Smoke in the Kitchen

About the Book

Smoke In the Kitchen is about second chances. This book, set in Freetown, Sierra Leone, tells the story about 43 year old Sara Moses who happens to find life’s purpose where she least expects. The challenging situation she faces is not uncommon to Sara. Following the untimely death of her fiancé and her unborn daughter, her life becomes empty and meaningless. With much persuasion from her sister, she picks herself up, dusts herself off, and begins a new life. She falls in love and marries Benjamin Moses, a government official. Still plagued by her challenging circumstances including her desire to have children, she starts the process of adopting two children. This doesn’t go well due to retaliation from an unknown source. Feeling devastated Sara channels her energy by forming a reforestation society and encourages an entire nation to replant the forest. At the end, Sara provides a second chance to nature as well as to two innocent children.

About the Author

Author’s Bio Gloria Allen is a freelance writer who lives in Somerset, New Jersey. She lived in Freetown, Sierra Leone before emigrating to the United States of America in May 1997. While in Sierra Leone she owned a secretarial institution and organized professional development conferences, training programs, and workshops for administrative and secretarial personnel. She also founded the National Association of Secretaries in 1995. Between 1994 and 1996 she self-published two booklets, Guide to Administrators and Secretaries and premiered the first secretarial magazine, The Secretary. She writes poetry, and three of her poems were published in an anthology by Poetry.com. Gloria graduated from the Clough Secretarial College, Canterbury, Kent, UK in 1966. She pursued courses in Meeting Management, Article and Fiction Writing from the New York University, The New School, as well as on line Gotham Writers’ Workshops respectively. She is a current member of the International Women’s Writing Guild, and also the Krio Descendant Union, Northeast Chapter. She is the president of her alma mater, Methodist Girls’ High School Alumnae Association, New York/New Jersey Branch. She has two married children and four grandchildren.