Please Welcome D.F. Krieger and To Honor

I had the pleasure of reading this book pre publication and it was one of the saddest and yet funniest pieces I've ever read. That may seem strange to you...how can a story be both?

Well, in To Honor, you have a military wife who has been dealt a really bad hand: the loss of a child combined with a misbehaving spouse. The wife's pain and frustration and anger radiates off the page. She loves her husband, but he hurt her. When she needed him, he wasn't there. How can she get over it and forgive him?

But see, he's got some parts too, so we also get his POV: his grief, guilt, frustration.

I found myself cheering for the couple, wanting them to work things out, hoping their love would be enough. But where does the humor come into this?

The heroine is so spunky underneath her grief, has so much great attitude. I LOVED how she put her doctor in his place and handled her roommate, and that's all I'm gonna say.

Meanwhile, I asked D.F. to come on Book Babe and answer a question. This is an extremely emotional and honest post. I hope you all take the time to read it and remember: not all illnesses are visible.

How did your own experiences tie into writing To Honor?

Most people don't know, but To Honor strikes home for me in many ways. It is the story of my own experience in a parallel fashion. My time in a psych ward from attempting suicide allowed me to effectively write this story as realistically as possible.

Taking my wedding rings off and shuffling around in unlaced shoes were some of the most degrading and painful things I've ever been through. My roommate was highly OCD and constantly rearranged my things...Unfortunately rearranging hers got me put in one on one therapy with the "principal." Being accused of having a drug addiction because I overdosed on over-the-counter pills was demeaning  and I found that I could argue until I was blue in the face, but my word meant nothing because I was considered insane.

Little Known Fact: The psych ward almost didn't accept me. They said my issues were too complicated for them to handle. I still laugh about that to this day.

For two years straight I was hit up one side and down the other with the worst things that could happen to someone. A wreck, cancer, my mother's unexpected death, my husband's constant absence due to the military, a miscarriage that lasted seven months, and finally, discovering my husband wanted a divorce because his girlfriend told him to divorce me. In the end, I broke and took the wrong way out. I suffer from compound Post Traumatic Stress along with anxiety and depression. These things shape every day of my life and some days it is a struggle to get out of bed and face the world around me.

My therapist suggested that I use my passion (which happens to be writing) to express my pain and release it. I don't think she ever expected me to pursue publication with it! LOL. However, so many people suffer from invisible illnesses and our number one myth is that we believe we are alone in it. We're not alone! No matter what you've gone through, I can guarantee you someone else in the world has or is going through it too.

If I'd stopped for a moment and talked to others about my pain, instead of bottling it up thinking no one wanted to hear it, I would have sought help sooner. Suicide is not the way out, if anything it only complicates and makes matters worse for yourself and your family. Now I know that if I speak, I have people who will listen. I want anyone who feels alone or suicidal to read To Honor. It will show them that just because it feels like the end of the world, it doesn't mean it is.

I'm still not healed, and I never will be. People don't understand that with an illness like this, there is no secret cure, no overnight success that will allow you to greet the next day cured. I have to take it one day at a time and do my best. I hope that along the way as I fight my inner darkness, that I inspire others to do the same. ~ D. F. Krieger