Book reflects everyday life

When Jane Hoppe first told the story of 25-year-old Maria Beaumont, who is dumped by her boyfriend, she expected it to be a short story.

She decided to take her first fiction work to be critiqued by the writers group at the Grayslake Public Library and received a positive response.

But then the members asked what happens next.

"I said 'oh nothing happens next. It's a short story. This is it,' " she said.

The group did not accept that answer.

"They said, 'oh no. We like this character. We want to know what happens next,' " she said. "I was dumbfounded because I had not thought beyond that."

The Grayslake writer said she sat at a blank computer screen with a blank mind a long time. But she later discovered she liked Maria.

"I liked where it was going, and liked knowing that I could carry it further and that she could grow further from this," she said.

Maria's story became Hoppe's first published novel, titled "Beyond Betrayal."

Hoppe said she wanted to write about everyday life.

"Everybody has relational issues with family, with friends, with coworkers. Everybody has challenges in his or her life," she said. "It is how we deal with them. It is the little choices we make when we're presented with those challenges that really influence the course of our life."

She also wanted Maria to make choices that the average 20-something may make differently. She is an old-fashioned woman living in a modern world.

"A lot of modern life is very positive. Some of it is shallow and misleading. I wanted her to make some wiser choices and maybe have the readers ask those questions themselves," she said.

Hoppe said the men in the writers group did not enjoy the story as much as the women. They found Maria's simple life to be boring.

"One of the men said, 'You had your characters go blueberry picking. Who goes blueberry picking? Nobody goes blueberry picking,' " Hoppe said. "I said, 'I do.' "

Her husband, Robert, has not read it, possibly influenced by the male voice in the writers group.

But she adds, "He is happy that I've gotten to this point because he has been along for the whole ride. He has seen every step of the process," she said.

While the book is set in a fictional Chicago suburb called Cherryvale, Hoppe said places in Lake County inspired her and became part of the book.

For instance, Maria's pursuit to study art history and work at a museum became inspired by Hoppe's experience working at the Lake County Discovery Museum in the 1980s.

Hoppe said when working at the museum, a number of coworkers had an art history background. She loved their perspectives.

The building design along Milwaukee Avenue in downtown Libertyville also appears in the illustrations created by friend Robert Stotts, also of Grayslake. Maria saves money by living in a small apartment above a store in downtown Cherryvale. Because she loves all things Victorian, she loves this apartment because it has a bay window seat.

To help illustrate her home, Hoppe stood along Milwaukee Avenue and using her cell phone camera, took pictures of the bay windows along Milwaukee Avenue.

Hoppe says she wants to begin work on the next novel in the series. She has four sequels thought out in her mind.

But right now, she is focusing on marketing. She will be talking about the book at 7 p.m. May 30 at Under the Sycamore Tree in Grayslake.

For information, visit Hoppe's Web site www.janehoppe.com.