Excerpt from Ursula, Sisters of Prophecy, Book 1 by Jude Pittman and Gail Roughton

Ursula, Sisters of Prophecy, Book 1

By Jude Pittman and  Gail Roughton

What’s a girl to do? Beautiful young artist Katherine Shipton has a painting that talks, an ancestor who won’t stay in her own century, and a former boyfriend with a serious ax to grind against her new fiancé. She already has a full plate, but when said ancestor sends her tripping back and forth between the 15th and 21st century without benefit of psychedelic drugs, the poor girl begins to doubt her own sanity. Then her best friend, a high fashion model with more than her own share of psychic energy, and her troubleshooting aunt show up on her doorstep in response to a psychic SOS Katherine swears she didn’t send. Life couldn't get more complicated. At least, that's what she thinks until her oilman fiancé disappears in the Gulf of Mexico and a DEA agent knocks on her door.
"A delightful read with twists and turns, quirky characters, a bit of darkness and some snappy dialogue. The authors maneuver between the 16th and 21st centuries with ease, adding authenticity through well researched historical data. While the characters from the two eras have their own stories, their lives are interlocked like the pieces of a puzzle. Putting those pieces together is much of the fun. Jude Pittman and Gail Roughton have successfully blended their styles into a rollicking good read . . . the first in a series. The closure at the end of Book 1 is much appreciated, as well as the tantalizing teasers which left me anxiously awaiting Irene's story in Book 2. I can easily recommend Sisters of Prophecy - Ursula, and after reading it, I'm sure you will, too." ~ 4 Stars, Deborah Sanders

"I've got to say that there is some dialog between a savvy female police interrogator and a cocky, not so smart male criminal that I thought was just the BEST and left me howling. Holy mackerel, that was just fabulous! I am glad there will be more to this series & look forward to Irene's story in 2015. Rest assured there is more to come but this book ends on a satisfying high note and NOT one of those pesky cliffhangers. Nice start to a series that celebrates the powerful love of "Sisters" no matter how they come into your life." ~ 5 Stars, Lomg Time DF Fan

 

"It was quick, but it was also exciting and interesting. I think many readers will find it enjoyable and a good read for a sunny afternoon or an evening indoors. It’s definitely a fast read, and it will entertain without eating away your entire day." ~ 4 Stars, OnlineBookClub.org

Excerpt:

Katherine flew through darkness. Dream darkness. Toward something. Sound barely audible coalesced and rose in volume, forming words. Beneath these gray stone walls I stand, an ancient gypsy king… The darkness lightened into shades of gray and a tower loomed.

A boat approached the tower. Inside, a woman, in Katherine’s likeness. Not her, but near enough to be of her lineage. Floating over the woman, Katherine watched. A man, dressed as an ancient workman, fixed the boat against the steps leading up to the looming tower. Reaching down, he helped the woman from the boat, and pulled her toward a dark stairwell.

Another, in uniform, nodded to the oarsman, and took the woman’s hand. His flickering torch gave barely enough light for the woman to make her way up the stone steps as she groped along behind him. The steps crumbled, and twice the woman almost fell when her feet slipped on the damp stone.

A fierce roar sounded in the night and Katherine knew it as a lion. The guard stopped in front of a scarred wooden door, and pushed it inward. The flicker from his torch revealed a small barren chamber, with scant furnishing and a stone floor. Against the wall stood a crude bed with a single bed covering. The guard motioned the woman inside. She stumbled across the room and sank onto the bed. The guard used his torch to light a single candle. Then without a word, turned and left the cell.

The woman curled into herself. Great sobs shook her body.

Katherine floated back out into the courtyard. Standing in the corner an old man, dressed in the garb of a medieval gypsy, chanted.

“With heavy heart I bear the words of cruelest Mary Queen…”

Mary Queen? Tower? The scene changed in an instant, dream-fashion. Now she floated back to the cell. The same rough cot and threadbare blanket covered a still figure.

