Society Talk: After Escape Day....

Good evening, Dear Reader! The following is an excerpt from the next Fore Shadows: Arrival
1513....

You won't like how it ends....

(This post is part of the A Shadow in Doubt, ten years later, read along...)

As we near the end of reliving (via reading) Sam's 2006, there's something I have to tell you. See, when Mom was halfway through her initial read of ASID, I told her she wouldn't like the end. Magic Yoda 8-ball was right. Like it, she did not. 

Despite agreeing with my assessment, to my surprise she said she enjoyed ASID more than TSW. My warning allowed her time to prepare herself, so, she said it was okay I left it that way.  Still, I wondered what other readers - those without the benefit of my warnings - might think....

Tending the Flamella Tree

(This post is part of the A Shadow in Doubt, ten years later, read along...)

Here we are, on to Chapter 25 - Confrontation - already.... So much has happened since the last post, I don't know where to start!

Pondering the Life Eternal

(This post is part of the A Shadow in Doubt, ten years later, read along...)

On to day three, and Chapter Four of A Shadow in Doubt....

I posted today's chapter a little while back. (Click here to read it if you haven't yet!) It was an interesting day for Sam, full of pondering.

Midnight Rambling: Hopping Too Far

(This post is part of The Shadow Watcher, ten years later, read along...)

I can't believe we're already at the final chapter. I'd planned a few more posts along the way, but I used the wrong hopper, and got too far ahead ... which brings me to the subject of the post!

Midnight Rambling: A Bedtime Story

(This post is part of The Shadow Watcher, ten years later, read along...)

By the fourth day Sam's head was probably spinning out of control. Wouldn't yours? To go from this feeling of being watched for so long, to meeting your Watcher, to being attacked in just over 48 hours?

Ten years ago, right about now....

(This post is part of The Shadow Watcher, ten years later, read along...)

In real life, ten years ago, I was a busy mom of a fifteen month old, a restaurant manager, and scribbling away what words I could between diaper changes, feedings and shifts at work. The first story sparks for the Society in the Shadow of Civilization wouldn't come to me for a few more years. But is the tenth anniversary of where that story begins. Or, Sam's telling of it, anyway.

Ten years ago, right around this time, Samantha Marquet would be finishing up writing an assignment from one of her clients before heading out to run some errands. It wasn't a great day, getting a rejection email from a magazine first thing in the morning and dealing with a rude client later, she was in a pretty bad mood. Until her visit with Mr. Zhou at the bookstore. From there, it just got weird....

And, it will only get weirder in the days and weeks that follow! If you don't have your copy of The Shadow Watcher yet, get it free now, and join me in retracing Sam's journey, ten years later!

Amazon (US, UK, AU & CA) Kindle edition*
Barnes&Noble.com Nook edition
iTunes iBooks edition
Kobo
Smashwords all ebook formats

Check back later tonight for a Midnight Rambling on what was Sam thinking!?!?!?

As always, thanks for stopping by! Hope you're having a beautiful day, night, or sometime in the between....

Roari

Countdown to Escape Day - only 153 years to go!

Yes, you read that right. August 5th, 2169 is Escape Day - celebrated today by the Society, and in the future by Samuel's post-escape supporters, as the day the founders of the Society in the Shadow of Civilization fled to the past, to escape the U.C.E. In honor of Samuel, Pose, Voorhia, Vega, Eleanor, Tollack, and Marcus, I'll be sharing some tidbits throughout the day about the Future as they left it, and the inspirations behind it.

But first, a little more about Escape 2169 itself.

A Shadow in Doubt: Chapter Four - Duty Call

Happy Saturday! Today, I'm sharing Chapter Four from A Shadow in Doubt, where Sam ponders her situation, Jay and Kristoff make her want to gag, and you'll find out who I was listening to while writing that part of the book....

Chapter Four

11/18/2006 - Duty Call

A groan near my head woke me. My hair fell in my face when I lifted my head; I tried to push it out of the way, but it just fell back in the same place. A male chuckled softly behind me - from the sofa - and my heart skipped a beat hoping it was Michael. I rolled over, disappointed it was Kristoff smiling at me from the couch.

