{BOOK SPOTLIGHT} SGT. WINDFLOWER MYSTERIES BY MIKE MARTIN

SGT. WINDFLOWER MYSTERY SERIES 
by Mike Martin, Mystery

The Sgt. Windflower Mysteries are a light mystery series set in Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada. These cozy-like books follow the adventures of Sgt. Winston Windflower, a Cree from Northern Alberta as he finds a new life and new loves in the tiny village of Grand Bank. There are crimes and mysteries for the Canadian Mountie to investigate and solve but the Sgt. Windflower Mysteries are more about family, friends, good food and good times.

The recurring cast of characters include the love of his life, Sheila Hillier who keeps him well-fed and grounded in reality. There’s also his fellow Mounties like Corporal Eddie Tizzard and a long list of bad actors, both local and just visiting, to cause havoc in their sleepy little town. Windflower brings his native background and traditions with him and finds ways to use them to help himself and his friends through difficult times. Rounding out his life are his collie, Lady, who often has adventures of her own and some new additions to his family that appear in the latest book, Darkest Before the Dawn.

The Walker on the Cape (Book 1)

A man's body is found on the Cape in a small fishing community on the East Coast. At first everyone thinks it's a heart attack or stroke. But then it is discovered that he was poisoned. Who would do this and why? Finding that out falls to Sergeant Winston Windflower of the RCMP along with his trusted side-kick Eddie Tizzard. Along the way they discover that there are many more secrets hidden in this small community and powerful people who want to keep it that way.

Windflower also discovers two more things; a love of living in a small community that is completely different from his up-bringing in a remote Indian reserve and maybe the love of his life. He gets a taste of East Coast food and hospitality as well as a sense of how crime and corruption can linger beneath the surface or hide in the thick blanket of fog that sometimes creeps in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean.

The Body on the T (Book 2)

The Body on the T is the second book in the Windflower mystery series and it follows up on the highly acclaimed premiere, The Walker on the Cape. The story begins when a body washes up on a beach near Grand Bank, Newfoundland. There is no identification on the body and few clues to identify who the person was or where they came from. The case becomes the responsibility of Sgt. Winston Windflower of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his trusted side-kick, Corporal Eddie Tizzard.

But this is just the beginning. There is also a devastating accident on the highway and another suspicious death to deal with. Throw in a rogue police officer and an international drug ring operating in the waters off the coast and Windflower’s peaceful world is turned upside down. This time Windflower’s adventures take him to the scenic town of Burin where Captain Cook once patrolled the waters looking for French mercenaries. And to historic St. John’s where he faces down an armed suspect on a parking garage rooftop in the midst of a busy downtown evening.

Along the way Windflower also continues to enjoy the food and home-style hospitality of this part of the world. Cod tongues, pan seared scallops and even figgy duff become part of his diet, and his long list of favourite foods. Windflower may be a long way from his Cree home in Northern Alberta but he has found a new place to love in the fog and mist of Newfoundland.

Beneath the Surface (Book 3)

Sgt. Windflower is back and as usual he’s loving life on the east coast. He may be a long way from his home in Northern Alberta but he has been adopted by the locals as almost one of their own. He has a good life, good work with the RCMP, and a good woman that he has grown closer to in his years on the southeast coast of Newfoundland. But trouble is brewing just beneath the surface of this calm and charm-filled existence.

It begins with the discovery of a dead girl’s body in St. John’s, the capital city of Newfoundland and Labrador. The girl is from Grand Bank where Windflower has been stationed for the last few years. Sgt. Windflower and his associate Corporal Eddie Tizzard are pulled further and further into the case. The situation also grows to include a whole array of criminal activities from human trafficking and even the Russian Mafia.

Along the way Windflower not only has to deal with this crime wave operating all around the region, but with some challenges in his own life. He has to go back to his Aboriginal roots to find the answers to some very deep and disturbing questions. But nothing seems to bother his appetite and joy for life, especially his appetite. He continues to sample traditional Newfoundland dishes like fish and brewis but he also expands to include pan-fried sea trout and baked salmon, along with a range of desserts from blueberry buckle to his all-time favourite, peanut butter cheesecake.

His faith in the police force, that has become his life, is also threatened by a series of events that he becomes aware of that are certainly immoral if not even illegal. He is forced to face not only his own personal demons but those in real life that are lurking all around us. Sometime they are right in front of our face, but at other times they are hiding deep beneath the surface, waiting to be resolved.

A Twist of Fortune (Book 4)

A Twist of Fortune is the fourth book in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series and it continues the adventures of Sgt. Windflower as he tries to solve crime and experience the joy and the sadness of life in a small maritime community. Follow along as he feels the sometimes bitter taste of an east coast winter and the unique culinary delights of this part of the world.

A Long Ways From Home (Book 5)

A weekend visit to picturesque Newfoundland by a large crew of outlaw bikers leaves behind another mess for Sgt. Windflower to clean up. This time he’s facing violence, murder, mystery and intrigue. This adventure has Windflower questioning everything he thought he knew. There are troubles on the home front, cutbacks in the policing budget, old friends leaving and new ones not quite here yet. Windflower is seeking to find answers in territory that is both dangerous and unfamiliar.
This instalment in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series has our hero dashing all over the beautiful little island of Newfoundland. Along the way he never wavers in his pursuit of justice. But he stills tries to find a way to enjoy the natural beauty that lays all around him, and to bring out the best from everybody he meets.
A Long Ways from Home is about more than just homicides or the dirty dealings of outlaw bikers. It is also about helping people and communities face up to and overcome new and very difficult challenges. Windflower relies on his friends and allies, including some four-legged ones, to help him and them find the answers. He also discovers that we are never really alone, even when we are a long ways from home.

A Tangled Web (Book 6)

Sgt. Windflower is back on the case in Grand Bank. This time there’s a missing girl, trouble at the factory and signs of danger everywhere. But there’s always good food, good friends and good company to make life worthwhile. All the usual characters and a few new suspects are back to help Windflower unravel the web of deceit and deception that threatens the small community.

