‘Freaky Heart’: Pine author’s new book continues her promotion of acceptance

In her latest book, Pine resident Lori M. Jones writes about a teenager who bears a scar from a series of surgeries.

“Cracked wide open, actually,” the main character, Annalise, muses. “Like a clamshell.”

And so begins “Freaky Heart,” a journey through the mind of a young woman who was born with a defect in the epicenter of her circulatory system.

“She thinks the world hates her,” the author explained. “She thinks the world thinks she’s a freak. As she learns, that’s really just her perspective. And when she changes her perspective, she kind of changes her feelings on life and her purpose.”

The novel — released, appropriately enough, on Valentine’s Day — marks Jones’ fifth book, after two for children and two fictional works for women, and her first foray into a story geared toward teens.

Her initial effort, “Riley’s Heart Machine,” is based on her younger daughter, now a senior at Pine-Richland High School. Riley, too, entered the world with a heart defect, and Lori put her thoughts on the matter into writing.

In the meantime, she became a particularly active member of the Children’s Foundation, an Illinois-based organization dedicated to funding congenital heart defect research. She now serves as secretary of the group’s board of directors, chairing the marketing and communications committee.

“Freaky Heart” partly is based on her learning about the experiences of youngsters and their families through her work with the foundation.

“I was interested in telling the story of these young kids, when you have babies who have heart defects and then what happens when they get older,” she said.

One of the girls with whom she spoke actually is named Annalise, and Jones found her journey through life to be especially inspiring.

“She doesn’t think she has a purpose,” Jones said. “And she finds, through her hospital stay, she does have a purpose.”

Although she earned her bachelor’s degree in communications and journalism, Jones opted not to go that route professionally after college.

“It wasn’t until I had my first daughter” — Sydney, a Penn State student — “that I started writing stories for her and writing children’s stories,” Lori recalled. “And then when Riley came along, it became therapeutic, to write about that. I wrote it in a poem form, and then a children’s publisher said, ‘Write this in prose, and I’ll publish it.’”

Jones subsequently began taking “Riley’s Heart Machine” to schools for an assembly she calls Writing With Heart, teaching students about both topics, along with providing lessons on accepting the distinctiveness of individuals.

“At the end I say, ‘What makes you special, and what would your story be about?’ And kids love to share their stories,” Jones said. “Not just heart defects, but I want any kid to read that who has something different and to relate, that you’re not alone.”

Her other children’s book, “Confetti the Croc,” explores similar territory, with a crocodile facing social challenges because he is multicolored, rather than just plain reptilian green.

Jones ventured into romance with “Renaissance of the Heart,” which won a 2015 Readers’ Favorites Book Awards silver medal in women’s fiction.

“It kind of pulls together some real-life experiences mixed with my love of Pittsburgh,” she said, noting that she and husband Mark moved back to Western Pennsylvania from Washington, D.C., because they wanted to raise their children in the region. Lori is a Monroeville native and Gateway High School graduate, and Mark grew up in Sewickley, graduating from Quaker Valley.

As for her next book, Lori has a good idea going.

“My great uncle died on the beaches of Normandy, and I got all of the letters that he wrote. So I started a novel sort of based on that,” she said. “And he wanted to be a writer. We have that in common.”

Visit www.lorimjones.com.