“These words I take in sorrow drear unto a lady fair…”

On cue, the woman rose from the cot and entered her dreams. Nobility for certain, possibly even royalty. Her time in the cell had dulled her eyes and matted her hair but yes, the chant was right. She’d been a lady fair. She would be so again, given fresh air and sunshine.

A lady who from birth was blest with visions strange but rare…

The door of the cell opened and the old gypsy entered the cell.

“Tarot! My dear, dear friend! How good it is to see you!” The lady ran into his arms, and he held her to his breast.

“Milady.”

“My grandmother. My husband and son. Is there news?”

“Your grandmother is well and fights ceaselessly for your release. Your husband—there’s been no news from Russia. Except that he pleads for intercession from the Russian Court.”

She smiled sadly. “I can just imagine how much he pleads. He is afeard he’ll be tainted with the same brush that’s painted me.”

“No, Milady! He is doing all he can.”

“Tarot, dear friend, ’tis a very bad liar you are, but I love you for it. Prince Frederick makes no effort on my behalf. He has abandoned me. As have all, in the face of the Queen’s disfavor. All but you and Grandmother. And I bear them no ill for such. ’Tis asking too much to expect them to stand with me and risk a charge of witchcraft.” She shrugged. “And for the prince, a chance to rid himself of a disappointing wife who only bore him one son.”

“Oh, Milady! It hurts me so to hear you speak as though resigned to fate.”

“Dear friend. Do not despair. My heart has always belonged to another, that fate sealed from childhood. If only I’d been stronger, surer! If only I’d followed my heart and run away with my Toby when—”

She broke off, her face losing all expression.

“Milady? What—a vision! ’Tis a vision you’re seeing. Cease fighting them! Use them! Use the power!”

“I—Tarot, someone’s watching us.”

“Watching? I bribed the guards well. They have no cause to—”

“No, not the guards! Someone from—someone not here. Someone who sees us, who knows me. Knows me in her soul. Someone who can—dare I say it? Someone who can help me! Help me change the start of this disastrous path!”

In her dream, Katherine tried to leave, to get away. Enough of this misery that wasn’t hers. Except it was. Somehow it was hers.

“Oh, please! Please don’t leave! Help me! Help us!”

“How?” The dream Katherine spoke. “How do I help you?”

“I cannot tell you!”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“The portrait! Yes, I see it. There’s a painting, a painting yet unfinished! ’Twill show you the way! It must show you the way, or you will never be.”

“Milady? Your vision speaks to you?”

“The portrait! The portrait will know!”

The portrait will know…the portrait will know…the portrait will know…

The words followed Katherine back through the depths of the dream and echoed in her ears when she woke, gasping into wakefulness.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O2DTE1M 

Publisher Unleashed! In Hawaii!

By Gail Roughton

Jude Pittman and I have a multi-faceted relationship.  She’s my publisher, my writing partner, my friend.  Our lives have the most fascinating mixture of similarities and differences.  The foremost difference is she’s West-Coast Canadian and I’m Deep-South American.  The foremost similarities are two-fold.  We’re both writers, and we’re both paralegals with extensive legal backgrounds who’ve spent more years in law offices than either of us care to admit.  Unlike many cyberspace friends, we’ve actually met.  That’s because Jude masterminded a wonderful ten-day vacation to Hawaii (specifically Maui—she’d been offered the use of a friend’s condo for two weeks) last April that included me and her daughter Roxanne, who’s also a Books We Love editor.  Roxanne’s also my editor because she refuses to let anybody else edit me.  I'm not sure if that's because she loves my books or because she's scared of what I might come up with unsupervised.  I protested that no, I couldn’t come.  And Jude refused to let me not go.  That’s not awkward phrasing.  That’s the literal truth.  She refused to let me not go.  It wasn’t just a vacation, it was a writer’s retreat.  An opportunity to brainstorm on our then in-process project, Sisters of Prophecy – Ursula.  Then my husband chimed in.  “You might not ever get the chance again!”  So I went.  Jude’s a steam rollin' jauggernaut, an immutable force of nature. Don’t believe me?  I can prove it.