 

Darkest Before the Dawn (Book 7)

Darkest Before The Dawn is the latest adventure in the Sgt. Winston Windflower mystery series, the popular Maritime tales about a Mountie who finds himself with a new family and a new life in tiny Grand Bank, Newfoundland. Ghosts, mysterious deaths, and a new, perplexing character confront Windflower, Tizzard and the other police officers in Grand Bank as they unearth secrets that have been lying hidden in the sleepy hamlet for decades. A fast-moving mystery, Darkest Before The Dawn is also a story of love, loss and learning how to grow old gracefully; a tale of family, community and looking after each other, of not giving up hope, just before the dawn.

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Mike Martin was born in Newfoundland on the East Coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand. He is the author of Change the Things You Can: Dealing with Difficult People and has written a number of short stories that have published in various publications including Canadian Stories and Downhome magazine.

The Walker on the Cape was his first full fiction book and the premiere of the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series. Other books in the series include The Body on the T, Beneath the Surface, A Twist of Fortune and A Long Ways from Home, which was shortlisted for the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award as the best light mystery of the year. A Tangled Web was released in 2017 and the newest book in the series is Darkest Before the Dawn.

Website: www.sgtwindflowermysteries.com
Twitter: @mike54martin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkerOnTheCapeReviewsAndMore/

 

Guest post from Douglas Baign, author of From Straight-laced to Cross-dressed

Inside the Book:

 

Title: From Straight-laced to Cross-dressed

Author: Douglas Baign

Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com

Genre: Biographies/Memoirs

Format: Ecopy /Paperback

From Straight-laced to Cross-dressed tells the story of a disturbed adult in therapy seeking to understand and prevent his desire to commit suicide. Douglas starts by knowing that it has something to do with sex but soon discovers that he can't talk about his sexuality without first discussing his religious beliefs and drift away from strict Christian Fundamentalism.The overlapping issues dredge up a confused morass of anger and love, abuse and sex.

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10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Author Or The Book.

1. Writing this book was definitely a form of therapy. I was going through normal talk therapy while writing it anyway, but there were several times when I had to lay aside the book while I worked through issues.  Once done, I incorporated them into the book.
2. The entire process was emotionally grueling.  I wept several times while keyboarding and talking or writing about it now still brings an ache to my heart.
3. The abuse and self-abuse the book describes was actually much worse in reality.  In fact, my editor refused to work with the original manuscript because she thought the material was too sensationalist. I had to censor it quite a bit before editing even began than we toned it down further at least twice more before the final draft.
4. The 1975-80 dates are real, as are the love letters and I still have the pen-and-paper originals. Yup. I really did cart all this stuff around every time I moved (lots) for 30 years under the theory that I'd need it someday to write a book.  I did and I did.
5. I keyboarded everything from 1975-80 into the computer to use as reference material.  This ran into a hundred pages or so, which means I was very selective about what actually got included.  That material still exists, so I suppose I could use it somewhere else. But it’s doubtful
6. I tampered with most dates written after 2000. I wrote this material piece-meal, one entry at a a time in no particular sequence then shuffled the pieces into different pictures as I drafted.  I tried tracking this but gave up, and simply re-dated everything once I completed a draft.
7. The only person in my family who knows I've written this book is my wife. She commented that she was glad she didn't play a large part in the book and that I respected her privacy when she comes on stage.
8. The book contains several 'easter eggs' - hidden puns or references. Sorry!  I won't tell you what they are. My test readers caught most of them but there's at least one they didn't catch and it may well stay hidden for a looong time.
9. I prefer to stay anonymous for two reasons.  The most important is that the book is deeply personal and discusses my mental illness. I don't want to be pointed at or singled out as crazy. I have enough problems dealing with crowds as it is now. Secondly, these are real people in the book.  There's no reason to violate their privacy.
10. I avoid participating in writing groups partly because I'm crowd adverse and partly because I don't feel like my viewpoint is close enough to share.  BTW, the success of the writing classes I took as an undergrad depended more on the teacher and on my fellow students than on the subject studied (poetry, short story...).

MEET THE AUTHOR

Coming from a long line of teachers, Douglas Baign has a Masters degree in Education but spent his career testing and documenting low-level software. He likes looking at anything basic then challenging assumptions. Doug also has a BS in Cognitive Psychology and a deep and abiding interest in History and Physics.

Douglas' super-power is breaking things, especially computer code, but he prefers to create books, poetry and music. He also enjoys travel and photography.

Tour Schedule

Monday, February 4
Guest blogging at Confessions of an Eccentric Bookaholic

Tuesday, February 5
Book featured at Lover of Literature

Wednesday, February 6
Interviewed at As the Page Turns

Thursday, February 7
Guest blogging at The Literary Nook

Friday, February 8
Guest blogging at The Dark Phantom

Monday, February 11
Book reviewed at A Title Wave

Tuesday, February 12
Guest blogging at Bent Over Bookwords

Wednesday, February 13
Interviewed at Review From Here

Thursday, February 14
Book featured at The Zen Reader

Friday, February 15
Guest blogging at Harmonious Publicity
Book reviewed at C'est La T

Monday, February 18
Guest blogging at She Writes

Tuesday, February 19
Guest blogging at Write and Take Flight

Wednesday, February 20
Book reviewed at Voodoo Princess

Thursday, February 21
Interviewed at Literal Exposure

Friday, February 22
Guest blogging at The Revolving Bookshelf

Monday, February 25
Interviewed at Straight From the Author's Mouth

Tuesday, February 26
Guest blogging at Inkslinger's Opus

Wednesday, February 27
Interviewed at The Writer's Life

Thursday, February 28
Book reviewed at I'm Shelf-ish

{BOOK SPOTLIGHT} THE LIEBOLD PROTOCOL BY MICHAEL & KATHLEEN MCMENAMIN

THE LIEBOLD PROTOCOL by Michael & Kathleen McMenamin, Cozy Mystery, 383 pp., $5.99 (kindle)

Title: THE LIEBOLD PROTOCOL
Author: Michael & Kathleen McMenamin
Publisher: First Edition Design Publishing
Pages: 389
Genre: Historical Thriller

Winston Churchill’s Scottish goddaughter, Mattie McGary, the adventure-seeking Hearst photojournalist, reluctantly returns to Nazi Germany in the summer of 1934 and once again finds herself in deadly peril in a gangster state where widespread kidnappings and ransoms are sanctioned by the new government.

Mattie turns down an early request by her boss Hearst to go to Germany to report on how Hitler will deal with the SA Brown Shirts of Ernst Rohm who want a true socialist ‘second revolution’ to follow Hitler’s stunning first revolution in 1933. Having been away from Germany for over a year, her reputation as “Hitler’s favorite foreign journalist” is fading and she wants to keep it that way.

