May 13, 2026 • 10 mins
Today, we’re highlighting a powerful new literary work that explores identity, truth, and resilience. A Life Wrapped in Lies: Searching for Truth by Gwen Stokes takes readers on an emotional journey through deception, discovery, and ultimately, self-understanding. The book is now available in print and digital formats through Wordeee and major book retailers. Joining us to talk about this compelling story and the inspiration behind it.
🌐 Find out more:
Website: https://gwenstokesauthor.com/book/
🌐 Find out more:
Website: https://gwenstokesauthor.com/book/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering
our community. I'm Lorraine Ballar. Tomorrow. Today we're highlighting a
powerful new literary work that explores identity, truth and resilience.
A Life Wrapped in Lies Searching for Truth by Gwen
Stokes takes readers on an emotional journey through deception, discovery,
and ultimately self understanding. The book is now available in
(00:22):
print and digital formats through Wordy and a major book retailers.
Joining us to talk about this compelling story and the
inspiration behind it is the author Gwen Stokeshi, thank you
having me. Well, I'm delighted. We are old colleagues working
in this radiobiz media biz for many, many years. So
let's talk about this little pivot here. You're writing a
(00:44):
book and what inspired you for creating this book.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So this book came about doing COVID. It was like
a COVID project. I had a brother who was passing
at the time. Didn't know he was suffering from short
term memory loss due to some of the medication that
he was taking. So he would call me all the
time of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.
So I said to him I said, I have this
idea for a book. I said, but I don't know
how to get started. He said, we'll just start writing,
(01:10):
and that's what I did. So, you know, and I
have a research to see how many words it would
take to write a book, and said one hundred and
fifty thousand words. So of course I was intimidated. I
don't have two It's a lot of words. Yeah, so
I ended up having one hundred and eighty thousand words.
We had to cut it down. Wow. Yeah. So that's
how it all started. And he passed away in November,
but we started in September, so, you know, so after
(01:33):
he passed I had to finish it. It took me
a few years, went through a couple of few editors
and things of that nature. But it's here, and I'm
so excited about it because everybody's been reading it telling me,
you know, what a great read it is. It's a
page turner. So I'm just excited about it, and I
want people to be excited about reading it.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So let's do what the log line is. What is
the basic premise of the book.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Okay, so the basic premise is surrounded by two people.
A young basketball player, who's a seventy six er who
is on a search to find his birth mother. So
he comes across this woman named Cec Sianna, who he
you know, professes and proclaims to be his mom, but
she isn't. So they go on this search together to
find out whose real birth parents are and in doing
(02:19):
so they become like family. And then there's a lot
of intrigue and mystery about how they were linked in
the past, so that comes out. There's also a couple
of love interests in there for CC, so you know,
you got your little little love and you got your
mystery and then you you know, the ultimate theme is
found family. Yeah, you know, the family that you didn't
(02:41):
know that you had or needed. So that's what it's about.
It's about, you know, finding family, finding love in places
that you didn't think it was there, and also not
knowing that you really needed it. So it became a
fulfilling journey for the both of them.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right. Your book explores the theme of truth, identity, and resis.
What are you hoping that readers take away from your book?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I want them to understand the dynamics of relationships,
the dynamics of being able to find love, find family.
You know, it's not about blood, it's about who you
choose to be your family. And so you know, it's
about mystery. There's a little mystery in there. There's a
(03:24):
protagonist by the name of mss Hannah who's out to
get his money, the money that he doesn't know that
he has because you know, he grew up in an orphanage,
so he had when he left the orphanage, he had
a trust fund. And they couldn't figure out why a
baby with no name would have a trust fund. Who
did that for him? So, you know, so there's so
(03:46):
many layers to the story. And then you also have
CC and her friends. She has four friends that went
to college with her. They're all successful women and they
contribute to her tribe and they help her to find
out a lot about what's going on in his life
and how their lives intertwine. Right.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
The main character goes through a lot of emotional challenges
involving deception and self discovery. How much of this story
draws from your own real life experience.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And new You won't ask me that. Yeah, Well, you know,
if you're writing, you have to draw from what you know. Right,
So a lot of it comes from my experiences, not
so much my love life, but the imagined love life.