Let me tell you an Hawaii story.  She'd booked us a tour, "The Road to Hana", which is a scenic highway along the coast of Maui, 30 miles or so, that takes three hours to drive. That's us over there in the picture, waiting for our tour bus to pick us up at the condo.  There's a reason it takes three hours to drive the Hana Road.  It has about 300 hairpin turns and 50+ single lane bridges where one side of traffic has to wait for the other side of traffic to come over.  Beautiful beyond belief with such stops as waterfalls, the legendary “Painted Forest”, pounding surf, black sand beaches and occasionally, absolutely hair-raising.  Check out the pictures scattered about this blog. Anyway, she booked the three of us for a tour on a 12 passenger van, the deluxe tour.  And the 12 passenger van picked us up at our condo.  The problem arose when the passenger van connected at a Mall where they were feeding us breakfast  with a big  bus, Greyhound size,  with 25 people taking the tour. And indicated that we were to get on it.  

Now, the guy driving the mini-van that picked us up was great, the guy driving the big bus wasn’t.  Let’s just say his people skills were challenged.  He wasn’t native Hawaiian, or even native American, and please note I didn’t capitalize the ‘n’ in native.  I don’t mean he wasn’t American Indian, I mean he wasn’t American.  Imagine, if you will, taking a tour of Maui with a running commentary delivered in the accents made famous by the movie “Fargo”.  This driver proceeded to "assign" seats because "we can't separate the newlyweds, now can we?"  In other words, he was splitting me, Jude and Roxanne up.  How did this play with our Jude?  Not. At. All.  She refused to get on the thing.  "If I'd wanted a Greyhound bus, I'd have booked a Greyhound bus. And I frankly don't give a damn about the newlyweds as I paid considerably extra for the deluxe tour."  

Needless to say, we exited the bus and Jude called the tour company.  The conversation proceeded as follows:  "I paid for the deluxe tour on the 12 passenger van with captain's seats, which is what picked us up.  I am NOT getting on a bus the size of a Greyhound with 25 passengers and assigned seating."  They put her through to the home office.  The original driver of the twelve-passenger van who picked us up waited, as did the other bus.  Roxanne and I just sat down on a planter curb in the parking lot to watch the show.  Like I said, we were with an immutable force of nature.  Jude went through the whole process again with the home office. This time she added that if they couldn’t accommodate us, she expected to be taken back to the condo and did not expect to be left in a Mall parking lot. She further advised there was no need to hold the other bus up because she was NOT getting on it and if they couldn't get it resolved, they needed to have someone take us back to our condo and she'd take it up through her law office when she got back home. The home office said they'd call us back.

Through all this, our original mini-van driver enjoyed himself hugely.  It was very obvious.  He loved it.  The tour company called back and said there’d been a mix-up due to the on-line booking.  (Though I have a private suspicion the fact that neither the deluxe van nor the Greyhound size were quite full as things were and the Greyhound would be completely full if the tours were consolidated, thus obviating the need to run the smaller bus at all, might have had more to do with it.) But to their credit, they rectified the situation quickly.  The big bus pulled off without us, and our charming driver of the mini-van pulled off with the nine people he'd picked up. Thus we enjoyed our own tour in the deluxe van.  With Captain's seats.  Jude sat down beside me and said "And that's why Books We Love has survived when so many other small presses haven't."

Indeed.  And that’s Jude Pittman for you.  It was a fabulous day, my personal favorite day of our entire Hawaiian vacation.  Our bus driver Ben was a native Hawaiian, very handsome, very charming.  He treated us like queens and thought Jude was the bomb.  At one of the stops I told him I was sorry he didn't get his day off but was really glad he was our driver.  He laughed and said he wasn't sorry at all, he got paid more for driving this van anyway. He further assured me Jude was one of the greatest characters he'd ever met.  And I do believe my southern accent made a big hit with him, too.  I’ve often found that most folks are fascinated with a southern accent and believe me, nobody I met in Hawaii had the least trouble peggin’ the approximate site of my birth.  All in all, it was a memorable day with memorable people, and Jude made certain to give the tour company and driver Ben a stellar review on their website. They deserved it.  They gave us a day of stories and memories the three of us will never forget.  But my favorite story of the whole day?  You read it here first, folks!

