What is your favorite color? That depends on the day, the season, and my mood. I’m partial to fire engine red, electric blue, and fuschia (though not at the same time).
What is your favorite food? Any ethnic cuisine. Indian and Middle Eastern in particular. I’m a vegan.
What inspires you to write and why? I have to be in love with a particular subject or concept in order to write a book about it. Otherwise I’d just as soon not write at all. (There’s that laziness thing again.)
What genre are you most comfortable writing? History because I love the romance of the past. Mystery because I can’t resist a good whodunit.
What inspired you to write your first book? Guilt that I hadn’t gotten it done sooner in my life.
Who or what influenced your writing once you began? I consciously avoided outside influences because I didn’t want to end up sounding like somebody else. I will say that I was quite impressed with Caleb Carr’s The Alienist when it first came out. That was around the time I wrote my first historical mystery. Similarly, I loved the divine feminine aspect of the The Da Vinci Code which may have influenced my archaeology thriller series.
What made you want to be a writer? I didn’t want to be a writer per se. If there’s an idea which I feel an overwhelming need to communicate, I’ll write. For example, my current series is all about the lost women’s history of the world. Things that have been forgotten for millennia are emerging in the archaeological record right now. To me, that’s an intriguing subject which people might want to know about.
Who designed the cover? I designed the covers of all of my books. Many of my author friends complain about the covers their publishers use for their books. The biggest gripe I hear is that the cover artist had no concept of what the book was about. I like having creative control over the images associated with my work. At least the design has something to do with the story.
Why did you choose to write this particular book? I felt there was a need to overturn some of our cultural assumptions about the role of women in society. Lo and behold, I discovered an ever-increasing body of archaeological evidence proving that human civilization was not originally male-dominated or violent. This was true of every race on every continent. The story of who we once were and how we got to be the way we are needed to be told.
What was the hardest part about writing this book? Weaving the history seamlessly into the story arcs of the fictional characters. A straight history lesson doesn’t often make for an entertaining read.
How do you promote this book? I’ve avoided conventional book signings and radio interviews for this series. Most of my readers seem to prefer the ebook format so I’ve done most of my recent promotion through the internet. I’ve used Facebook, Kindle Nation, and Kindle Author primarily to get the word out.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? That women were the driving force behind the creation of what we call human civilization. It can have a devastating effect on the female psyche to receive the cultural message that you’re nothing more than an afterthought – that all the great discoveries and inventions since the beginning of time were made by the opposite sex. Hopefully, the history lesson in my books will do something to reverse that assumption.
THE ARKANA SERIES: Archaeological Thrillers That Defy History
Volume Three – The Dragon’s Wing Enigma
Think ”Medium meets Indiana Jones in The Lost Symbol.” (Kindle Nation Daily)
Runaway Bride
Cassie Forsythe’s checkered resume never included the job of babysitter. Former college freshman, yes. Amateur relic hunter, certainly. Seer for a secret organization, absolutely. But babysitter? Not likely! Cassie is packing for the next leg of a treasure hunt to recover a legendary artifact known as the Sage Stone when trouble comes knocking at her door. Trouble takes the form of fourteen year old runaway Hannah Curtis. Hannah isn’t your average teenager. She happens to be the youngest wife of aged polygamist Abraham Metcalf. Metcalf leads the religious cult known as the Blessed Nephilim and he covets the Sage Stone for himself.
Unwelcome Guest
Hannah’s untimely arrival creates a predicament for Cassie. The Nephilim isn’t supposed to know that anyone else is hunting the Sage Stone. More than that, the cult must never discover the existence of the Arkana – the secret society for which Cassie works. The Arkana has spent centuries recovering artifacts of ancient civilizations which predate patriarchy–advanced goddess-worshipping cultures on every continent. Their archaeological troves document the lost women’s history of the world and need to be protected at all costs. Unfortunately, Hannah could lead the cult straight to the Arkana’s underground cache of relics. Cassie contacts Faye, the Arkana’s elderly leader, for help. The old woman spirits the girl away to her farmhouse in the country. Faye promises to keep Hannah out of sight so that Cassie and her teammates can resume their quest.
Tricky Trinkets
Cassie, librarian Griffin, and bodyguard Erik face a daunting task. Five sequential artifacts reveal the hiding place of the Sage Stone. The treasure hunters must not only retrieve the relics before the Nephilim, they must also substitute forgeries in place of the real artifacts to keep the cult from discovering that it has competition. Luck has been on their side so far. They’ve recovered the first artifact with their foes none the wiser. The Arkana team flies to Malta, hoping to unearth the second artifact among the ruined temples of a long-dead civilization. After a fruitless search of the archipelago, their quest leads them northward into the Basque region of Europe. Meanwhile, Abraham’s son Daniel is combing the same terrain and narrowing the gap between them.
Dragon’s Wing Dilemma
In an isolated mountaintop cave, the treasure hunters learn that the next relic can only be discovered if they “keep true to the dragon’s wing.” The clue baffles them. What does it mean? Cassie and her friends are running out of time. With Nephilim operatives closing in, will they all survive this mission? Will the cult capture Hannah and breach the defenses of the Arkana itself? Follow the dragon’s wing to learn the answers.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Archaeology Thriller
Rating – PG13
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