Sometimes it's the author of a book that grabs my interest. I have particular authors that I love to read and I try to watch for their latest releases. But sometimes it's the title of a book that gets me to take a second look, and that's even better because it introduces me to new authors. That was the case with the latest release by author CJ Zahner. The title of her latest book, The Suicide Gene, drew me in, but then I discovered she also had another book coming out. Two books releasing so close together? Naturally I was intrigued and wanted to know more about her as an author so I asked her to be my guest in My Writing Corner.
CJ, or Cyndie, hails from Erie, Pennsylvania, and like so many writers, she says she fell in love with writing at an early age. She credits her English teacher in high school for introducing her to the world of books, reading and writing. She went to work in the business world but also wrote articles for magazines. She married and had children before eventually turning her attention to writing books. Now she has two new books coming out, and two more that she is presently finishing.
Her latest work, The Suicide Gene, has just been published by The Wild Rose Press, and as I noted, that title really grabbed my attention. Here's the blurb and that grabbed my interest as well:
She thought they were her siblings. By the time she realized they weren’t, one of them was dead.
Doctor Emma Kerr had no right counseling them. Adopted and her birth records lost, she believed she was born a McKinney. Her face, intelligence, and depression resembled theirs. For years people mistook her for their sister. So she devised a plan. What begins as a scheme to counsel the McKinney family and determine if they are blood relatives, quickly causes Emma to wonder if she had truly done the manipulating. Is someone following her?
Now Emma clamors to escape the McKinney world of domination and deception.
Is she Mathew McKinney's sister? She can't be. Is he in love with her? He can't be. Then how do he and his sisters know more about her than she knows herself? This is a game to them. Is the game suicide? Or murder?
Intrigued? I was! Let's get an excerpt:
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The Funeral Parlor.
The face in the casket
was her own. It nearly freaked her out.
She stood between her brother and sister, knees wobbling. Her
high-necked dress clung to her skin, choking her throat, squeezing her long,
slender body tighter and tighter until she felt her lungs might explode. Damn panic attacks.
Her siblings moved
closer, tightening their grip on her when they heard her struggling to breathe.
Together their tall frames—movie-star handsome—melded into a dark mass at the
foot of the casket. It took all the energy the three of them could muster to
keep her upright.
“Are you okay?”
Melanie asked her.
She nodded.
“Try not to embarrass
yourself,” Matt whispered.
Again, a nod.
She wasn’t sure she could get through the day without fainting.
There were no breaks at a funeral, and she just wanted to get away from the
grim whispery-whirrs of the bereaved and the sickeningly-sweet waft of the
flowers. But she couldn’t leave. Matt would kill her and, besides, she had no
cigarettes. Her sister was her supplier. Now she’s dead.
The parade of mourners stretched out of the room and down the
hall and it was only 2:05. Some faces in line she didn’t recognize, which
infuriated her. Her sister had no real friends. Nosy bastards. They just want
to know what happened.
She tried to ignore
surrounding conversations and remain composed. But like Medusa’s venomous mane,
muffled words of hand-covered comments serpentined toward her from all
directions. She couldn’t block them. They echoed in her head like garbled
phrases over a worn intercom. “Why did she do it?” “Like her mother.” “Was it
suicide?”
That last question
nearly sent her to her knees. Her body sagged. Melanie caught her and Matt
pulled her close, so she could lean on him until it passed.
“Don’t look if looking makes you queasy,” Melanie told her, but
her glance drifted back to her sister’s pasty face. That’s what I would look like
if I were dead.
She, herself, had
considered suicide for so long it was hard to believe she still feared death.
She hated funerals, could barely walk through the front door of a funeral home
without hyperventilating. Yet, she had to go to this one. Her own identical
twin sister lie in that ugly copper box, her head sunk low in billowing white
silk.
“I’m sorry for the three
of you.” Her aunt Carol’s hoarse voice coaxed her attention from the coffin.
Notably thinner—grief now topping her midmorning chemotherapy cocktail,— her
aunt dabbed a tissue at tear-stained cheeks. She was in the third round with
breast cancer and getting her butt kicked. “I can’t believe this is happening
to our family again. Did you know she was that bad?”
“Well.” Melanie
paused. “She’s always had those tendencies, but we thought—with the
counseling—she was doing better.”
“Counseling?” Aunt
Carol’s cheeks pinked.
“Yes,” Matt said. “Six
months ago we started seeing a psychiatrist—all four of us.”
“We thought a
counselor might help,” sweet Melanie continued. “We decided maybe we did have
some baggage about Mom’s—” She took a deep breath. Her gaze moved to her
sister.
Don’t say it, Mel, don’t say
suicide.
“Death.” Melanie
looked away.
“How horrible.” Aunt
Carol straightened. She appeared appalled. “You should sue him—that counselor.”
“Her.” Matt shook his
head, eyes glaring. “She’s a psychiatrist.”
“We will sue her.” The
twin’s voice rose, but she stopped, glanced at Matt, and tightened her jaw.
“She didn’t give a damn about us. Now my sister is dead. She’ll pay.”
It happened then—at
2:10 p.m. She felt Matt’s piercing gaze and watched as he released his grip on
her arm. Her aunt Carol became so emotional that Matt had to help her to the
back of the room. Family members congregated there amidst her wild sobs while
Matt held her, and a rush of people came toward her and Melanie at the casket.
One after another. Melanie let go of her, too, and she had to stand on her own.
For the first time in her
life, she was alone.
Want to read on? Here are the buy links:
Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/BandNSGene
If you want to read more by CJ, she has another book out, Dream Wide Awake, and here is how you can learn more about her as an author:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcjzahner/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TweetyZ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjzahner/
Athletchic.com blog: https://athletchic.com/
Thank you, CJ, for bringing us your latest releases. Any comments or questions for CJ?
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment