Dumfries Applebee’s helps authors launch new book

F. Sharon Swope and Genilee Swope Parente have sent Private Investigator Sam Osborne on yet another quest in Treasured Fate, the fourth book of The Fate Series. In the current book, Sam helps a farmer friend who advertises for a wife and gets a lot more: a battle against a murderer and a search for a missing treasure.

The Dumfries, VA Applebee’s is helping the authors celebrate by inviting local residents to the launch of the book September 15.

Swope and Parente are a mother/daughter duo who began writing late in life: Swope is now 88 and Parente is 62. Since the successful launch of the first book in the series, Twist of Fate, the two have made it their mission to encourage others to seek their dreams regardless of age or other limitations. Swope is legally blind from macular degeneration and is physically limited, yet she and her daughter have traveled all over Northern Virginia to speak and to sell their books.

“I never could have imagined that I’d have a book series as well as a book of short stories published in just a few years,” Swope said.

Both Swope and Parente have always wanted to publish fiction, but didn’t make the dream come to life until inspiration came from the success of children’s book author Allyn M. Stotz, who is another of Swope’s daughters and who now has six books under her belt. Although the elder Fate Series author has always been creative and active, pursuing quilting, painting, pottery and genealogy, just to name a few, she also has had numerous characters and plots running around in her head.

“Getting them down on paper and into the minds of readers is a joy,” she said. “I would encourage anyone who has wanted to write their stories to find a way to make it happen—hopefully before they are 82 years old!”

Swope was a columnist and helped to run her hometown newspaper in Ohio with her husband for most of her career. Parente is a full-time freelance writer and editor, who is working on her own young adult series.

The Dumfries Applebee’s hosted book three of the series, Violet Fate. The restaurant is acknowledged in several of the Fate Series books because the authors meet there regularly to fine-tune their mysteries.

“The staff has had to listen to us come up with devious new ways to kill off characters, steal, kidnap, hide evidence and now, hide and retrieve a treasure. We figure they’ve been part of our story,” Parente said.

The book launch is 4 to 7 at 3330 Pine Bluff Drive, Dumfries, VA.