Pearls My Mother Wore is about loss and recovery, resentment and forgiveness.

The novel opens on the day that forty-three-year-old “nice girl” Kelly Tremblake buries the ashes of her forty-two-year-old husband, Grayson. Devastated by his sudden and unexpected death, Kelly finds the sweet, uncomplicated life she has intentionally crafted for herself screeching to a halt. As she pulls increasingly inward in response to this psychic blow, what she finds is complicated and decades old. On bereavement leave from work, and isolating from her friends, Kelly awakens to long-denied memories of her troubled childhood. Incidents resurface. She is swept into them by unflinching recall. Episodes surrounding the death of her beautiful but narcissistic, alcoholic mother, when Kelly was fifteen, threaten to overwhelm her.

Compounding the agony of her loss and the flood of memories is the sudden and unexpected arrival of Grayson’s twenty-three-year-old “bad-boy” nephew, Mitchell, who is unaware of his uncle’s passing. Kelly can not stand this young man for a number of reasons, chief among them the fact that years earlier he stole a pearl necklace and earring set that had belonged to her deceased mother. Despite Kelly’s disdain and with her husband’s generous nature weighing heavily on her conscience, Kelly agrees to a “one day at a time” arrangement with Mitchell.

This combination of events throws Kelly into a spiral of grief, bitter resentment, paranoia, and despair. For her to find relief, she must get those pearls back.

Published 2009

Reflections Upon The Occasion Of My 85th Year is a collaborative effort between Terry Sue and her father-in-law, Donald Harms.

When Donald Harms asked Terry Sue Harms, his daughter-in-law, to help write his life's story, he was acutely aware of time passing and that his memory was fading. He wanted his family, especially his great grandchildren, to have a lasting record of who he was, what he did, and how he felt about the events that had taken place over the eight and a half decades of his life up to that point. With candor and levity, he commenced to describe, in broad brushstroke fashion, his childhood as the son of German/Midwest farmers, his midlife triumphs and challenges as a husband, father, and architect, and his own philosophical perspective that took root early in childhood and continues to comfort him to this day.

Terry Sue Harms gladly obliged his wish and hung on his every word.

Reflections Upon The Occasion Of My 85th Year is the result of many hours of conversation and recorded interviews.

Published 2018

Nothing But The Truth So Help Me God Produced and edited by Christine Bronstein and A Band of Women-ABOW, 73 writers, including Terry Sue Harms, contributed to this collection of short, first person narratives that describe a variety of transition themed experiences.

“Word Mountain” was my contribution, and in it I described climbing out of functional illiteracy. It was an honor to share the pages with so many incredible women, including: Kelly Corrigan, Belva Davis, Jane Ganahl, Cristhal Bennett, Ginny Graves, Shasta Nelson, as well as each of the others.

Published 2014