Category Archives: blog

Read “Funeral Singer” for free!

October 31, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

Two years ago, on November 1^st, I participated in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – for the first time and completed my novel, Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle, which I went on to rewrite, edit, and publish in September 2015. While I’ve written other novels, this was the first one that I published and it is the first novel of the Funeral Singer series.

As I begin my third NaNoWriMo writing frenzy, I am celebrating by making the Kindle version of Funeral Singer FREE for the first five days of November.

neelaban-72dpi-1500x2000 — Available FREE from November 1 through November 5, 2016 at Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014QXQKSM

Gillian Foster is an energetic, bright young woman in her mid-twenties, who is trying to build a career as a musician and singer while paying the bills with a dog-grooming job. She’s pretty, sassy, and a hard worker. With her band, Spicy Jam – Ferris and Digby, musician pals from college – she plays parties, fairs, events, and clubs whenever she get a booking. When an accidental fall results in a concussion that triggers a paranormal talent, things begin to change. While singing at a funeral, she suddenly can see and talk to the deceased in an ethereal graveyard without missing a beat on her performance.

Convinced she is having hallucinations, she looks for a physical reason for the problem. While she won’t tell her bandmates or the handsome doctor she’s started dating, she does confide in her best friend, Janna, who believes in all things paranormal. As Gillian gets more jobs to sing at funerals, she encounters more deceased who need her assistance. One of these clients needs more than an assist to the next life. She demands that Gillian find her murderer. Can Gillian find the man and what will she do if she does?

While I don’t have many reviews on Amazon for it, the ones I do have give it a 4 1/2 star average rating. A few of the comments about the book:

I liked this story very much. It’s very well written and has great character development. The author just made Gillian’s journey easily comprehensible. The use of two point of views (Gillian’s and the detective’s) paid off well. The suspense that was build kept me intrigued despite the plot being a bit foreseeable. – Amazon Reader Coral Fang

I’ve been reading this book as what I call my “lunch time book” but yesterday, I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer and read it straight through although I must admit, my curiosity got the better of me by chapter 18 and I swiped to the last two chapters, read the ending , then went back to where I left off. I once read that a good book or movie is defined by the ending whether one cares about what will happen to the characters when it’s done. “Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle…” gave me that feeling and therefore I recommend this book to anyone and everyone and can’t wait for the next installment!!! – Amazon Reader Cindy Western

This is what a book should be, well-written, well plotted, with engaging characters. It was a privilege to visit this world. – Amazon Reader PRBC

If you enjoy a suspense story with a paranormal twist, here’s your chance to take Funeral Singer for a test drive. If you’re on Kindle Unlimited, the book is available there also, even after the five day promotion. Find the book here.

Don’t forget that if you sign up for my mailing list, you will have a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card in my quarterly promotion.

Back stories, My musings

Preserving the Past

October 24, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

When I went scouting around the cemeteries in the Reno, Nevada area before writing my Funeral Singer novel, I spent some time on the outside of one near the University of Nevada Reno campus. The cemetery appeared run down, forgotten, and forlorn with crumbling or missing monuments, no greenery to speak of, and a general feeling of utter neglect, particularly on the south side of the bluff that overlooked the city. A dirt road ran between this side and the other side where the monuments were newer and a smaller section to the northeast that flaunted a Nevada state historic marker.

oldhillaisecemetary-02923_100 — Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Reno, Nevada.

This is the Old Hillside Cemetery that dates back to the 1800s and is the final resting place of many of the early settlers and prominent members of the community in the Reno-Sparks area. But is it final?

Now the owner and a developer plan to exhume the bodies, relocate them, and possibly build student housing or some other dwellings on the property. This has caused an uproar with the relatives of people buried in the south section, who see this as disrespectful of their ancestors and for some, a violation of what they hold sacred. According to this article in the Reno Gazette Journal, the plan the developer proposes is to re-inter the bodies on the northern side.

However, there are over eight hundred remains in the south side and I don’t believe they have enough room to move them. The other cemeteries are the Pythian Cemetery, which is maintained well, and the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery, which holds the remains of eight-two Civil War veterans from Nevada.

