 What do you do when your journey down the rabbit hole that is Lyme disease likely began with a misdiagnosis of ringworm, led to a possibility of advanced bladder cancer, morphed into several autoimmune disorders that required visits to a myriad of medical personnel, and finally, nearly a decade later, was correctly diagnosed as Lyme? Perhaps, like many, you write a memoir. Or you turn to the wisdom of Albert Camus and tell your story in a novel since, "Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth." Author, screenwriter, and regionally Emmy-nominated producer Dana Biscotti Myskowski has given her 50-year-old protagonist, Anna McGrory, a state director for a U.S. Senator from the Berkshires of Massachusetts, all of the exhausting, perplexing, and often painful symptoms of her own Lyme disease and its co-infections. “When her beloved senator boss winds up dead, even Lyme disease can’t stop Anna McGrory from becoming a self-proclaimed Nancy Drew. With more twists and turns than the Mohawk Trail, I Cannot Play With You is suspenseful, surprising, and a total page-turner,” writes Hilary Weisman Graham, TV writer for Orange is the New Black and Bones, and author of Reunited from Simon & Schuster. Anna travels from her home in Concord, New Hampshire, to the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, into Boston, and up to the islands off the coast of Portland, Maine, in this tale of intrigue. The story, which begins and ends on idyllic Cliff Island, Maine, features favorite local businesses such as Casco Bay Lines in Portland and Angelina’s Ristorante Italiano in Concord. Cultural attractions also appear, including MASS MoCA and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which are spotlighted in end-of-chapter summaries with links to Anna McGrory’s Pinterest pages. Also featured is the Cliff Island Stone Library, as well as the Trustees of Reservations’ Field Farm in Williamstown, Massachusetts, which serves as the fictional U.S. Senator’s home. The author has been speaking with audiences at New Hampshire bookstores and libraries, occasionally joined by Lyme Literate Medical Doctor Lynn Durand of Family Tree Healthcare in Concord, NH. She also joined the Fifth Annual Midcoast Lyme Disease Support and Education Conference in Augusta, Maine in April. Her speaking schedule extends through October as she continues work on her second book in the Lyme disease murder mystery series. I Cannot Play With You, released in December 2018 by Texas publisher Black Rose Writing, is available at Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shops, the Cliff Island Store & Café, MainStreet BookEnds in Warner, New Hampshire, and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and via Indigo/Chapters in Canada. For more information, please surf the author’s website while you're here. | I Cannot Play With You, which begins & ends on Cliff Island, features a protagonist juggling an assortment of confusing Lyme disease symptoms as she finds herself becoming an amateur sleuth following the apparent suicide of her U.S. Senator boss. |
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