What that perfect man would look like, what kind of past,
the future, and the present. How it all comes together
(04:34):
when it comes to wanting and longing for something that
you don't have and something that's missing in your life. Right,
so Osay kind of fills that void for her, along
with a couple other characters.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, well, it sounds like a very intricate plot. So
how do you manage that? It's like creating a puzzle box? Right,
with all these intersecting plot lines that eventually merge together
with a conclusion. How are you able to negotiate all that?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You know? I have to say. One of the other
things that I was doing twenty twenty was loving k dramas,
So I was kind of pulling from some of those storylines.
You know how they at the beginning, you have the
you know, I don't like you kind of attitude towards
the people, and then they kind of get together and
know each other, and then at the end it's either
going to be a happy ending or a sad ending.
(05:23):
So I kind of pull from that type of a plot.
But it was hard, It really was hard because this
was something that I had never done before, so it
was it was hard. But once the characters came, they
started to live inside of me, so I could. I
would wake up in the morning thinking about things that
Cec would say to Bruce or oh say would say
(05:43):
to Cec or her girlfriends. So it started to come together.
But it took it took time. It took time. We're
going to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So you were eventually able to channel your characters.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Ye, I was speaking their voices. Yeah, it was. You
have to live them. You have to. You can't write
without having some sort of piece of yourself in those characters,
or some sort of lived experience in those characters.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right right, the book is already sparking conversations about secrets
and personal truth. Why do you think stories like this
resonate so deeply with readers.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I think because you know, everybody has that secret, but
you also have that secret that you could only share
with a few people. So I think when it comes
to CC in her secrets, she has her group that
she can share with, she has that outlet. But I
think people just kind of want to live a secret,
a secret that is so profound that how do I
(06:42):
get through this? How do I live through this? The
pain CEC had a lot of secrets, and so did
O say. But when they came together, it was like, oh, okay,
now this makes sense. Now I know why I held
on to this. Now I know why I couldn't let
it go.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This cover has a picture of someone who looks very
much like you with.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Your beautiful fro. It is such a story behind that.
So the editor see, we have nothing to do. Writers
have nothing to do with the covers. That's all the publishers, right,
So they set a couple of chapters to this guy
in Belgium who they you know, who does the covers
with him? And that's what he came back with. He
didn't even know what she didn't even know what I
look like.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That is so funny. He had no idea what his
fro looks exactly like your fro. I mean it's wild
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So no, but no, they had had absolutely nothing. And
then I was like, wait what Yeah, he said about
three or four different covers, you know, one cover was
like at the Orphanage, but every cover the person had,
you know, had a frod. I was like, wow, how
did he channel and when? When they talked to him.
He's like, well, that's just the character that I saw.
(07:53):
You know, modern day African American woman, not worried about,
you know, what society said about her hair, or how
she cared herself. She when she walked into her room,
she commanded that room.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Just like you do in really well, thank you. Your
fro is magnificent.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I have to say, now this book.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Is also connected with something else. You've got some multimedia
attached to it.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh yeah, this is this is so hilarious. So my
brother said to me, he says, why don't you write
some music for the I was like, wait, I just
wrote a book. How do you expect me to write music?
So I sat down and I started thinking about what
that would look like. And there's a whole AI. I
don't know what do you call it? A like chat
it's not Chatgypt, but you can put music in. That's
(08:41):
exactly right, That's exactly right. So I put I wrote
the lyrics, and then I put those lyrics in chat
Gypt and I said, well, you know, if I wanted
to be bluesy, R and B, what would that sound like.
I had no idea. So it says okay, So they
took the lyrics and then they said, okay, well you
need you know, a hunch and forty beats per minute.
So I put those prompts and so you know, and
(09:03):
it came out with music. You know, so all the
all the lyrics of mine, but the music and the
voices are all a I generated.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Right, So how can people get your book? How can
people listen to that music? Okay, tell us all the things.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So people can get the book. You can go on
wordy dot com. That's w R R D E E
E dot com, Amazon, Bars and Noble wherever you go
out and buy your book bookstores, you know, and if
it's not there, ask them for it. They'll get it
for you. And also, you know, on you can go
to my website when stokesauthor dot com. And also on
(09:38):
the website you can also listen to the music. You
can you know, read have excerpts from the book on there.
You can read it with music or without music. Wow. Yeah,
So it's exciting, it's it's you know, it's it's gonna
be a game changer.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I've got the book in my hands. It's a
substantial tone, it's full of fascinating characters, wonderful and intricate
pl twists, and it's all about finding your found family.
