Shannon here: Marji Laine shares her grandparents’ love story. Comment or answer the question in this post to enter the drawing for a copy of her latest Historical Mystery Romance, A Giant Murder. Deadline: Aug 28th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’ s Marji:
Doing the research on my new release, A GIANT MURDER, became extremely personal. Not only was I investigating people and places from my hometown of Dallas, Texas, I was studying the time and places where my grandmother grew up, where she met and married my grandfather, and where she lived her entire life.
My maternal grandmother was Bobbie Zefflah Stevenson and this is a photo of her as a teenager walking in downtown Dallas. The youngest (by several years) of twelve, she was raised as much by her older sisters, right alongside their kids, as she was by her aging mother. During the 1920s, she moved off the farm in Gatesville, Texas, to live with her sister, closest in age, Opal Boone, who had just married and moved into Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas.
Mawmaw Bobbie was a stitch. I can only imagine the fun she had being a teenager during the Roaring Twenties. She was absolutely gorgeous – Debbie Reynolds type of gorgeous. You can bet I saw her in some of the scenes of my book, particularly the flapper scenes. What I only recently learned about my grandmother was that she was married as a teenager to an abusive man. Her brother-in-law helped her file for divorce. What a heartbreaking situation.
Meanwhile, my grandfather, Lloyd “Red” Morin, was a young firefighter in Dallas with an easy-going nature and an excellent sense of humor. I don’t know where he finally got the courage to speak to my grandmother, but he’d noticed her long before he spoke to her. She was so out of his league, according to him. With a long face, large ears, and untamed auburn waves, he considered himself to have little to offer.

Lloyd and Bobbie Morin (right) wedding reception
But he had something my grandmother so desperately needed – a kind and faithful heart that would love her until the day he died. They married at the justice of the peace with their best friends standing up for them, and then the four of them celebrated at a restaurant afterward. In the early 1930s, it was likely the best they could do, but their meager beginning left a legacy of love, two daughters, five grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and fifty-six years of a happy marriage.
I dedicated this book to my grandmother. Maybe my main character, Josephine (Josie) Jacobs is a little like her, spunky and confident, even though she’d consider herself to be rather timid. Josie never looked for trouble. She minded her manners and her own business. But when a gunshot explodes on the other side of a hotel door, what can she do except report it? How could she have an inkling that she’d be the one suspected of the shooting?
A GIANT MURDER blends unexpected romance in the unique era where simplicity and modernism collided. It adds the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” and a juicy murder just for grins.
About Marji: Marji Laine is a graduated homeschooling mom of four. She shares her North Dallas home with her husband of almost thirty-five years, her twin daughters who are completing their college degrees, and a rescue pup named Rosie (or Madam Barksalot, depending on the day).
Most of Marji’s days are filled with her freelance job with Faith Driven Book Production Services or helping the authors of Write Integrity Press publish their books, but when she does have spare time, she loves game night with her family. Strategy games are her favorites, like Dominion, Scythe, Villainous, and Codenames, but she’s also always up for a game of Hand & Foot or Canasta.
She enjoys NASCAR races and football, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, and old reruns of detective shows. She works with the women’s ministry at her church, teaches a women’s Bible study, and sings alto in the choir. Learn more & connect:
Marji’s Website Marji’s Email Marji’s Facebook Marji’s Twitter
About the book – A Giant Murder:
An exclusive party with the socially elite of Dallas.
An elaborate venue high atop the downtown Adolphus Hotel.
A host who is one of the richest men in 1926 . . .
Also, one of the deadest.
Josephine Jacobs was just doing her job, serving the food giant everything except his eternal “parting shot.” With the Century Ballroom literally full of suspects, why has she been pinpointed for shooting TG Taggert?
And there are plenty of motives for his death:
The theft of Chef Ganderson’s “magic” beans,
TG’s tryst with and mistreatment of songstress Harper Davis,
And then there’s the thief in the family, TG’s son Jack.
With her long-time “friend,” Officer Porter O’Brien, Josie attempts to find out who really killed the giant, and clear her name.
Can’t wait for the drawing? Worried you won’t win? Interested in Marji’s other titles?
Get your copies now!
A Giant Murder – Amazon Marji’s Amazon Author Page
Question for Readers: I was floored to learn that my grandmother had gone through a divorce and two weddings before she’d reached her twentieth birthday. Maybe the change in the way women viewed themselves back in the 1920s gave her the needed courage? What is the most surprising thing you’ve ever learned about a parent, grandparent, or relative?
Come back Aug 20th for Donna Schlachter!
My debut novel is about a woman disguising herself as a teenage boy and going up a cattle trail from Texas to Abilene, KS. My grandfather drove cattle from Texas to sell in the Cherokee Nation and met my grandmother there. My dad’s old enlistment papers for World War II list his occupation as cowpuncher.
How cool is that! Can you imagine taking that trip on horseback as a teenage boy?
Can you imagine taking a trip like that on horseback for weeks. And as a teenager?
Wait, Betty, I think I remember this story when you were first putting it together at Lena’s. Is it the same story? I love that premise!
I don’t really know that there is anything I can say that was surprising… Except maybe that step-great-great-something/somehow-married-into-the-family–maybe-mobster-grandfather. 😉
Or so goes a family joke.
Lol! Ours was that we were related to Robert Louis Stevenson. Um – nope!
Our family suspicion was that we were related to Robert Louis Stevenson – Um, Nope!
I guess my family is rather dull.
Maybe they’re just really good at keeping secrets! LOL! (That’s exactly what I thought this time last year!)
That my grandmother sewed coins into her dress skirt to hide them when she came over from Italy.
What a little gem of a detail!
Lots of interesting things happened in my family. My grandparents met on the mission field in China. They worked for different mission boards. About the same time their denominations merged, in the early 1900’s, Grandpa sent $25 to Tiffany’s for a diamond. They threw in the setting. I have the diamond but not the original setting.
My mother and her brothers were born in China. They lived next to the summer Palace of Chaing Kai Sheck. Mother used to steal flowers from the garden. She used to play with a snake, an asp, near the wall until her parents found out. The family sometimes traveled back to the states. Once they were on the same ship as the Emperor of Japan. They were supposed to turn their faces away from him but my mother hid and peeked! She wrote memoirs at age 99 and published them. She died at 101 in 2018.
Oh, this is priceless, Paula! Wow!
My mother’s father comes from Clan Keith from Scotland
That my grandmother had been married before my grandfather and left her previous husband,
I have a winner! Diane Estrella won the drawing. I appreciate Marji for being my guest and everyone else for stopping by.