2023 A to Z Blog Challenge: April 1

Welcome to this year’s A to Z Blog Challenge. My theme this year is Did You Know? It’s a composite of things I’ve learned over the last ten years writing, researching, and editing. For each post I’ll publish, I’ll give the question and answer it, adding information on how I used it in my writing, and occasionally providing an excerpt from the book where it was used. I hope you’ll enjoy what essentially is a glimpse into my writing process.

This year, I’ve written two books in which I’ve used the same information but in a slightly different way. April first is for the letter A. Did You Know that Atavism occurs in humans as well as in plants and animals? In humans, atavism is often referred to as the throwback gene. When a man and a woman create a child, that child gets 50 percent of its DNA from each parent. But each child won’t necessarily get the same 50 percent from each parent. (More about this under the letter D.)

In biology, atavism is the modification of a biological structure. In humans, it refers to the reappearance of a trait that had been lost during evolution. Our genes do not determine who we are, but with atavism, they can sometimes serve as reminders of our evolutionary past. There are several common examples of atavism in humans which include: color blindness, extra nipples, extra fingers or toes, an elongated coccyx (“tail”), excess hair, third molars, sharpened eyeteeth, etc.

Scientists postulate that a person’s aggression may be described as atavistic because it supposedly goes back to the ancient days when humans had to fight to survive–think of cavemen battling their environment, barbarians fighting over food and land–come to think of it, we may not have evolved that much!

In “The Criminal Man”, first published in 1876, Lombroso postulated a theory to explain why some people committed crimes, while others didn’t. Essentially, Lombroso believed that some people were born with certain physical and psychological characteristics that made them prone to criminal behavior.

Nature versus nurture is nothing new and has been debated in both biology and society. It’s the argument about the competing factors which determine fate: genetics and environment. Even today, people are split on what has the greatest influence on a person’s life.

While I found the idea of a born criminal intriguing, I used the idea of physical traits and abilities’ aspect of atavism in my Paranormal Suspense/Psychic Romance novel Atonement as well as in my Romance Suspense Finding Melinda, both books to be released this spring.

In Atonement, my heroine Anca, has inherited abilities from long-lost ancestors. She’s more than a witch, and discovering what she can do, what her ancestor could do is both thrilling and frightening since the fate of those she loves hangs in the balance of her success or failure to recover certain artifacts and defeat a reincarnated god.

Although she was raised in an alleged haunted house by a Wiccan priestess, Anca Cole, a bartender with a degree in psychology, refuses to believe in magic, demons, ghosts, curses, or anything remotely supernatural. There’s a logical explanation for everything.
When her aunt has an accident, Anca rushes back to Salem, arriving home to realize that things aren’t what she expected. The family ghost exists and insists it’s time for Anca to accept and fulfill her destiny.
With help from Dr. Walt Tanner, the man who broke her heart, a couple of unusual cats, and an ancient parrot, Anca sets out to discover the truth about Cole Cottage and find the key to saving the future. This fight may have started more than three hundred and fifty years ago, but the war ends now.
Unless she and Walt can find what was lost, evil will prevail and destroy any chance they may have at a future together. Can their love overcome centuries of hatred, jealousy, envy, and greed, or will they be doomed to stay apart forever?

In Finding Melinda, the story revolves around a woman who’s always believed the fact that she doesn’t resemble her brother and sister who look like their mother is because she takes after ancestors on her father’s side. When she discovers she’s adopted, everything she knew about herself changes as she tries to identify who and what she is in light of this new information and find the family she never knew she had.

That’s it for today. Come back tomorrow for a Did You Know ? about B.

Find other posts here.

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