And at the end of the day, don't we all
need that found family, the family that you choose, not
necessarily the one you're born with. And I want to
thank you so much for joining us. Gwen Stokes, the
(10:13):
author of A Life Wrapped in Lies, Searching for the Truth,
available through Wordy and all of the usual major book retailers.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Thanks so much, Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
We'll have more insight after these messages.
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering
our community. I'm Lorraine Ballar. Tomorrow. Today we're highlighting a
powerful new literary work that explores identity, truth and resilience.
A Life Wrapped in Lies Searching for Truth by Gwen
Stokes takes readers on an emotional journey through deception, discovery,
and ultimately self understanding. The book is now available in
(00:22):
print and digital formats through Wordy and a major book retailers.
Joining us to talk about this compelling story and the
inspiration behind it is the author Gwen Stokeshi, thank you
having me. Well, I'm delighted. We are old colleagues working
in this radiobiz media biz for many, many years. So
let's talk about this little pivot here. You're writing a
(00:44):
book and what inspired you for creating this book.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So this book came about doing COVID. It was like
a COVID project. I had a brother who was passing
at the time. Didn't know he was suffering from short
term memory loss due to some of the medication that
he was taking. So he would call me all the
time of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.
So I said to him I said, I have this
idea for a book. I said, but I don't know
how to get started. He said, we'll just start writing,
(01:10):
and that's what I did. So, you know, and I
have a research to see how many words it would
take to write a book, and said one hundred and
fifty thousand words. So of course I was intimidated. I
don't have two It's a lot of words. Yeah, so
I ended up having one hundred and eighty thousand words.
We had to cut it down. Wow. Yeah. So that's
how it all started. And he passed away in November,
but we started in September, so, you know, so after
(01:33):
he passed I had to finish it. It took me
a few years, went through a couple of few editors
and things of that nature. But it's here, and I'm
so excited about it because everybody's been reading it telling me,
you know, what a great read it is. It's a
page turner. So I'm just excited about it, and I
want people to be excited about reading it.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So let's do what the log line is. What is
the basic premise of the book.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Okay, so the basic premise is surrounded by two people.
A young basketball player, who's a seventy six er who
is on a search to find his birth mother. So
he comes across this woman named Cec Sianna, who he
you know, professes and proclaims to be his mom, but
she isn't. So they go on this search together to
find out whose real birth parents are and in doing
(02:19):
so they become like family. And then there's a lot
of intrigue and mystery about how they were linked in
the past, so that comes out. There's also a couple
of love interests in there for CC, so you know,
you got your little little love and you got your
mystery and then you you know, the ultimate theme is
found family. Yeah, you know, the family that you didn't
(02:41):
know that you had or needed. So that's what it's about.
It's about, you know, finding family, finding love in places
that you didn't think it was there, and also not
knowing that you really needed it. So it became a
fulfilling journey for the both of them.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right. Your book explores the theme of truth, identity, and resis.
What are you hoping that readers take away from your book?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I want them to understand the dynamics of relationships,
the dynamics of being able to find love, find family.
You know, it's not about blood, it's about who you
choose to be your family. And so you know, it's
about mystery. There's a little mystery in there. There's a
(03:24):
protagonist by the name of mss Hannah who's out to
get his money, the money that he doesn't know that
he has because you know, he grew up in an orphanage,
so he had when he left the orphanage, he had
a trust fund. And they couldn't figure out why a
baby with no name would have a trust fund. Who
did that for him? So, you know, so there's so
(03:46):
many layers to the story. And then you also have
CC and her friends. She has four friends that went
to college with her. They're all successful women and they
contribute to her tribe and they help her to find
out a lot about what's going on in his life
and how their lives intertwine. Right.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
The main character goes through a lot of emotional challenges
involving deception and self discovery. How much of this story
draws from your own real life experience.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And new You won't ask me that. Yeah, Well, you know,
if you're writing, you have to draw from what you know. Right,
So a lot of it comes from my experiences, not
so much my love life, but the imagined love life.
What that perfect man would look like, what kind of past,
the future, and the present. How it all comes together
(04:34):
when it comes to wanting and longing for something that
you don't have and something that's missing in your life. Right,
so Osay kind of fills that void for her, along
with a couple other characters.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, well, it sounds like a very intricate plot. So
how do you manage that? It's like creating a puzzle box? Right,
with all these intersecting plot lines that eventually merge together
with a conclusion. How are you able to negotiate all that?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You know? I have to say. One of the other
things that I was doing twenty twenty was loving k dramas,
So I was kind of pulling from some of those storylines.