Instead, at Churchill’s suggestion, she persuades Hearst to let her investigate one of the best-kept secrets of the Great War—that in 1915, facilitated by a sinister German-American working for Henry Ford, British and Imperial German officials essentially committed treason by agreeing Britain would sell raw rubber to Germany in exchange for it selling precision optical equipment to Britain.  Why? To keep the war going and the profits flowing.  After Mattie interviews Ford’s German-American go-between, however, agents of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch are sent by Churchill’s political opponents in the British government to rough her up and warn her she will be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act unless she backs off the story.

Left no choice, Mattie sets out for Germany to investigate the story from the German side and interview the German nobleman who negotiated the optics for rubber deal. There, Mattie lands right in the middle of what Hearst originally wanted her to investigate—Adolf Hitler believes one revolution is enough—and she learns that Hitler has ordered the SS to assassinate all the senior leadership of Ernst Rohm’s SA Brown Shirts as well as other political enemies on Saturday 30 June, an event soon known to History as ‘The Night of the Long Knives’.

Mattie must flee Germany to save her life. Not only does the German-American working for Henry Ford want her story on the optics for rubber treason killed, he wants her dead along with it. Worse, Mattie’s nemesis, the ‘Blond Beast’ of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich, is in charge of Hitler’s purge and he’s secretly put her name on his list…

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Mattie McGary

21 Club

21 West 52^nd Street

New York City

Wednesday, 13 June 1934

MATTIE McGARY tipped the taxi driver and stepped from the Yellow Cab and walked under the portico of the 21 Club, the former 1930’s speakeasy that had become, after the end of prohibition, one of the most popular watering holes in New York. It was known to its regulars, of which Mattie was one, as Jack and Charlie’s or simply 21. She was a few minutes early, but she didn’t want to keep her boss, William Randolph Hearst, waiting. The new Hearst headquarters building was just up the street at West 57^th and Eighth Avenue and he also might be early.

Mattie was a tall, attractive and some—including her husband—would say stunning redhead whose figure turned heads in any room she entered. Now, she entered the Bar Room at 21 and stood there, scanning the room until she saw Hearst at his favorite table, #4, in the far left-hand corner of the room. Her hair was cut in a short tousled style that she had somewhat patterned after the American aviatrix Amelia Earhart. She wore a royal blue matching silk jacket and form-fitting skirt flattering a figure that, judging from the number of male heads that turned as she waved at Hearst and walked the length of the dark mahogany-lined room, drew men’s attention wherever she went. As she was the only woman in the Bar Room, she had no doubt most men were checking out her ass. She had wedding and engagement rings on her left hand, but she knew what her assets were.

There were various model aircraft hanging from the Bar Room’s low, dark ceiling. These included a British Imperial Airways Flying Boat, a Pan American Clipper, Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, a Ford Tri-Motor, a giant Handley-Page HP-42 bi-plane airliner, and, of personal interest to her, a Pitcairn-Cierva PCA-2 autogiro and the new German Zeppelin, the Graf Bismarck, formerly the British Vickers-built airship the R-100.

The autogiro was a model of the Celtic Princess, her husband Bourke Cockran’s aircraft. A few years ago she and her then-fiancé had flown it cross-country in an unsuccessful attempt to break America Earhart’s record set earlier that year. The zeppelin was the model of an airship commanded by her good friend Kurt von Sturm with whom, to her regret, she had a brief affair several years ago when she and Cockran had been briefly estranged and she thought, erroneously, that he had dropped her and taken up with a new blonde client.

Hearst stood up to greet Mattie when she arrived at his table. They exchanged brief kisses on the cheek and then a waiter arrived to pull out the table so she could sit beside him on the banquette. 21 had a specific protocol that if two people were dining together at a banquette table, then they had to sit next to each other facing out to the room.

Hearst was a tall, shambling man, well over 6 feet with a comma of gray hair boyishly falling over his forehead. He had clear, blue eyes and didn’t look his 71 years of age. For such a large man, however, he had a surprisingly high voice.

“Thanks for joining me for lunch, Mattie, I appreciate it.”

Mattie had been surprised Hearst asked her to lunch at 21 when she called him yesterday to schedule an appointment to discuss her next assignment. Usually, on those occasions, they met at his castle-like estate on Long Island Sound when he was on the East coast. “Any time you want to treat me to lunch at Jack and Charlie’s, Chief, all you have to do is ask and I’ll be there with bells on. What’s the occasion?”

Hearst smiled. “I always take my Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalists to celebrate at 21.”

“Well, Chief, this is the second year in a row I’ve had some stories nominated for a Pulitzer, but that’s not the same as being a winner.”

In fact, Mattie had four stories from 1933 nominated for a Pulitzer, all of which she believed deserved to be winners. One involved the Transfer Agreement between the Jewish Palestine Authority and the German government in which the Nazis agreed to allow Jews emigrating to Palestine to avoid the currency rules which forbade any German emigrant from taking assets with him. In exchange for allowing emigrating Jews to take with them to Palestine the equivalent of $5,000 US, the Jewish Palestine Authority agreed to buy exports of agricultural equipment from Germany in an equivalent amount. Further, the Jewish Authority agreed to actively oppose the Jewish-led worldwide boycott of German exports that was threatening to cripple the German economy and bring down the new Nazi government.

A companion story concerned the Concordat negotiated between the Vatican and the Nazis whereby the German government agreed to allow the Catholic Church to operate freely in Germany with no interference. In exchange, the Church agreed to forbid its clergy—priests, monks and nuns—from engaging in ‘political activity’ of any kind with the Nazis being the sole arbiter of what constituted ‘political activity’.

The third story consisted of exclusive interviews with the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and the new U.S. President, Franklin Roosevelt, right before assassination attempts on both where Mattie had been sitting beside them during the attempts. A fourth story concerned the rise of the fascist movement in America, focusing on the Silver Legion of America and Friends of New Germany.

Hearst raised his hand and a waiter came over with a silver bucket of ice on a pedestal, inside of which was a bottle of champagne. He placed two champagne flutes on the table and held the bottle up for Hearst’s inspection. He nodded his approval and the waiter undid the foil, popped the cork and filled Mattie’s flute halfway to the top. She smiled when she noticed the champagne was Pol Roger, the favorite of her godfather Winston Churchill.

