Madge Walls, Novelist from Hawaii Photo of Ka'anapali Beach courtesy of Jed Hirota
Madge Walls was raised in Honolulu, where her grandparents washed ashore in 1923 from South Africa and New Zealand via British Samoa. She raised her children on Maui, where she was a licensed Realtor and instructor for many years. She was also a regular freelance contributor to the Maui News.
She got the itch to write fiction about 25 years ago, but she couldn't think of anything to write about. Then one day she picked up a murder mystery in which a Realtor sauntered in on page two: overly dressed, overly made up, overly jeweled, and with her plump little feet jammed into dangerous looking four-inch heels. She was NOT a nice person, and she got nastier as the story went on. You guessed it--she turned out to be the murderer, and a very gruesome murder it was.
Madge was insulted. She was a Realtor, and many of her friends were Realtors. They were hardworking people, good parents, contributors to society in many important ways. Suddenly, she realized she had her subject. After all, a main character has to have a career. Madge knew the real estate business, and boy, was it interesting!
She also knew about being a haole (Caucasian) girl growing up and raising children in Hawaii amid swirling cross-cultural currents. Hawaii may be the 50th State, but life in the Islands is different in many, many ways. And you really have to live it to know it.
So she sat down and started to write. Enter Laura McDaniel, Realtor, a forty-something single mother living on Maui who sells a glamorous For-Sale-By-Owner to her favorite clients.
The property owner, a quirky anesthesiologist at Maui Memorial Hospital, has a desperate agenda of her own, precipitated by a disturbed housemate who throws every possible--and impossible--obstacle at the deal. Along the way, Laura’s runaway teenage daughter returns, distraught and pregnant. Mother and daughter have never gotten along, and things go from bad to worse as Annie shows no sign of wanting to care for her child. Laura faces the possibility of raising the child alone while trying to survive in an all-consuming business.
The trick, of course, was to take her life as a Realtor on Maui and dramatize it, make the characters larger than life, change the names and places to protect the guilty, add spine-tingling suspense, unexpected twists and turns, agonizing personal conflict, and voila! A full grown novel, Paying the Price.
A newspaper reviewer for the Honolulu Star Bulletin said, “Madge Walls’ Paying the Price is perfect for your next Honolulu to Vegas flight. And the existence of real-estate fiction is the perfect sign that the end is near--whether of the housing bubble or the universe, only time will tell.” Tongue-in-cheek, but he got it. And he was right about the housing bubble!
So the tide is turning. A recent email from a bookstore owner in the wilds of Kapa’au on the Big Island said, “I loved your book, and for the first time in my life I have a sympathetic feeling for Realtors. Bravo!” (Her Bravo, not the authors.)
Although her intention was to simply write a spellbinder that is both an insider’s look at the business in Hawaii, as well as a touching tale of mothers and daughters, it set Madge on a mission: to show the reading public what a Realtor’s life is really like. To portray the hard work, the caring, the drama, the human conflict that is their every day bread and butter.
The image of Realtors in fiction hasn't been the prettiest, but Madge likes to think she’s turning it around. Readers, both in the business and outside, have told her they've cheered Laura all the way to closing and asked for more. Paying the Price is followed by Buyers Are Liars, more of Laura's adventures in Maui real estate while dealing with a client who is slipping into dementia
Madge has just finished her third novel, The Visiting Girl, a historical set in Philadelphia and Portland, having retired from her recent careers of indexing nonfiction books (All Sky Indexing) and helping others write their memoirs (Memoirs by Madeline). She lives in southern Oregon, closer to her children and grandchildren. She’s having a mainland adventure and enjoying every minute of it.
She got the itch to write fiction about 25 years ago, but she couldn't think of anything to write about. Then one day she picked up a murder mystery in which a Realtor sauntered in on page two: overly dressed, overly made up, overly jeweled, and with her plump little feet jammed into dangerous looking four-inch heels. She was NOT a nice person, and she got nastier as the story went on. You guessed it--she turned out to be the murderer, and a very gruesome murder it was.
Madge was insulted. She was a Realtor, and many of her friends were Realtors. They were hardworking people, good parents, contributors to society in many important ways. Suddenly, she realized she had her subject. After all, a main character has to have a career. Madge knew the real estate business, and boy, was it interesting!
She also knew about being a haole (Caucasian) girl growing up and raising children in Hawaii amid swirling cross-cultural currents. Hawaii may be the 50th State, but life in the Islands is different in many, many ways. And you really have to live it to know it.
So she sat down and started to write. Enter Laura McDaniel, Realtor, a forty-something single mother living on Maui who sells a glamorous For-Sale-By-Owner to her favorite clients.
The property owner, a quirky anesthesiologist at Maui Memorial Hospital, has a desperate agenda of her own, precipitated by a disturbed housemate who throws every possible--and impossible--obstacle at the deal. Along the way, Laura’s runaway teenage daughter returns, distraught and pregnant. Mother and daughter have never gotten along, and things go from bad to worse as Annie shows no sign of wanting to care for her child. Laura faces the possibility of raising the child alone while trying to survive in an all-consuming business.
The trick, of course, was to take her life as a Realtor on Maui and dramatize it, make the characters larger than life, change the names and places to protect the guilty, add spine-tingling suspense, unexpected twists and turns, agonizing personal conflict, and voila! A full grown novel, Paying the Price.
A newspaper reviewer for the Honolulu Star Bulletin said, “Madge Walls’ Paying the Price is perfect for your next Honolulu to Vegas flight. And the existence of real-estate fiction is the perfect sign that the end is near--whether of the housing bubble or the universe, only time will tell.” Tongue-in-cheek, but he got it. And he was right about the housing bubble!
So the tide is turning. A recent email from a bookstore owner in the wilds of Kapa’au on the Big Island said, “I loved your book, and for the first time in my life I have a sympathetic feeling for Realtors. Bravo!” (Her Bravo, not the authors.)
Although her intention was to simply write a spellbinder that is both an insider’s look at the business in Hawaii, as well as a touching tale of mothers and daughters, it set Madge on a mission: to show the reading public what a Realtor’s life is really like. To portray the hard work, the caring, the drama, the human conflict that is their every day bread and butter.
The image of Realtors in fiction hasn't been the prettiest, but Madge likes to think she’s turning it around. Readers, both in the business and outside, have told her they've cheered Laura all the way to closing and asked for more. Paying the Price is followed by Buyers Are Liars, more of Laura's adventures in Maui real estate while dealing with a client who is slipping into dementia
Madge has just finished her third novel, The Visiting Girl, a historical set in Philadelphia and Portland, having retired from her recent careers of indexing nonfiction books (All Sky Indexing) and helping others write their memoirs (Memoirs by Madeline). She lives in southern Oregon, closer to her children and grandchildren. She’s having a mainland adventure and enjoying every minute of it.