds true north with newborn foals who love without judgment. This is a people story, not a “horse” story, so for those curious about farm life, it affords a wonderful glimpse into life with animals every bit as astute judging humans as they are each other.
Tuki (Back in the Game with Tweedle & Friends) is the third in a continuum spanning three decades that started with the romantic comedy 12 Miles to Paradise, which was followed by Tuki Banjo, Superstar. Each is a standalone story featuring multicultural ensembles. I love this character so very much—all these years later she still inspires me—and trust that once you meet her, you will feel the same.
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All the best,
