Protection for Hire Behind-the-Scenes: Wings Domestic Abuse Shelter

In chapter 1 of my humorous romantic suspense novel, Protection for Hire, the setting is Wings domestic abuse shelter. My heroine, Tessa, is driven to champion women, and I naturally wanted her to work with women who needed her help. I didn’t want to use a real San Francisco shelter for my book for various reasons, so I created Wings but based it loosely off of a real women’s shelter in San Jose called Heritage Home.

Heritage Home is a shelter for pregnant women run by CityTeam Ministries, and they provide shelter, training, and spiritual encouragement for homeless pregnant women. They’re run out of a glorious Victorian house in downtown San Jose, which is maintained by volunteers and donations, and which provides a real atmosphere of “home” for women who are at some of the darkest points in their lives.

I’ve donated to Heritage Home and also taken a tour, meeting some of the staff and some of the women. Their stories and their courage were the seeds that made me write about Tessa, her client Elizabeth, and Wings domestic shelter in Protection for Hire. Since I made Wings a domestic abuse shelter, it’s a bit more secretive than Heritage Home, and I gave Wings a rather hefty security team, which made for some fun scenes in both Protection for Hire and the opening scene of A Dangerous Stage.

I’m re-releasing an extended version of Protection for Hire! To hear when it’ll be available, join my Camy Tang newsletter.

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No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

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