Oh, and as to how much actual writing we got done--well, let's just say we brainstormed a lot.  Jude and I can be found at http://bookswelove.net/authors/gail-roughton/ and http://bookswelove.net/authors/jude-pittman/

  

Jude Pittman's Favorite Covers

My favorite covers are twofold, one that everyone might not have seen yet, is Ron Crouch’s The Weatherman  and the other my all-time favorite is Witch Resurrected. 

 

The Weatherman cover absolutely speaks the story. This guy’s deadly. He’s also Native American and not “old time” this is a contemporary hard edge thriller. Coming Soon!

 

 

And Witch Resurrected. What’s there to say. This is fun and magic, sexy and dangerous.  Wow, witches, black cats, and a sexy hunk with a big gun, this is going to be a rollicking good read – and it delivers as promised.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NSY9NZ8

Jude Pittman

http://bookswelove.net/authors/jude-pittman/#

 

Outlaw In-laws by Gail Roughton

              In-laws. We all have some. And for better or worse, blessing or curse, we all are or will be somebody’s in-law.  Mother-in-laws, especially, get a bad rap. I mean, how many mother-in-law jokes have you heard in your life? So many that it’s a wonder in-laws aren’t just called out-laws in the first place.  That doesn’t apply to me, though.  My daughter found her other half very early in life.  Her husband first walked in our door when she was fifteen and he was seventeen and neither of them ever so much as seriously looked at anybody else. Even though they didn’t get married until they were twenty-two and twenty-four, they were a confirmed couple from that first meeting and everybody knew it.  I don’t even consider my son-in-law an “in-law”.  He’s a son, one of my boys.  Neither of my sons have found their other half yet, so I only have the one “in-law” I don’t even consider an “in-law”.  He’s just one of the kids. I’ve loved the boy for the last seventeen years.  Well, okay, the last sixteen.  That first year might have been kind of rocky. 

            I do, however, realize he probably cringes when he sees my name pop up on his cell phone as a call or text message.  And there’s a reason for that.  Most son-in-laws could expect their mother-in-law to text something like “Remember tomorrow’s Becca’s birthday!” Or I suppose they do, though in fact, I don’t really know because now that I think about it, most telephone communication between the two would probably be through their common link, the daughter-wife.

            Us though?  All bets are off.  My son-in-law’s a Deputy Sheriff who’s worked his way up the ranks from jail duty to patrol duty and beyond. He’s cut suicides down from a rope, he’s worked accidents that would make a blood and guts horror movie fan turn pale, he’s pulled alligators off county roads running near the local swamps. At present, he’s a K-9 drug interdiction officer specially trained to target drug traffic on the interstate.  I’ve been a paralegal for a few months shy of forty years now, so we have that “legal bond” thing going on wherein we can discuss the finer points of law and legal procedure in depth, something we can’t do with too many folks not members of those respective professions.  But even more than that, I’m a writer. Who writes suspense thrillers.  Can you say “marriage made in heaven”? An actual in-house source, as it were, for law enforcement procedures, particularly in a rural county big in area and small on population. 

            It never really struck me until the other day just how strange our text conversations would seem to someone who had nothing better to do than snoop into our phones (not that anybody’s doing that, of course, I just mean if anybody did they might wish they hadn’t). My son-in-law was invaluable to me during the writing of Country Justice.  I picked his brain mercilessly on such things as guns and what caliber bullets went with which, what type of damage each would do, how an experienced and trained driver would react to a sabotaged brake line to come out of a dead-man’s curve alive and what sabotage would have been used in the first place, what procedure would be utilized in accessing the evidence locker,  the average size of a drug shipment, ad infinitem on and on and on until it’s a miracle the boy would even talk to me.  Country Justice is dedicated to him, in fact, and nobody ever earned a dedication more.