Once Hearst’s flute was filled, he stood up, tapped his spoon against the flute until the buzz of noise from the many luncheon conversations in that section of the room had died down. Then he raised his flute and said in a loud voice that carried to the front of the Bar Room. “I propose a toast to the Hearst organization’s newest Pulitzer Prize winner.”

Mattie blushed as applause and not a few wolf whistles greeted Hearst’s toast.

“Really, Chief, I won?” Mattie asked as she reached over and hugged Hearst after he sat down. “Which story was it?” she asked, her voice full of excitement.

“Actually, it was all four stories and two prizes. You received the prize for ‘Correspondence’ for your stories from Germany on the Transfer Agreement and the Concordat. I think it was your interview with Hermann Göring that did the trick. No other story had that. You got the ‘Reporting’ prize for your stories on the Hitler and FDR assassination attempts after your exclusive interviews with them as well as your story on American fascists. The panelists were impressed by your courage under fire with Hitler and FDR as well as your running the gauntlet of the Silver Shirts and the Friends of New Germany in front of Severance Hall in Cleveland.”

Hearst reached down into a briefcase beside him and pulled up a galley proof of The New York American dated for tomorrow and handed it to her. There, on the front page and above the fold was a bold headline: ‘Two Pulitzers For Hearst Papers’ Mattie McGary’. Right below it was a two-year-old photo of Mattie standing in front of Cockran’s autogiro that she had just flown across the country, almost breaking Amelia Earhart’s record. Shot from below, it was her favorite. She was wearing a leather flying outfit from head to toe—a shearling–lined sheepskin flying jacket, trousers and boots—a camera in one hand, her leather flight helmet and goggles in the other, her tousled red hair blowing in the wind and a big grin on her face.

“That’s only the galley for The American,” Hearst said, “but the same story in the same place will run in all my papers tomorrow.”

Thanks, Chief,” Mattie said as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s a shame,” Hearst said, “that the Transfer Agreement and the Concordat undercut the anti-Nazi boycott of German exports that otherwise might have crippled the German economy and brought down the new Nazi government.”

“True, it didn’t do that,” Mattie allowed, “but don’t overlook the silver lining of the boycott. It accomplished two big things. It’s all there in my interview with Göring. First, Hitler issued a directive to the SA and its brown-shirted Storm Troopers to cease any actions like boycotts against the mostly Jewish-owned department stores and their suppliers. He even authorized a loan to a Jewish Department store that was close to bankruptcy. Sure, Hitler only did it to keep thousands of Aryans off the unemployment rolls if any department stores had to close their doors because of brown-shirt bullying, but he still did it and those stores remained open and prospering.”

Mattie paused and took a sip of champagne. “The second thing Hitler and Göring did in response to the boycott last year was even bigger. They forbade all violence against the Jews that the SA had been committing without authorization of the government. The penalty for doing so was, at a minimum, confinement to a concentration camp or, at the other end, death.”

“Really, death?” Hearst asked. “I don’t recall you mentioning that in your article.”

“I didn’t go into any detail,” Mattie replied, “and only mentioned it in passing. You remember Bobby Sullivan?”

“Sure, I first met him at San Simeon in 1929 right before the reception of the Graf Zeppelin when it arrived in Los Angeles on the round-the-world voyage I sponsored. He was in your wedding party last year in Scotland. Wasn’t he ex-IRA or something?”

“More like the Irish Republican Brotherhood led by Michael Collins. He was a member of ‘The Apostles’, Collins’ hit squad in the Anglo-Irish War in 1920 to 1921. Anyway, Bobby’s sister was married to a Jewish physician in Berlin who the SA castrated and killed last year. Göring practically gave Bobby a license to kill in taking revenge on all those responsible. He showed me photographs of Bobby’s six victims, all of them naked below the waist and missing their manly parts. Each man had a sign pinned to his chest that said ‘This is what happens to all who disobey the Fuhrer and kill Jews without his consent.’ We obviously couldn’t use them in your papers, but Göring actually had them published on the front page of Der Angriff.”

“Congratulations, Miss McGary,” the waiter said as he returned to their table to take their lunch orders. Mattie thanked him and then ordered a dozen oysters and chicken hash while Hearst went for the Dover Sole and, to her surprise, another bottle of Pol Roger. Her boss rarely drank alcohol and, in fact, prohibited alcohol in the guest rooms at San Simeon, his elaborate Spanish mission-style estate in Central California.

“I must say Göring was right,” Mattie continued after the waiter had left, “when he said the SA loved their, uh, genitals more than they hated Jews because violence against Jews over the course of the next year practically disappeared, especially in large cities where most German Jews live. I think the boycott deserves the credit for forcing Hitler’s hand to issue those decrees.”

“Okay, Mattie, what’s next? What are you going to give me to enter in next year’s Pulitzers? I’d really like to see you follow up on that SA leader Ernst Rohm and the story our Berlin correspondent filed in March about a speech he gave in early February. He said that the SA was the true army of National Socialism and that the Reichswehr should be limited to being a training organization for the SA. I’d like to know what your friend Göring thinks about that, not to mention the German General Staff.”

Mattie frowned. It had been well over a year since last she had been in Germany. As a consequence, her reputation in Germany as ‘Hitler’s favorite foreign journalist’ was beginning to fade. The last thing she wanted to do was revive that by doing a story on the SA and the German Army, notwithstanding that she had many high-level contacts in Nazi Germany including Göring and the Nazi foreign press chief Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl as well as Hitler himself.

“Göring is not my friend, Chief. He is a source and that only because my friend Kurt von Sturm is his principle adviser on airships. Speaking of airships, Bourke and I are flying to Europe this Saturday on the Graf Bismarck. We’re going to spend the summer at our new house in Ireland. Bourke is going to finish his book on political assassinations and I’m going to use it as a base of operations for what I hope you’ll approve as my next story. Patrick and his grandmother Mary Morrissey sail tomorrow for Ireland. He’s going to spend a month in Galway with her getting to know his first and second cousins before he comes up to join us in Donegal.”

“That sounds like a wonderful summer. What did you have in mind for your next story, my dear?”

