I totally planned it ...

Did you hear that Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? Why is that significant to me? I'm so glad you asked!

Not only is Mockingbird one of my favorite novels of all time, but I make a couple of references to it in my latest release, True Vision.

Charlie Trudeau, my super-empathic heroine, has a cat named Atticus. Charlie named her furry friend after Mockingbird's hero, Atticus Finch, a man who reminded her of her father when she was a kid. At one point in True Vision, when she feels her dad has let her down, she thinks this:

Her throat thickened with the familiar yearning for him to be her hero again, her Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, the tall, handsome man who fought the good fight and protected his children from evil.
Charlie has some of the same qualities as Atticus Finch, too, in that she considers it her journalistic duty to help "the innocent, helpless and screwed" (that's how she puts it). When I read Mockingbird in high school for English class, it might have been the first time I enjoyed, and got into, my homework. I just fell in love with everything about that book: the writing, the characters, Atticus Finch.  

Just for gigs, I've included a picture of Charlie's cat Atticus. Doesn't he totally look like an Atticus? He should also look like a MacArthur, because that was his actual name. He was my bud for 15 catnip-y, purrfect years. He had the Eeyore slouch just like Charlie's Atticus. Not to mention the ability to look really, really smug, as you can tell from his mug here. :)