            Well, guess what? I’ve got a current work-in-progress (that’s WIP in writer shorthand) and the merciless brain-picking has commenced.  The text messages are flying. How’d you like to get this text (reproduced with grammatical correctness rather than copied in text shorthand form for your reading convenience) from your mother-in-law?

      “Question. If the Department found a cadaver in the woods about two months old, no missing persons report, how would it be handled?  Would y’all just call the county Coroner who would transport to the nearest GBI crime lab or would one of their teams be called to the scene right then and take over?  And if there was suspicion these remains might be connected to an old cold case and y’all requested a priority, would the crime lab give it some kind of priority or just put it in line? Don’t you just love having me as your mother-in-law?”

            The response came in a few hours.  Bless his heart. He didn’t turn a hair. Or even try to arrest me.

            “First the coroner would get the body and would do the autopsy but the GBI and possibly even the FBI would be on the case from start to finish to oversee the local law. And yes they would check everything with priority because the person died under suspicious and unknown circumstances.  Sorry it took me so long, didn’t see I had a text.”

            I’ve got a resident expert and I’m going to complain about the length of time it took to get an answer? I think not.

            “No problem.  This is in a rural county where the mortician is the coroner and not an MD.  Do they do autopsies or call in an adjoining bigger county where the coroner’s an actual pathologist?”

            Yeah, I guess I am kind of single-minded when I’m in process on a work-in-progress, huh?

            “The local guy would do it with maybe the GBI or FBI present but other small agencies do ask bigger departments to help, like here if the City Police had that scenario they’d call us in  to work the case. And yes, they will sometimes send the body to a bigger city to be autopsied.

            “Got it! Thanks a million.  Title is Black Turkey Walk.” (Nice I finally threw in it was for a book, don’t you think?  Not that he didn’t know that from the start, of course.)

            “Sounds cool and very interesting.”

            A good son-in-law’s value is beyond rubies. It’s plot material.  Lord love you, darlin’, ‘cause I sure do!  To check out the results of this priceless in-house informant’s knowledge, click on my Books We Love Author's Page.  And coming Spring, 2015 – Black Turkey Walk.

A Dog's Life by Gail Roughton (as told to her by Max Branan)

I used to be an only dog. I remember those days. Life was good. Mine was the only food bowl on the floor. All the toys in the toy box were mine. No other belly vied for attention when I rolled over on my back. The last bite rule applied only to me. (The last bite of food any of my humans were eating, I mean. You know, that last bite of anything that tastes so good? The rule that it belongs to the dog, no matter how hungry the human is?  Wanted to clarify that, didn’t want y’all to think I was the one doing any biting. I would never!) At least, I think I remember those days. It was so long ago.

I’m Max, by the way. Max Branan. There’re eight humans in my family, Mama and Daddy of course—y’all know her as Gail Roughton ‘cause she writes under her maiden name, says it’s her love song to her daddy or some such—my human sister, Becca, my human brothers Lee and Patrick, Becca’s husband Jason, and Becca and Jason’s puppies, Austin and Kinsley. See, my birth Mom lived with Becca and Jason and got herself in the family way. Becca didn’t believe it at first because she said her dog didn’t do things like that. As if. What’d she think my Mom was? A doggy saint?  Anyway, all my puppy brothers and sisters got new homes but I’m the one who lucked out, ‘cause Patrick picked me out of all ‘em to bring back to Home Central.

Patrick did a search and told Mama that Max was the most popular name for male dogs and Maya the most popular name for female dogs, but that’s not why my name’s Max, un-uh. My name’s Max because about three days after Patrick got me vaccinated up with all the puppy shot prelims at the vet’s office and brought me home from Becca and Jason’s house I got sick. Real sick. So back to the vet I went and they said I had that parvo thing. With a fifty-fifty shot of making it out of the vet hospital alive. But I’m tough. I made it through with flying colors. And when I went back home, Mama (that’s Gail Roughton to y’all) said I looked as pitiful as the Grinch’s dog Max on the cartoon version of The Grinch That Stole Christmas. So that’s why I’m Max. No popularity contest or anything involved. And boy, did they spoil me rotten or what?