“Fascist movements in Europe other than Germany and Italy. A companion piece, if you will, to my story on fascism in America. Democracy is in trouble, Chief. I’ve done the preliminary research and there are fascist movements all over Europe. If the world’s economy stays bad, many of them could come to power just like Hitler and Mussolini.”
Her oysters arrived and Mattie ate one, took a sip of champagne and continued.

She held up her hand, and ticked them off on her fingers. “There are strong fascist parties in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Poland.”

“Well,” Hearst began, “I suppose it would be a good follow-up to the American fascist story, but I really was hoping to have an in-depth piece on the growing tension between Rohm’s SA and the German General Staff who I imagine don’t take kindly to becoming just a training cadre for Nazi Storm Troopers. Our new Berlin correspondent, Prescott Talbot, is good, but he’s not as good as his predecessor Isaac Rosenbaum or, for that matter, you.”

Mattie began to reply, but she was interrupted by their entrées being served. After the waiter had left and she had sampled her chicken hash, she looked over at Hearst. “Yes, it’s a shame you had to reassign Zack, but you had no choice after those SA thugs fractured his skull and cut off his ear for a souvenir. London is a far safer place for a Jewish journalist. Look, I really don’t want to get involved in any story about Ernst Rohm.”

“Why is that?” Hearst asked.

“Because when I was working on the Transfer Agreement, Kurt von Sturm and I were kidnapped at the Reichsbank one night by SA Storm Troopers and brought to Rohm’s hotel suite where, in plain view, he was buggering one of his adjutants, a young, very naked blond Storm Trooper.”

Hearst’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my God!” Hearst exclaimed. “I had no idea.”

“Wait. It gets worse. It’s common knowledge that Rohm is homosexual, so I wasn’t surprised, but doing it right in front of us was a tad off-putting. What’s worse is that he threatened to do the same to me if Kurt and I didn’t tell him why we had been at the Reichsbank that evening.”

“That’s…I’m at a loss...What a horrible person.” Hearst said.

“Yep,” Mattie said and slurped another oyster. “Fortunately, Sturm bluffed our way out of Rohm’s clutches. He said that I was an undercover Gestapo agent who used my position as a journalist with the Hearst papers as a cover for my work for the Reich and that we had been on a top-secret mission inside the Reichsbank at the behest of Reichsminister Göring with the blessing of the Fuhrer.”

“Well, given that, I understand your reluctance to go anywhere near that man again, but can’t you do the story without interviewing him?” Hearst said.

“Here’s what I can do. “Mattie concluded, “Göring and Rohm are bitter enemies. I’ve known Göring since 1923 when he commandeered my motorcar as a machine gun platform in the Munich putsch. If I have Sturm convey my request to Göring to have him give an exclusive interview to Prescott Talbot on the subject of Ernst Rohm, I’m sure he’ll agree. I’ll have Kurt brief Talbot off the record on what he knows. Göring has wiretaps on all the top SA people, not just Rohm. Transcripts of the calls are made daily. They’re called the ‘Brown Pages’ because of the color of the paper on which they’re typed. Sturm is on the approved list so he may well know a lot about what Rohm and other SA thugs are up to.”

Hearst sighed. “Well, it’s not the same as you doing the interview, but it’s better than what Talbot could do on his own. I’m not enthusiastic about your European fascist story, but let me think about it some more and I’ll get back to you. Why do I have the idea you always get the better of me when we disagree on your next story?”

Mattie grinned. “A faulty memory on your part, Chief. Sooner or later, you always get your way.”

Michael McMenamin is the co-author with his son Patrick of the award winning 1930s era historical novels featuring Winston Churchill and his fictional Scottish goddaughter, the adventure-seeking Hearst photojournalist Mattie McGary. The first five novels in the series—The DeValera Deception, The Parsifal Pursuit, The Gemini Agenda, The Berghof Betrayal and The Silver Mosaic—received a total of 15 literary awards. He is currently at work with his daughter Kathleen McMenamin on the sixth Winston and Mattie historical adventure, The Liebold Protocol.
Michael is the author of the critically acclaimed Becoming Winston Churchill, The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor [Hardcover, Greenwood 2007; Paperback, Enigma 2009] and the co-author of Milking the Public, Political Scandals of the Dairy Lobby from LBJ to Jimmy Carter [Nelson Hall, 1980]. He is an editorial board member of Finest Hour, the quarterly journal of the International Churchill Society and a contributing editor for the libertarian magazine Reason. His work also has appeared in The Churchills in Ireland, 1660-1965, Corrections and Controversies [Irish Academic Press, 2012] as well as two Reason anthologies, Free Minds & Free Markets, Twenty Five Years of Reason [Pacific Research Institute, 1993] and Choice, the Best of Reason [BenBella Books, 2004]. A full-time writer, he was formerly a first amendment and media defense lawyer and a U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent.   

Kathleen, the other half of the father-daughter writing team, has been editing her father’s writing for longer than she cares to remember. She is the co-author with her sister Kelly of the critically acclaimed Organize Your Way: Simple Strategies for Every Personality [Sterling, 2017]. The two sisters are professional organizers, personality-type experts and the founders of PixiesDidIt, a home and life organization business. Kathleen is an honors graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. The novella Appointment in Prague is her second joint writing project with her father. Their first was “Bringing Home the First Amendment”, a review in the August 1984 Reason magazine of Nat Hentoff’s The Day They Came to Arrest the Book.  While a teen-ager, she and her father would often take runs together, creating plots for adventure stories as they ran.

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{BOOK SPOTLIGHT} MERIDAN CHRONICLES: BLACK WIDOW CURSE & THE COVEN by M.D. Fryson @madelyn_fryson @pumpupyourbook

MERIDIAN CHRONICLES: BLACK WIDOW CURSE & THE COVEN by M.D. Fryson, Paranormal Romance, 408 pp., $12.63(paperback) $2.99 (Kindle)

Title: MERIDIAN CHRONICLES BLACK WIDOW CURSE & THE COVEN
Author: M.D. Fryson
Publisher: AMF Publishing
Pages: 408
Genre: Paranormal Romance

MERIDIAN’S curse has left her in a state all her own of amnesia. She is on Earth lost and afraid with only fragments to piece together her mysterious circumstance. The curse has taken the unimaginable from her, but that is just scratching the surface. The Black Widow curse will reveal itself through the demon’s riddle, the Coven and the Fairy Nymphs.