I couldn’t figure out how he got there, so I asked, “How?”

He smiled, holding out a can of Pepsi. “Artemis let me in when I rang the bell,” he replied. Because it’s perfectly natural for a cat to answer a doorbell in a secret cavern.

I accepted his offering with gratitude, “Thank you.” Two gulps down, I was awake. “I hope you brought something stronger for Sleeping Beauty here.”

He tapped the travel thermos on the end table next to him. “Never leave home without it.”

“Come on Jay,” I gave her a shove, “it’s time to get up.” Then to Kristoff, “Take the lid off, she’s gotta smell it.”

An excerpt from The Shadow Watcher - Chapter 7

Curious about The Society in the Shadow of Civilization? This week I'm sharing Chapter Seven from The Shadow Watcher ... which is where he finally starts to explain himself.

Character Spotlight: Adjatay - Keeper of the Tree

(Spoilers, maybe? Be warned....)

Sam first meets Adjatay in The Shadow Watcher, and visits him again in A Shadow in Doubt. Though Adja's appearances are brief, he is a key figure as the keeper of the Flamella tree.

According to www.babynamespedia.com, the name Adjatay is of Cameroon/African origin, meaning prince". It was meant to be; in my head, Michael called him Adja, before I even started looking for names. 

Adja was taken in by the Society in the Shadow of Civilization in the mid-eighteenth century, and in recognizing the purity of his soul, he became a sort of spiritual center for Samuel, and later Sam. It takes a special kind of person to live alone in the jungle for more than a century, without going bananas.

Sam's timeline is getting seriously twisted.

Society in the Shadow of Civilization
Book Two

Sam Marquet's journey continues with unexpected twists, as she struggles to find the balance between her new role in the world her grandfather created and her place in the real one.... 

More Midnight Rambling: Burning the Candle...

It's half past midnight, I'm sitting here, at my desk, taking a break from corrections on A Shadow in Doubt. I haven't been sleeping much the last couple of weeks. Some of that has to do with the heat. The rest, well, I'm doing that thing I do when there is a deadline approaching

I'd rather get some action in the first chapter...

That's not what I meant! But, now that I have your attention....

Final Front Cover Art, and First Chapter!

Time is capricious.

Sam's story continues - look for the first chapters on or Writing.com!

Midnight (and then some) Ramblings

I'm sitting here, thinking strange things, then thinking I should write a blog post about them, and then I realized my mind can be a very strange place - I'm not sure I should blog about it. (This is not the first time I've had this realization, I just intentionally forget about it every time.)

Tonight's ponderings? Give yourself a high five if you guessed time-travel! Yes, I'm re-weaving threads of time in A Shadow of Doubt, again, which is the cause for delay. Future Sam and Michael made me see the problem in the sequence of events, so I'm using them to help fix it.

But then my mind wandered off (it does that) to a conversation I had with the Love of My Life (or LOML) earlier, which we've had before, and was somewhere in the mess of inspiration behind the Society in the Shadow of Civilization, about the first time travelers (presumably) from the future.

I know, we talk about weird stuff. But, really, if you stop and think on it, eventually, if it is possible, time travel will become reality. So, theoretically, if it is invented in the future, Travelers have already been to the past - or are here among us in the present. Let's just go with the idea it might be possible....

Now, what if the prophets of our past (yours and mine), such as Nostradamus, were, in fact, Travelers from the future who either couldn't get back, never planned to, or for whatever-other-reason stayed where they landed. Well, that would explain how they knew things, wouldn't it?

And yes, we've gone through a Nostradamus phase before - some of his quatrains are just too on to be coincidence, but then there are those that aren't. Ah, but what if things changed because he came back and wrote them? Or other Travelers came back to change those events in an effort to discredit him to future generations?

Or, (potential plot hint) what if someone from the future came back to take the place of one of said prophets, to change the prophecies, or use their power to influence a change over the future. I'm not saying this is part of the U.C.E.'s plan ... but it might be.....

I could keep going, but, it's late. So, on that note, I leave you. (And come back to finish posting the next day, lol!)

I hope you're having a beautiful night, morning or afternoon, wherever you may be!
Roari


(Photos: all-free-download.com)