Donbridge, Books 1-3 - RD Vincent - 3 Free Books

Welcome, RD. When did you become interested in writing?

I have been writing for most of my life, but I think the most pivotal moment in my young adult life was writing about the loss of my grandfather when I was in high school. That was a hard task for me to do and frankly it was the most uplifting. It was a tragedy in my life that happened to me when I was 7 years old, but the impact was so great that it shaped my very soul beyond any other experience. From that point on, I felt that having heart, emotion, and a story to tell created the foundation for reaching others who would read my work.

I lost my mother when I was 7 years old, and it has affected the rest of my life, so I understand. Tell my readers a little about yourself, so they can get to know you.

I am an American farm boy raised in the last foothold of Rural New York. There I was raised by parents, but influenced heavily by my grandparents who lived through the other side of the woods in the great forest that centered our neighborhood. There my grandmother told tales of once living legends whose stories spanned my family over 7 generations. While she toiled away in her country kitchen, she wove tales around family history all while baking and cooking while she spoke. She was the greatest woman I have ever met in my time on this planet and for some reason the Lord matched us together and with that, one of the longest friendships of my life took place. Along with her sister, my Great Aunt Dorothy, the three of us would garage sale on the weekends, share stories, and seek advice from one another all mastering the great river of this chaotic world.

What kind of books do your like to read?

I personally enjoy fantasy books especially the works of L. Frank Baum who wrote the Oz series. Such a fantastic imagination that I believe set the stage for other authors works. I relate to Baum as he too was a traveling salesman, a broke businessman, and faced much tragedy in his life. His humble way about him and his never-ending drive to never fail was an inspiration to me. Aside from fantasy, I am huge reader of science journals and business magazines. I enjoy reading success stories, but also enjoy reading why a business failed. I believe life lessons are something that you research, not something that is easily handed to you.

Your books don’t fit into a regular genre. Please tell us what they are and why you wrote them.

It’s a funny thing when people look at my books the first thing they say is “So it’s stories from your grandmother and recipes? Weird, I will take two sets.” I always laugh at that line because I have had it happen to me a number of times while traveling across the country with the series. The genre closely relates to folktales and more importantly American Folktales. I say that as in American Culture, we have so few folktales of our own for our society is a “Throw it out” society. We hold nothing for long, take buildings down and throw a plaque up if something historic happened there. Our stories are handled the same way, most of us half listen to our older generations and because of that, stories are lost and taken with them to the grave. Donbridge, my series, has an inspirational message of American preservation which traverses generations and brings everyone back into their own grandmother’s kitchen and gives the feeling of home which is lost to many. The stories and characters are heartwarming and yet enduring. People relate to the stories and because of that they have been a popular addition to most readers’ libraries. A funny little fact that the youngest reader of the Donbridge Series was 9 years old and eldest reader was 96.

Please share a page or two with my readers.

Taken from Donbridge: The Ring of Lazarus, Book 1 in the Donbridge Series.

Grandmother stood at the gold-flecked Formica countertop, chopping onions and then scraping them across the old cutting board, adding the pieces to the contents of a giant cast-iron pot. The pot had been bubbling a long time, probably since before her daughter had dropped the three grandchildren off on the way to the diner. In their world, overnight snowfall meant the joy of closed school, but for her it simply meant a longer drive to her job as a waitress with a detour to stash the children at grandparents’ house for the day.

“I don’t like chili!” Jasper hissed behind Grandmamma’s back. “She makes us eat it every time!”

“That’s because it’s cold out, silly,” Michael shot back, defending his saintly grandmother.

“Then why is it called ‘chilly?’ Huh? If it’s so cold, we should be eating ‘warmy!’” Jasper stuck out his tongue and it took all Michael’s strength not to knock him backwards in his chair.

Grandmamma already had to break up a fight between the boys over who got to pour the cereal, and she’d spent half an hour getting chewing gum out of little Mary’s hair. Mary had howled like she was being ripped bald-headed. Michael didn’t think Grandmamma could take much more.

“You’ll eat it if you know what’s good for you,” Michael whispered, shoving his balled up fist against his palm.

“But Michael! She puts weird stuff in it!” Jasper whimpered, looking towards the stove. Michael made a face at him and took a menacing step in his direction, but Jasper countered by protesting, “I saw her! She put some brown stuff in it!”

“That’s the peanut butter,” Grandmamma said without turning around. Both boys jumped. “I’ve always put peanut butter in my chili.”

“Really?” Michael asked, struggling to remember if he’d ever tasted it in all the years she’d been warming them up with her special snow day chili. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, it’s all we had for a while when I was a girl back in Donbridge. It came in tins stamped ‘non-perishable’ on the side. It kept us alive and strong when meat was scarce, especially during the war.”

“Where’s Donbridge?” Jasper asked quietly. Grandmamma lay her wooden spoon on the stove and walked to the dinette table, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled and looked out the window to where the snow was still falling in giant puffs.

“I’ll tell you all about it while you work,” she said. She produced a bowl of potatoes and two rattly metal peelers from the counter. She sat, pulled up a bowl of carrots and a knife for herself and began to peel as she talked.

Tell us where my readers can obtain copies of your books.

You can head to www.Donbridgeseries.com and there you can learn more about the Donbridge series, purchase our products as well as our books.

Are there other places you can be found on the Internet?

Donbridge books are available on Amazon, however, Donbridgeseries.com has the books for a cheaper price, signed and free shipping.

Thank you, RD, for sharing these books with my blog readers and me.

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