A trip back to Salem is just what the psychic ordered, but treachery lurks with an ex coven member who calls on demons. The demon realm offers more riddles than answers, but a stroke of luck from the high demon court, brings in a sophisticated demon, Lahash who has grown tired of the games.
The curse hides Meridian’s identity and her memory will unlock the Universal secret of her twin soul to find her way home. As Meridian finds Aiden so do the impacts of her curse and what it could do to their budding relationship.

Meridian’s soul and fate are in the cross hairs, while the odds rise between the demons, witches and the fairies.

Finally having found Aiden, the Fairy Queen comes through to send aid to Meridian, but she still doubts herself and contemplates running away from it all. Who is Meridian’s twin soul? Will she go back to Etheria or will the curse reign down on Meridian?

Find out in this dark and twisted paranormal romance.

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First Chapter

The air was crisp and cool as it danced around her face and through her messy raven hair. With a quick stop to investigate the window of the restaurant, she paused at the reflection staring back at her; Meridian did not recognize who she was.  Her disheveled look was unflattering, and her dark and ominous wardrobe gave her the appearance of someone heading for a funeral, a fan of Johnny Cash, or on the other end, a lover of all things gothic.  Wincing, she turned away from the stranger in the reflection and continued to walk down the street that she had once known in another life. Meridian had no idea where or who she was, or how she had arrived in such a state.  With overwhelming emotions raging inside, the flush on her face gave color to her pale face, and her eyes appeared even more piercing with the compliment of the blush in her cheeks.

As she walked down the street from Aiden’s old school, her mind scrambled with thoughts. Her face devoid of movement, like a statue, it would not have been hard for any onlooker passing by her to see how lonely she felt.   All Meridian could remember was Aiden and a distant memory of a name, Talon, but she was not sure why these names came to her and what the importance of these names was.  The more her mind obsessively ran over thoughts of things she didn’t understand, the quicker her pace became as though she was running from something.  Maybe she was running her way back to, in the very least, a clue that would brim with familiarity.

Meridian passed a few shops and a small bar that were out of place amongst the administrative offices and city hall. Meridian was unaware though; she wouldn’t have known what was out of place in this world.   She stopped outside the bar, looked in the windows, and did not see anyone there. Moments later, she heard voices from inside as the door came open.  A woman dressed very strangely was saying goodbye to the owner of the bar. “I will see you later, Stephanie!” she yelled out to the bar owner.

There Tallulah stood, looking at Meridian, adorned with jewelry of Celtic and Wiccan symbols.  Her light brown hair was long, but strategically swept up in a messy bun atop her head and looked as though it had not seen a wash in a couple of days.  Her clothes hung loosely on her large curvy body giving it a boxy appearance, her feet were hidden by the overture of her long dress, and she smelled of patchouli. Although Meridian was not quite sure what the scent was, as she had not encountered it before, it somehow gave her a sense of knowing and comfort.  Meridian stared at the woman as she was trying to put together this feeling of familiarity.  Tallulah waved her arms in sync with her exchange with the woman inside the bar, her large and gaudy bracelet chiming with every move of her hand.   Meridian could not help but stare at the eccentric lady as she spoke to the other woman.

“Sure thing. Come by for a chat soon,” Stephanie answered back as Tallulah closed the door and took notice of Meridian’s stare.   Tallulah’s smiling face quickly changed, and the twinkle in her eye disappeared as she looked at Meridian.   Meridian’s expression struck Tallulah; as a psychic, she was too sensitive of a person to just walk on by.

“Hi, how are you?” Tallulah asked with concern.

Meridian stood with her arms crossed barely making eye contact.  She kept her head down, kicking a small pebble on the ground as though that it was more important than Tallulah engaging in conversation with her.  After a very long pause, she allowed her deep and mesmerizing green eyes to look up and quietly answer, “I am okay.”

“You sure you are okay?  Are you looking for someone?” Tallulah asked.

“I really don’t know. I mean I do not know if I am okay or not, and I am looking for someone, but I do not know how to find him.  His name is Aiden,” Meridian quietly explained, keeping her voice down as passersby continued to stare.

“Aiden?  Hmm, I do not know anyone by that name.  Are you from around here?”  Tallulah inquired further.

“No, I am from out of town, and I do not know anyone here.”  Meridian realized how she must sound to the stranger she was speaking to.  She worried that this somehow familiar woman would see right through her, and in Meridian’s mind, there was no telling what that would entail for her.

“How did you get here?  Do you have any parents or family?  I see many people in my line of work, but I get the feeling I know you.  Have we ever met before?”  Tallulah was a little taller than Meridian, and she was bent at the waist just low enough to try to peer into Meridian’s eyes that were still locked on the ground.    Her questions though innocent felt invasive to the lost and castaway spirit guide. 

 “What is your name, sweetie?”  Tallulah pressed on after receiving no reply, “I am sorry I am asking you so many questions.  Where are my manners?  In a small town, we all try to help one another; we are all like family.  I didn’t stop to think about how that may come across to a stranger.”  Tallulah looked away from Meridian.

Meridian stopped kicking the pebble and looked up to the woman who had now stopped trying to make eye contact. “Meridian, I think.  I am not sure.  I can’t really remember things.” Meridian looked around seeking any clue to remind her of who she may be, but nothing was ringing any bells.  As she heard herself speak, it left her feeling even more vulnerable and embarrassed.

“What happened? Were you in some sort of accident?  I can call someone for you or take you somewhere if it would help you out,” Tallulah explained as she fumbled through her big purse digging for her cell phone. After several minutes of digging through a seemingly endless purse, Meridian put her hand out to Tallulah.

“No, no, it is fine, really.  I don’t need you to call anyone for me. I don’t know what happened to me exactly.  I just know I woke up in the high school parking lot, and I went into the school. The Principal called the authorities, but while I was waiting I asked if he knew where Aiden lived, and he said that he lived in a farmhouse off a county road outside of town. That was where I was headed when I stopped here,” Meridian said.

“Well, there aren’t but a few county roads around here in this small town.  How come you didn’t wait for the authorities?”  Tallulah asked further as she looked back at Meridian.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I have done anything wrong, I just had this name in my mind, and I wanted to find him.” Meridian paused.  “I don’t even know him... I don’t think I do. I just…” Meridian stopped herself.  She did not want to say anymore or mention Talon’s name.

