Janice Case and her main character Liza have a lot in common: they are both mothers to children who live out of state, both live in South Georgia, are wonderful grandmothers who love their grandbabies, and are both widows.
In Case’s debut novel A New Life: A Story of Grief and Love, Liza, with the assistance of a small widow’s society, goes on a remarkable journey filled with success, opposition, despair, and joy, while dealing with the truths and reality of grief, and simultaneously stumbling into a detective’s pursuit of a pair of inexperienced diamond thieves.
The story takes place in South Georgia...somewhere.
“It’s pretty obvious that the location is based in Statesboro. I’ve even had people tell me that they knew some of the locations I made reference to in the book,” Case said.
There are many similarities between the world created by Case and the real world, but the biggest is the story of grief that the characters and their author share.
Case met her real-life sweetheart Chuck when she was 18, and he 19. The two were married 6 months later. The two shared many years together, and they raised a family here in Statesboro until 2007, when Chuck passed away.
“We had just celebrated our 39th anniversary before he passed,” Case said. “When he passed away, I poured all my thoughts and feelings into my journals.”
Case is an avid reader and writer. In school, she would slip her books between the pages of her textbooks, and after she was married, she wrote in a journal almost every day.
“I have volumes and volumes that I someday will pass to my children, and then my grandchildren,” she said.
It’s writing that has helped her mourn and process the grief of death, and this novel was a large part of it. Between her book and her journals, she was able to work through the worst of her feelings.
“Writing was my rescue. A lot of prayers, a lot of faith, but writing is what got my feelings out,” Case shared. “You miss the big things and the small things, but the sadness becomes manageable and that’s important.”
The book acts as a balancing act between the different ways and layers of grief, and a hodgepodge of characters and hijinks.
“I wrote this book mainly because I wanted to share things that I have learned and felt with those, particularly women, who have lost their loved ones," Case said. "You’ve still got a life to live -- even though it’s not the same one that you want or remember.”
In her spare time, Case has also been working on books for children.
“I think everyone needs to read for themselves,” Case said. “You can read history, and science, and math, we have to read for school, but we need to read for fun too.”
A New Life: A Story of Grief and Love can be purchased on Amazon in paperback, hardback, and Kindle versions. Outside of her writing, Case is an adult education instructor at Ogeechee Technical College.
