MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome my friend, Casi McLean, today. I've read some of Casi's novels and they're a treat!
Hi Brenda. Thanks so much for hosting me
on your wonderful blog today. I want to share my new release and the inspiration
that triggered my Lake Lanier Mystery series.
Ever since my childhood imagination
discovered Madeleine L'Engles, A Wrinkle In Time, the idea
of time travel intrigued me. Reading H. G. Wells' Time Machine as a yourth added
to my fascination. Later, adult novels like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander enticed me further. Whenever a
time travel movie released, they mesmerized me. Back to the Future, Somewhere
in Time, The Lake House, and Time Traveler's Wife and made-for-TV
stories like Two Worlds of Jenny Logan
and The Philadelphia Experiment…I
couldn’t get enough to satisfy my passion. [If you love time slips, the last
two are DVD's available on Amazon.
As an author, if you choose time travel
as a genre, the options are endless, but if you don't generate a believable
portal, or confuse details, you'll lose your audience. Readers want to believe
in the "what if" possibility, if only in the corners of their mind.
They look for mistakes, fallacies, and the absurd. So, writing time travel is
challenging...but extremely satisfying and a wonderful way to escape into
imagination, intrigue, and the lives of the characters. I always wanted to
write time slips that would leave readers saying: “If time travel was a thing,
this is how it would happen.” And I achieved my dream with Lake Lanier
Mysteries.
A ghost town time forgot––Atlanta's Lake
Lanier, a man-made lake with fascinating history, eerie lore, vanishings and
odd occurrences totally fascinated me, swirling stories and characters around a
plausible theory. What if the lake construction triggered a seismic shift that,
when given enough energy, opens a portal connecting past to future? What a perfect
setting for a time-slip romantic suspense series. Lake Lanier Mysteries
evolved.
Book
one, Beneath The Lake, won 2016 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence Best Romantic
Suspense. The story revolves around Lacey Montgomery, a young woman attending a
party on the shores of Lake Lanier. When she walks in on her boyfriend in a
compromising situation, she tears away into the throes of a torrential
storm…her car spins out of control and hurtles into the depths of the
icy water. She awakens in the arms of a stranger, in a town she's never heard
of––34 years before she was born.
Beyond The Mist, book two, continued the
saga with a two minor characters from the first novel taking the lead roles.
Their story rips them through time to 2001 New York and a terrorist attack that
will live in infamy.
Between The Shadows, book three, brings
the series full circle with dual heroines and heroes. The story unfolds the
destiny of two star-crossed couples, when the desperate plea from a beautiful
ghost beseeches a character to come to her aid. Thrust back in time, Kenzi and
York never expected to confront deadly villains plotting to steal Confederate
gold…or find love in 1865.
All three
stories stand alone, but reading them in order crafts a unique saga with
multi-dimensional characters and a gripping tale. Available in print, eBook and
on Audible, Lake Lanier Mysteries will lure you in. For me, the characters drew
me into their stories. I was simply the vessel to bring them to life.
Amazon
link: mybook.to/BetweenTheShadows
All
Other ebooks: books2read.com/u/4AY2eo
With
my newest release, Between The Shadows—Audible Version—posting imminently, I’m
excited to share a YouTube video of my fabulous narrator, Kristin James,
recording my novel.
You'll
love Between The Shadows––ebook only $0.99 TODAY!
BUY
NOW:
Thrust back in time, Kenzi never expected to confront deadly villains––let
alone fall in love with one.
She
never expected to confront deadly villains…let alone fall in love with one…
After
her friend, York, encounters the ghostly image of a young woman, Mackenzie
Reynolds seizes the opportunity to initiate a time jump, thrusting them back to
1865 Georgia. Resolved to thwart the girl’s untimely fate, Kenzi stumbles into
a deadly conflict over a stockpile of stolen Confederate gold.
An
injured Civil War survivor, James Adams departs for home with a war-fatigued
companion he’s determined to help. After pilfering a horse and kidnapping a
woman, he never dreamed his hostage would steal his heart.
Kenzi
and James must unravel a deadly plot, while helping York save his ghost woman
from a brutal death. But can she leave York in a violent past to save James’s
life?
A
Gripping Novel By Award-Winning Author Casi McLean
Excerpt:
“Don’t you dare die on me, James Adams.”
Kenzi pressed a wad of blood-soaked gauze against his abdomen. “I
won’t lose you. Not now.”
Barely clinging to life, the man opened his eyes a slit, raised
the gun still tightly gripped in his hand and shot off a round.
Stunned, she snapped around. “No.” Screaming, she dove for the
barrel through a hazy blue mist.
Again, the gun rang out as the patient fell unconscious.
“Help. Someone, please help”.
A muted voice murmured from beyond the fog. “Dr. Reynolds? Is that
you?”
Her frantic reply cried out, “Yes, of course it’s me. Hurry. He’s
bleeding out.”
“Brady...” James’s voice faded as he slipped into semiconscious
mumbling.
Yanking the pistol from his grip with her right hand, she
maintained pressure with her left. A heartbeat later, the cylinder encasing
them rotated open. Kenzi stood then sprinted across the room past an attendant
then pounded on a fist-sized alert button affixed to the wall. The resulting
alarm shrieked through the underground chamber, reverberating as it radiated
throughout the compound. A second man dressed in a white jumpsuit burst through
double doors.
“Gurney. Now.” Kenzi screamed at both attendants. “And O-Neg
blood. Hurry. Go, go, go.” She ran to James and knelt beside him. Lifting his
head, she slid a knee underneath it for support and smoothed a chunk of his
dark brown hair from his face. “I’ve sacrificed way too much to have you die
now,” she whispered. “My ass will burn for this. Not to mention the
repercussions for abandoning York.”
Pulse racing, she checked his bandage. Despite her efforts,
streams of crimson still oozed from the wound. Pressing again on the gauze, she
shook her head. “Oh God. I have no idea what blood type you are, but you should
tolerate O-negative.” She pressed harder on his wound. “Jesus help you, James.
You’ve lost so much blood. Just please, hang on.”
Again, the double doors swung wide. This time, a gurney pushed
through, followed by the two men. One ran to Kenzi’s side.
“Help me lift him.” Her hands, slick with blood, shot to her white
T-top, already drenched in crimson. On a second thought, she swept them down
the rear of her jeans. Then, sliding her slippery arms beneath his back,
she braced her stance with one bent knee.
“One, two, three.” They heaved him in tandem onto the gurney. She
snatched a bottle of Betadine from the attached supply basket and doused her
hands then splashed more on James’s forearm, grasped an IV and punctured a vein
on the inside of his wrist with the sterile needle. Once connected, she hooked
the blood pouch on the IV pole and barked at the team, “Let’s move. If this man
bleeds out, there will be hell to pay.”
The men, poised with hands on the side of the rails, awaited their
next move. “Where to, Dr. Reynolds?”
Kenzi stared at James’s ashen face, worried her meager experience
wasn’t enough to save his life––but she had no option. “Surgery.”
Springing into action, one man rolled the gurney down the hallway,
while a second leapt onto the base and slipped an oxygen mask over James’s nose
and mouth. “I hope this guy isn’t allergic to Propofol.” He attached an
anesthesia drip to the IV. “Judas Priest. What happened to him to cause such a
gaping wound?”
“He
was shot...with a musket.”
I agree that the time travel needs to be "real" or the reader will stop reading, or watching the movie. I'm thankful to writers who write time travel because I love the thought of the possibility. I find it interesting that you have written time travel that takes place in recent years past (9/11). Most travel to the way back or to the far future.
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming by, Jody. I agree, a recent time travel is a unique idea.
ReplyDelete