“So, you do not remember anything but this Aiden’s name, and you do not know him, and you don’t know what happened?”   Tallulah’s eyes were dark and soulful, like deep pools of water that were still and quiet.  “I do not want to push, so I am going to get back over to my shop.  If you change your mind, I would be happy to call someone for you.  I do hope you are okay. Here is my card.”  Tallulah had managed to pull an old bent up business card with her information on it and handed it over to Meridian.  Tallulah began walking away across the street and back to her place.

Meridian took a glance at the card, and then she looked around at the street at all the people walking around.  She looked back at Tallulah who had just made it to her door, and she was again digging through her big purse looking for her keys.

Meridian dashed across the street. “Right, but the strange thing is you seem familiar to me too, but I don’t know how,” she said.

Tallulah smiled as she pointed at a sign on the door that read ‘Psychic readings by Tallulah’.  Meridian glanced up at the sign while Tallulah unlocked the door and walked in, leaving the door open for Meridian to follow.  Tallulah went through her living area straight to the kitchen and set her things down.   “I am the town psychic, and perhaps you came to me for a reading?  I know that you seem familiar to me as well, but I have done so many readings that I cannot always remember each person.”

“Maybe I did.  That could have happened.” Meridian walked in and took a look around.  Tallulah had an old light brown carpet on the floor that looked as though it had been well maintained.  Her walls were an old wood paneling job that were decorated with paintings of country fields and purple coneflowers.  Scents of lavender were heavy as Meridian continued toward the kitchen.  Tallulah’s table was small and decorated with a cheap linen cloth with red stripes and a centerpiece of large crystal quartz, set on a mirror with a crack in the center.

“Would you let me take you to the hospital to be checked to make sure that you are okay, at least?  I can try to help you find your friend, and maybe he can help you find your parents and family.  I am sorry I am not more help; I am uncertain what else I can do for you.”  Tallulah filled her teapot from the sink and moved over to heat it up on the stove.

“Hmm, I do not want to go to the hospital right now.  Is there something else I could do?  Do you have any more suggestions?”  Meridian dropped onto Tallulah’s large couch.  Sitting down, she scooted all the way to the back of the couch where her feet dangled off the ground.

“Sure, I could give you a reading on the house?  I may not be good at many things, but I am good at a reading - or so I am told.”  Tallulah’s eye’s twinkled in the light coming in from her large picture window.

Tallulah led the way into her favorite room - the reading room.  There were crystals placed throughout, and smudge sticks sitting on a shelf for customers to purchase.   A red curtain separated the living-waiting room from her small and private area for clients.    The charm hanging from the ceiling fan switch was two half-moons on either side of a moon with a Witch’s pentagram in the center, and Meridian walked over to the fan to reach up to touch the charm.

“That is my wind chime. I bought it while I went on a trip to Salem, Massachusetts… you know, for Halloween weekend. I always did enjoy going to Salem.  I have plans to go back this year.”  Tallulah attempted to hand Meridian a cup of tea, however, Meridian had not pulled her eyes away from the charm, barely taking notice of what Tallulah was sharing.    Her thoughts were interrupted by a divine scent that immersed through the air as Tallulah stood next to Meridian holding her tea.

“What is that wonderful smell?” Meridian looked into the cup and inhaled the steam floating away from the cup.

“Oh, that is chamomile tea.  I thought you would want a cup to warm you up.  Fall is certainly in the air.   I love to have my teas,” Tallulah said as she sat down at her table putting away her tarot cards. “Now, what can you remember about yourself?”

“I truly do not have a clue about my whereabouts or even where I come from. Judging by the way I am dressed, I look like I am going to a funeral, I guess?” Meridian looked down at herself and opened up her arms as she explained herself.  “Well, maybe not a funeral. I am sure I would wear a sweater over a shirt like this.”  Meridian pulled the end of her sheer black shirt that showed through to the black bra she was wearing underneath.  The only thing she had on over her tawdry shirt was a black leather waistcoat that barely zipped up over her large breasts.

“Well, you look like maybe you like gothic style, and there is nothing wrong with that.  It’s all right to be proud of your body. I mean, as long as you are comfortable with that kind of attention.   I see a lot of that with my clientele.  This little town is a wonderful place away from the bigger cities.  It is small enough that most people who have lived here a long time know each other. However, it is growing, so we do see new faces more frequently.  If you like the beach, we are just about an hour away, and there is plenty to do down at the boardwalk.

Meridian looked right at Tallulah. The psychic had jumped from her comment on Meridian’s wardrobe right into her sharing information on the area, but Meridian got hung up on Tallulah’s remark about her outfit. “Attention?  I don’t understand.”  Meridian took the seat across Tallulah’s reading table.

“Oh, now you have to know what kind of attention that you get.  I am sure all the guys must look at you.  I mean you definitely have the body to pull off your look well.  Don’t be ashamed.”    Tallulah didn’t give the raven beauty any time to respond, and she moved right on to what she knew she did best.  “So, let us do a reading and see what I can help you out with.”

Tallulah closed her eyes.  Soon she began to see images flash through her mind of Meridian and what she looked like as a guide.  She had platinum blonde hair and a glowing tattoo on her wrist that represented Infiniti.  She caught a glimpse of her own self and the woman she was reading back when Meridian, Relic and Caius came in to talk with her.  She remembered that day and how odd it was to have spirits talking to her in the way they were with their strange requests.  Tallulah could not get any more on Meridian, but she did see a glimpse of Aiden driving down his grandparent’s long dirt road to their home.  With his window rolled down and his rock music blaring, his long blond hair blew around with the wind and his bright smile spread across his face.  Tallulah opened her eyes, and she looked at Meridian with some confusion. She remembered the names of the guides, and it startled her that one of the spirits she had spoken to had the same name.

“What is it, Tallulah? Can you tell me anything?”  Meridian’s excitement did not give Tallulah another moment to collect thoughts any further.  She was leaning in and studying Tallulah’s face.

“Well, I got a flash of you, but you looked different. Can I see your wrist?”  As Tallulah examined Meridian’s wrist, the tattoo was there, but it was not glowing white like she saw in her mind, it was just a simple black tattoo of the infinity symbol.  Tallulah’s face showed her confusion, and Meridian was becoming just as confused.  “Meridian, did you dye your hair?  Or was it another color before?”

“What?  I don’t think so.” Meridian walked over to the mirror on the wall as she looked at herself.  “I would think that I have always had black hair and green eyes.”