You know how they at the beginning, you have the
you know, I don't like you kind of attitude towards
the people, and then they kind of get together and
know each other, and then at the end it's either
going to be a happy ending or a sad ending.
(05:23):
So I kind of pull from that type of a plot.
But it was hard, It really was hard because this
was something that I had never done before, so it
was it was hard. But once the characters came, they
started to live inside of me, so I could. I
would wake up in the morning thinking about things that
Cec would say to Bruce or oh say would say
(05:43):
to Cec or her girlfriends. So it started to come together.
But it took it took time. It took time. We're
going to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So you were eventually able to channel your characters.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Ye, I was speaking their voices. Yeah, it was. You
have to live them. You have to. You can't write
without having some sort of piece of yourself in those characters,
or some sort of lived experience in those characters.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right right, the book is already sparking conversations about secrets
and personal truth. Why do you think stories like this
resonate so deeply with readers.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I think because you know, everybody has that secret, but
you also have that secret that you could only share
with a few people. So I think when it comes
to CC in her secrets, she has her group that
she can share with, she has that outlet. But I
think people just kind of want to live a secret,
a secret that is so profound that how do I
(06:42):
get through this? How do I live through this? The
pain CEC had a lot of secrets, and so did
O say. But when they came together, it was like, oh, okay,
now this makes sense. Now I know why I held
on to this. Now I know why I couldn't let
it go.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This cover has a picture of someone who looks very
much like you with.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Your beautiful fro. It is such a story behind that.
So the editor see, we have nothing to do. Writers
have nothing to do with the covers. That's all the publishers, right,
So they set a couple of chapters to this guy
in Belgium who they you know, who does the covers
with him? And that's what he came back with. He
didn't even know what she didn't even know what I
look like.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That is so funny. He had no idea what his
fro looks exactly like your fro. I mean it's wild
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So no, but no, they had had absolutely nothing. And
then I was like, wait what Yeah, he said about
three or four different covers, you know, one cover was
like at the Orphanage, but every cover the person had,
you know, had a frod. I was like, wow, how
did he channel and when? When they talked to him.
He's like, well, that's just the character that I saw.
(07:53):
You know, modern day African American woman, not worried about,
you know, what society said about her hair, or how
she cared herself. She when she walked into her room,
she commanded that room.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Just like you do in really well, thank you. Your
fro is magnificent.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I have to say, now this book.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Is also connected with something else. You've got some multimedia
attached to it.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh yeah, this is this is so hilarious. So my
brother said to me, he says, why don't you write
some music for the I was like, wait, I just
wrote a book. How do you expect me to write music?
So I sat down and I started thinking about what
that would look like. And there's a whole AI. I
don't know what do you call it? A like chat
it's not Chatgypt, but you can put music in. That's
(08:41):
exactly right, That's exactly right. So I put I wrote
the lyrics, and then I put those lyrics in chat
Gypt and I said, well, you know, if I wanted
to be bluesy, R and B, what would that sound like.
I had no idea. So it says okay, So they
took the lyrics and then they said, okay, well you
need you know, a hunch and forty beats per minute.
So I put those prompts and so you know, and
(09:03):
it came out with music. You know, so all the
all the lyrics of mine, but the music and the
voices are all a I generated.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Right, So how can people get your book? How can
people listen to that music? Okay, tell us all the things.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So people can get the book. You can go on
wordy dot com. That's w R R D E E
E dot com, Amazon, Bars and Noble wherever you go
out and buy your book bookstores, you know, and if
it's not there, ask them for it. They'll get it
for you. And also, you know, on you can go
to my website when stokesauthor dot com. And also on
(09:38):
the website you can also listen to the music. You
can you know, read have excerpts from the book on there.
You can read it with music or without music. Wow. Yeah,
So it's exciting, it's it's you know, it's it's gonna
be a game changer.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I've got the book in my hands. It's a
substantial tone, it's full of fascinating characters, wonderful and intricate
pl twists, and it's all about finding your found family.
And at the end of the day, don't we all
need that found family, the family that you choose, not
necessarily the one you're born with. And I want to
thank you so much for joining us. Gwen Stokes, the
(10:13):
author of A Life Wrapped in Lies, Searching for the Truth,
available through Wordy and all of the usual major book retailers.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Thanks so much, Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
We'll have more insight after these messages.
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