So there I am. Dog heaven. I was about three, I guess. And then Jason found this stray on the side of the road. He thought she was a German Shepherd and probably a couple of months old. So he took her home. At first Becca thought it’d be great to have a German Shepherd for their baby – Austin wasn’t born yet, he came about two weeks after that – since my humans used to have a big white German Shepherd they still talked about. Only problem was, this gal liked to eat furniture. And she was scared of her own shadow and didn’t know the meaning of the words “house-broke”. Well, Mama’s such a soft touch. She took one look at her and then sent Patrick over to collect her. He named her Maya. To go with Max. Not so much because it’s the most popular female dog name as for the “M” thing.

And uh – by the way – German Shepherd, my wagging tail. As near full Doberman as makes no never mind. Mama and Patrick knew it first time they looked at her. The undocked tail and ears made everybody else hard to convince, until they saw a Dobie with undocked tail and ears on Animal Planet. Then they all yelled in amazement, “Hey! Maya’s a Dobie?!” Mama and Patrick just rolled their eyes. She was already as tall as my stomach when she first walked in the door and I ain’t no shrinking violet, I’m a fifty-five pounder myself. The vet really blew it, too. Told my folks she’d be about fifty pounds full grown. Try 110 pounds last weigh-in. Maya’s Mama’s shadow. And I got to confess, yeah, I fell in love too. Eventually. Oh, no hanky-panky or anything, both Maya and I have made that trip to the vet, but yeah, I love the girl. Mainly because Austin was born two weeks after Maya got to Home Central. And I liked the little bundle of screams and wet diapers, don’t get me wrong, but Maya? Oh, man, she fell in love. Took all my share of the eye pokes and pulled tail. All I had to do was walk up and lick his face every now and then. That kid grew up laying on her, sitting on her, standing on her. She loved it all. We got him grown to darn near human size and what did Becca do? She brought in a brand-new one and the whole thing started all over again. Though I got to admit, that Kinsley’s a pistol. Her “Hiya!’ makes my tail wag, I just can’t stop myself.

Only thing about Maya is – you got to watch the sudden noises. Mama knocked a kitchen chair across the floor once when she was sweeping. And Maya – man, she moved like lightening. Next thing I know, she’s sitting on Daddy’s lap on the sofa, all hundred plus pounds of her, with her arms wrapped around his neck! She looked just like that Scooby-Doo character when he gets scared and jumps in Shaggy’s arms, you know?

And then one Saturday night when Austin was about two, Patrick came home from work and called Daddy out to his truck. Now, that was weird, right there, man, ‘cause in this family, when anything’s wrong, you call Mama first. But I figured maybe his truck engine was making a strange noise or something. Not. Daddy walked back in and announced, “Patrick’s brought home a puppy.” Mama goes “For real?!” And Daddy says, “Oh, yeah. Says he was sitting by his truck in the parking lot when he got off work. ” So Patrick walks in with this little – and I mean little – bundle of black and white fur and sits it on the couch by Austin. Austin says, “Baby!” Funny, he was only two, but he knew that was a baby. Must be some universal baby language. Lee looked at Mama and said, “Did it ever occur to you that there’s always a baby something or other in this house?” Mama looked pitiful and said, “Oh, yeah.”

Poor Mama. She got another shadow with that boy. Patrick named him Murphy. Gotta keep that “M” thing going. He weighed maybe four pounds but he thought he was a Great Dane. He didn’t bother me that much, all I had to do was growl real low and he’d back off but Maya? Guess you can’t beat the mother instinct. He was all over her. All the time. Don’t know how that gal kept her sanity, if Austin wasn’t climbing all over her, Murphy was. Sometimes both of ‘em together. And feisty? That Murphy, he gets going, you’ll swear you need to call an Exorcist from the sounds coming out of his mouth! He’s topped out at twenty-two pounds, so he’s way the smallest of us, but dang, is he annoying sometimes! You can’t even lay your head on a pillow! And he’s always all over Maya!