“Well, in my vision I see you, but your hair is platinum blonde, and you still have green eyes, but they are a very light translucent green and they are very, well… deep would be a good word to describe them.  They do not look like any green eyes I have seen before, and the tattoo was glowing and a silvery color, not black like it is now.  The mark on your wrist seemed like a hologram that floated above your wrist, casting a dark silver or grey shadow, but it isn’t a shadow.  This is all very different, compelling, and strange.   I also saw a vision of a boy and wonder if this is your Aiden. He had blond hair, about shoulder length, and he was driving a black truck down a dirt drive to a farmhouse. That house looks like the one I pass on the way out of town, and I think this must be him.  This is very strange,” Tallulah repeated as she questioned herself.

Meridian continued to study her reflection.  Long, flowing jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. Her eyes were the only thing that made sense to her, but she still remained puzzled with her fuzzy memory, in contrast with what Tallulah said.  Meridian’s delight left, and her statue-like expression returned - accompanied by the slump she had carried when she and Tallulah had met on the street.  She plopped back down onto her seat at the table and put her head in her hands as she stared at Tallulah.

“Meridian, I was doing a reading last year for a client of mine, and I had to ask her to leave because I was getting some spirits making strange requests.  They spoke to me, and I could hear them, and their names were Caius, Relic and…Meridian.” Tallulah stopped as she saw Meridian’s face light up.  “They were Spirit Guides that watch over humankind.”

“Are you saying I am her?  I am Meridian the Spirit Guide?” Meridian’s voice drifted as she pulled a strand of her hair in front of her eyes, for a closer look.   “This makes no sense; how can I be a spirit and be here talking to you?”

“I don’t know, child.  This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me, and trust me, I have had some strange experiences.  They were asking me about a Fairy Quartz stone and how to locate the family or persons who had it.  I never truly answered them; I asked them to leave.  I knew where the stone was, but I was afraid to say anything.” Tallulah took pause as she waited for Meridian’s reaction.

Meridian stood with her hand over her wide-open mouth, the shock evident in her expression. “Tallulah, I think I am her.  I remember… I remember being here and seeing you and the stone, but I have no idea why I needed it.  I am so confused, but this seems more like a dream I had. Nothing that would be realistic.”  Meridian walked over to the couch and sat down in disbelief of her own thoughts. “Maybe this is a dream, and maybe I don’t remember because I was in an accident or something?  I mean isn’t this backwards?  Shouldn’t it be a human goes on to the spirit world, not the other way around?”  Meridian looked to Tallulah for some semblance of comfort, but as she looked at the psychic, she did not find what she was looking for.  Instead, Tallulah appeared to be just as confounded as Meridian.

After much urging from Tallulah, the pair went down to the hospital for a full work up, and to make sure there wasn’t anything that they could find to piece together Meridian’s circumstance.  Tallulah had taken on quite a bit, and she questioned herself as to if this was really something she should be involved with.  After the hospital checked Meridian, and they saw no signs of trauma, Tallulah felt better knowing that at least physically, Meridian was okay.  The pair sat in the waiting room as they waited on more test results coming back from the lab.

“What else do we need to have tested?”  Meridian was impatient as she sat drumming her fingernails on the magazine that lay on her lap.

“Well, I have never had this happen to me either, but I think it makes sense that we have you checked out.  The next thing we will look at doing - if we can’t locate your family - is finding a place for you to stay.  There are shelters here for folks who have nowhere to stay.”  Tallulah sat with her large purse in her lap digging for her wallet, so she could get a drink from the vending machine.  Meridian raised an eyebrow and smiled as she watched the digging.

“Why don’t you get a smaller bag?”  Meridian elbowed Tallulah gently and laughed.

“Why should I?  I like having what I need. It just takes me a while to get it!” She popped back at her new acquaintance.  Tallulah made her way to the vending machine, and as she was putting her change in, one of the doctors who had seen Meridian for her checkup approached with a clipboard and some papers.  Meridian stood and watched the pair visiting. Tallulah appeared confused as she shook her head several times and shrugged her shoulders as she responded to the doctor’s inquiries.  After a few more moments, the doctor, alongside Tallulah, walked over to where Meridian was sitting in the waiting area.

“Meridian, I have the results of another set of labs we ran, and I am troubled by some of the results we have uncovered.  It appears that you do not have a blood type.  No matter how many times we rechecked for errors, the results are always the same.  The strangest thing is, you seem fine, and there are no indications of anything that could be wrong with you.  I have no reason to hold you here, except by you volunteering to run some more tests.  Maybe there is something else that is going on with you that we have yet to uncover.  I seriously think you should come back for some additional testing. If you don’t want to do it now, you can go to the front with an order, and they can schedule it.”  Dr. Jones walked away leaving Meridian and Tallulah with an order to take for an appointment.

“I don’t want to do this!”  Meridian shouted at Tallulah.

Tallulah paused and looked around struggling with what to do.  “Okay, okay; calm down.  You and I both know that there is more to you than we can share with just anyone.  I am happy to know for the most part you are all right.  We can hold onto the work order for now.  I have some friends that may be able to help you, but you have to promise me that if for any reason we can’t uncover what we need to in order to satisfy your mystery, that you will come here and allow the staff here to take care of you.”  Tallulah’s tone was forceful.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like you are giving me an option.  I will only do so if they do not have a clue how to help me.  It sounds to me as I am being volun-told,” Meridian acquiesced with a guarded endorsement.   They left the hospital and found a shelter that Meridian was welcomed to stay in. Tallulah left Meridian there while making a few calls to help her out. One of those calls was back to her dear friend, Stephanie.  Tallulah was hopeful she could put Meridian to work while they worked out the young woman’s perplexing circumstance.

I am a wife and mom to three boys. I am an animal lover especially horses that I used to ride, train and show. Someday will do once more!

Favorite books are anything astrology, self help, motivation, romance and humor.
I love chocolate, coffee, my family (not in that order), and the beach.

I like to garden, hike, jog, swim and travel. My oldest two boys tell me I am weird as they laugh and I’ll take that as a good thing. I am told I am witty and sarcastic and I believe that comes out in my writing.

The third installment to this series comes out September, 2019 and I am nearly finished with the last book to the series that comes out in 2020.

Website Link: www.mdfryson.com

Twitter Link: @madelyn_fryson

 

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