B.J. Bassett: The Story Behind the Story of Sweet Charity

The Story Behind the Story of Sweet Charity

B. J. Bassett

My novel Sweet Charity is dedicated to Karen. She was my best friend during our formative years.

My dad was a contractor, and would build a house on speculation. We’d live in it for about a year, then he’d sell it, and we would move into another house he’d built. Many times I transferred to a different school district, which was difficult because I was shy.

The year I entered the sixth grade was one of those new-kid-at-school times. My mother had made me a darling green, white, and black plaid skirt. I wore it with a white blouse and green sweater and new saddle shoes with bobby socks, of course.

Karen befriended me. She was everything I wasn’t. She was smart, athletic, popular, and cute. She had nice, thick brunette hair. I, on the other hand, was an average student, was hit in the face with a softball because I didn’t put the glove in front of my face, and my hair was fine and difficult to style. Karen wore a button that said, I like Ike. I didn’t even know who Ike was.

One year for my birthday she gave me a plaque. A friend is not a fella who is taken in by sham. A friend is one who knows your faults and doesn’t give a d***. I loved that plaque and kept it for many years.

When we were in the ninth grade, my family made another move, miles away from Santa Monica. I had dreamed of going to SAMO High with my best friend, but it was not to be.

Karen and I kept in touch for many years with letters, eventually losing contact. In 2005, I tried to find her through the SAMO High School Alumni website. I emailed her, bubbling over with how thrilled I was to find her, how much her friendship had meant to me, and how she’d influenced my life. My heart broke when her husband answered my correspondence, letting me know Karen had died from a rare form of cancer a few years before. I grieved for my loss and for all the years we’d lost together.

My novel Sweet Charity begins in the 1950s in my beloved Santa Monica, California. It was a different time of sock hops, poodle skirts, innocence, and unwed pregnant girls sent away so they wouldn’t disgrace their family or themselves.

When I wrote Sweet Charity, Karen was my inspiration. She was my best friend in the fifties, and I believe I’m the person I am today because of her influence.

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I’m pleased to announce that Sweet Charity is available for free as an e-book on Kindle Unlimited.

You can contact me at:

B J Bassett

Email: bassett106@charter.net

Website: www.bjbassett.com

Blog: http://bjbassett.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bunny.bassett

Twitter: B J Bassett@bassett106

I found myself in tears by the end of the second chapter. Ms. Bassett is an emotional and lovely writer. Her eye for detail enhanced the experience of the story. I think you’ll enjoy the story as much as I did. Marie Bast I started it last night and couldn’t put it down. Chris Nunan Great book. Marylin Nelson I loved this story and award it five stars. Kathleen Friesen

Dr. Nancy St. John has a well-kept, twenty-year-old secret.

When Nancy was a high school senior, her socialite mother and henpecked father banished her from her home in Santa Monica, California, because of her pregnancy. Nancy left her friends, her school, and her boyfriend, Skip, to live with her spinster aunt in Chicago until she gave birth to a girl. Angry and hurt, Nancy broke all ties with her past.          

            Heartbroken, Nancy concentrates on her work and avoids intimate relationships. She hides her feelings. Hope, the daughter Nancy gave up for adoption twenty years earlier, finds her. A bond blossoms between them but is challenged by Hope’s leukemia. Hope needs a bone marrow transplant, but she has a rare blood type. Nancy is not a match. She is determined to find Skip, Hope’s biological father, who never knew about Nancy’s pregnancy or why she disappeared so mysteriously.

Purchase SWEET CHARITY HERE

Author B. J. Bassett encourages others as an author, teacher and speaker. Her books include Lily, Gillian’s Heart, and coauthor of My Time with God (a children’s devotional) which sold 55,000 copies while in print.

She teaches writing workshops at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. As a speaker for Stonecroft Ministries, she tells her story of rejection and acceptance, not only in life, but as a writer as well. She also offers book talks.