Now, as a side note, I heard Mama tell Daddy, “Patrick conveniently forgot about showing me a picture of a friend’s litter of puppies on FaceBook a few weeks ago. Funny, how they were all little black and white bundles of fur, just like Murphy. Found him in the parking lot, right! In a box with a friend standing guard till Patrick got there!”

So there you have it. How I went from an only dog to a trio. But it’s not so bad most times. I guess it’d be pretty boring if I just had my humans. Like at Christmas, it’s kinda nice to have the two of ‘em in the middle of things with me. Gets kinda irritating, that last bite of food having to be split into three bites all the time, but still. Keeps me young. Hey Murphy!! Wait up!! That’s my stuffed squirrel and I don’t have all the stuffing out yet!!! Oh!  And before I forget, you can check out Mama here--http://bookswelove.net/roughton.php   She's on the computer a lot, and I'm told I and the rest of the gang might make an appearance in an upcoming book she's got brewing. Which would only be fair, I mean, we put a lot of effort into distracting her when she's been working too hard.  

Circumstantial Evidence by Gail Roughton

A writer’s done a good day’s work when the characters have gotten themselves into or out of some sort of convoluted situation, whether humorous, dangerous, nightmarish, or ridiculous. It’s what we do. 

     We create worlds of action, adventure, and danger. We plop our characters squarely in the middle of it and watch them squirm their way out of situations we’d love or hate to get ourselves into and out of but never will. And why not? We’re safe at our little keyboards; there aren’t any repercussions for us. Or are there? Because our most valuable tool, the one essential thing modern writers can’t function without—could be our Judas. Our betrayer. Think about it. Over the past years, how many trials have featured the defendant’s computer as one of the star witnesses? 

Unless you’re a computer whiz yourself, you don’t know how to wipe your computer’s memory, now do you? I don’t mean clear out the recent browsing history - occasionally even I remember to do that.  I mean clear the “innards” of your computer, where, the experts tell us, our entire online life is recorded. Forever. Unless you’ve got one of those wiping devices from the CIA, of course.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have a lot of those high tech luxuries on my shelf and I’m pretty sure they have folks who could backtrack it through the servers anyway.

What I do have is a browsing history guaranteed to send me away for life were I the suspect in an horrendous crime being prosecuted by any fairly competent District Attorney. And if somebody wanted to frame me—well, they’d just have a field day. In the course of building the backgrounds of my books, in creating that believability that grabs a reader and makes them believe the unbelievable, I’ve set myself up. Big-time. Especially if anything ever happens to my husband.

Even a cursory glance at my browser shows that I know how to obtain a marriage license 24/7 in Vegas, and where to go to use it. I know where prostitution’s legal in Nevada, and where it isn’t. And it isn’t legal in Las Vegas, who’d have thought? 

I’ve got a general knowledge of Voodoo and its hierarchy of spirits, as well as Hoodoo (which isn’t the same thing, by the way). I’ve checked out the quality, weight, and street value of various controlled substances, and the styles and types of different handguns and the damages each can inflict. 

I know the Temple of Isis at Pompeii (yes, Pompeii, not Egypt) was excavated in 1764. I know golems are creatures made of sand, from Jewish mythology, who carry out their makers’ bidding.

I mean, any prosecutor could convince a jury I offed my husband by means of a golem armed with a .357 Magnum and powered by astral projection, hid his body in a mausoleum, ran away to Vegas, opened a brothel, and founded a black magic coven.

Or maybe they’d say I ran away to Daytona Bike Week with an outlaw biker, and currently serve as second-in-command for a big sprawling drug cartel. Or—well, there’s just no end to it. If you’d like to see the results of all this web-crawling, hop on over to my web-blog, http://gailroughton.blogspot.com where you can view the final results of all this incriminating research. None of my books would have been possible without it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go make sure my husband took his vitamins. I do believe it might be in my best interests to keep him healthy.