New Donna Morrissey book a 'deep' story about family tragedy

Award winning author Donna Morrissey didn't have to look far to find inspiration for her latest novel, drawing on tragedies in her own family.

"You use real life as a blueprint..." said Morrissey. "I lost my brother in a very horrible accident, my mom lost three babies before that."

While that loss was the jumping off point for The Fortunate Brother, when Morrissey started the writing, the story took on a life of its own.

"The characters are inspired by real life events, so even though the emotional journey of characters might be authentic to what really happened, events and circumstances within an novelall become fictionalized," she said.

The Fortunate Brother is described as "a powerful tale of a family reeling from the tragic loss of a son while facing a mysteriousmurder on their doorstep."

A deep story

However, Morrissey said it's not a sad story. It's a deep story.

"When you suffer tragedy you don't feel lucky, but there's a lot of joy and integrity that comes out of it, too," she said.

"As one of the characters (in the book) said 'you're the fortunate one, you get to be with us a little big longer, we get to live that mystery."