Before I learned all the details of the cemetery, I decided to include it in the second Funeral Singer novel, A Song for Menafee and began researching it further. I learned that the cemetery was willed to the University, and the authorities had hoped to build student housing on the site, but they soon realized the hurdles of trying to clear and move the graves would be more than they wished to endure. They sold the cemetery to Sierra Memorial Gardens and the new owners fenced the property and began to clean it up some. From my perspective, it provided the ideal location for my book. Shortly after I published in August, 2016, the issue blew up with the plan to move the bodies, clean up the property, and then decide how it would be used.

grave05790_100 — Confederate trench honors the fallen in anonymity.

For me, it struck a discordant note. In my research, I’d taken a trip to the Shiloh Battlefield, a national monument and cemetery that preserved as many graves from that battle as they could, including discovering and marking the several burial trenches where the Confederate dead, the losers at Shiloh, had been interred in mass. I’d felt a sense of connection with these people from the past and their history. Other cemeteries that are hundreds of years old also honor the dead and provide a link. Yet here, in my city, in a cemetery not even one-hundred-fifty-years old, people want to dig up some of the founders of the city and move them to a different place breaking the connection, and the energy, that exists in the burial ground.

Ghosts have been sighted at the Hillside Cemetery, or so many people report. Whether you believe in such happenings or not, there is an energy at burial sites that you can feel. For me, I’ve encountered enough odd events to make me think that ghosts are quite probable. From that standpoint, you can move the bones, but that doesn’t mean the spirit will go with them. Someone living in an apartment in a building constructed on the site may still encounter paranormal activity. Would you want to live there?

blog, My musings

Is psychic ability real?

September 28, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

What would you do if you suddenly discovered that you have paranormal ability? Would you want it? What if that ability allowed you to talk to the dead? Made you psychic? Put you in danger?

Our brains use very little of the capacity that we have and many scientists feel they are capable of much more. Over the years, even the military has tested people to see if they have an extrasensory ability that might allow them to read minds or see into distant rooms. There are reports of people acquiring a psychic ability or sixth sense from a head injury. Is it possible? Here an article from Newsweek that talks about the Star Gate project that ultimately was shut down, but was not totally discredited.

Just a search on Google of abilities gained from a head injury yields about 400,000 results. Some of them are may actually be true, but many are perceived claims. Yet, there is enough doubt in it to suggest that it could happen. I have had a couple of experiences with precognition, but not anything that I could point to and say that I had that skill.

I think that sometimes the brain can pick up on something happening in the universe if you’re tuned in to it at the time. For instance, when I was living in Los Angeles, I was lying in bed late at night with my significant other and not quite asleep when I heard a distinct snap/crack sound and I said, “Earthquake.” I was certain that I literally heard the earth break. But nothing happened in our area. However, the next morning, I learned that at that time, an earthquake had occurred in Mexico. I truly believe I heard the initial snap of it.

Is intuition a sixth sense? I think it may be. Several times, I have gotten feelings so strongly about something that I was going to do not being right that I’ve changed my mind. Was I right about it? I don’t know, but I learned to trust my feelings on it. One time I looked at an airplane I was scheduled on and had such a negative feeling about it that I changed my flight. Nothing happened to the other plane, but for some reason I felt I couldn’t go on it.

Tapping into these possible senses is what impels the story behind the Funeral Singer series. My heroine, Gillian (pronounced with a hard g like a fish gill) Foster has a fall, hits her head, and ends up in the hospital with a concussion. After she is released, she’s hired to sing at a funeral and she discovers she has a psychic ability so bizarre that she thinks she’s hallucinating . As she begins to come to terms with it, she finds that it is increasing and encompassing more.

Her clients are deceased and she’s pulled into helping them so that they can move onto the next plane. To add to it, she dreams guidance from a presumed angel named Zac who offers a little advice and direction, but doesn’t tell her everything she thinks she needs to know.

For Gillian, the whole situation makes her question her beliefs, soul survival, good and evil, and her sanity.

If you haven’t read Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle and A Song for Menafee, why not do it now? It might make you think about what happens after death and if our souls are eternal or may just prove to be an intriguing story to read. Both books are available now from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle. They are also on Kindle Unlimited.

Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested in these paranormal suspense novels. For more interesting posts on all kinds of subjects, sign up for my mailing list in the box on the right hand side. Thanks.

blog, Book planning, Book Promotion

Book on Pre-Order and an Opportunity

June 9, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

Lots going on as I’m working on editing the second “Funeral Singer” book and starting to rewrite my YA novel while plotting the second book of that series. Keeps me busy and my mind is spinning with ideas. But for now, the news is that A Song for Menafee, the second Funeral Singer book is on track to be released near the end of August. I am so confident about that target that it is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Now for the opportunity! How would you like a chance to read a free digital copy of A Song for Menafee before it is released? All you have to do is post in the comments on this page that you would like a chance to read a pre-release copy. I will randomly select 10 people to receive a free download of a PDF version of the book, which will be sent around the beginning of August. Naturally, I would appreciate an honest, good or bad, review of the book on Amazon when it goes live, but it isn’t a requirement to win the opportunity.

So if you’d like to get the book for free, just post a comment and maybe you’ll be one of the lucky winners of A Song for Menafee!

blog, Book planning, Research

Research Is Fun!

April 18, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

A creek running through the woods at Shiloh.

As I’m working on the next book in the Funeral Singer series, I decided that I needed to do some “in the field” research for it. So around the beginning of the month, I scheduled a trip to Tennessee. Hot damn! Memphis!

I’ll bet you thought that right off the bat. Well, yes, I did fly into Memphis airport. A day later than I planned, at that. I got to the airport and boarded my flight on time in the early afternoon on Monday only to have a mechanical delay. It seems there was a tear in one of our engines and the experts were taking a look to determine if they could “speed seal” it (I think that was the term the pilot used.) We waited for the verdict although I don’t think anyone was overjoyed with the prospect of taking off on a two-engine jet that had a crack in one engine.

A couple with their two little children, one an infant, were across from me and I kept thinking that if I were in their shoes, I’d be hustling those kids off the plane and be looking for another flight, as some people were already beginning to do. The flight was connecting in Denver and I had a couple of hours leeway, so I waited it out since it wasn’t supposed to take too long. Two hours later, the pilot said that they thought the tear was too deep and they were contacting the manufacturer’s in France to see if it would be safe to use the quick repair option. That was the point that I decided, I wasn’t going on this flight. So, I took my bags and went downstairs to the counter and got re-booked on an “0:dark:thirty” flight in the morning – 5:30 am, to be precise.

At least I got into Memphis by early afternoon, but there was no time to linger there. I took my rental, a nice Jeep Compass, and drove out to Shiloh National Memorial Park, also the Battlefield. While my book isn’t exactly about Shiloh, part of it does play out there, so I felt I had to see it, touch it, and feel it for myself. I arrived there in the late afternoon with the sun shining in a nearly cloudless sky on April 5th. For those who might not recall, the battles at Shiloh were on April 6th and 7th, 1862, so I had come at the same time of year that the battles were fought.

A row of cannons facing the opposite side of a field, placed where they were used in battle.

First and foremost, Shiloh is a memorial cemetery and many war veterans are buried here, not just those from the Civil War. But the monuments installed here to remember those who fought and died on this battlefield are powerful and beautiful. I was too late to view the video about the battle when I arrived, so I made a quick trip through the museum and went out to explore the first few stops on the tour.

I got as far as Shiloh Church, which is a recreation of the original church. I had the opportunity to go inside and look around. It is small with only eleven pews in it and a few open windows. Outside, and across the parking lot, there is a newer Methodist Church that is still an active congregation. Across the street is the Shiloh Cemetery where more recent graves are found amongst the older ones.

As the park closed at 5 pm, I went into Savannah, Tennessee, where I spent the night. I had a fabulous Cajun Skillet meal at one of the local restaurant’s, Mollie Monday’s that is one of the best I’ve ever tasted. It came with shrimp, chicken, and sausage in a perfectly seasoned sauce on rice and a generous serving of hush puppies. Heaven! Then I splurged on pecan pie that was simply divine. When in the South… eat like a Southerner.

The next day was overcast and sporadically rainy, which actually turned out to be perfect for the mood, the lighting and the photos that I took. I did see the video before I started out on the trail again, then saw each stop on it through the new eyes of knowledge. It was very crowded around Shiloh Church and I don’t know if they had a special memorial because of the anniversary date or if there was a funeral, but I was grateful I had seen it the previous day. Overall, it was a very moving experience and one that I hope I can convey with depth and emotion in the new novel. If you have the opportunity to visit Shiloh, I highly recommend it.

Defeated Victory, one of the most beautiful monuments in Shiloh’s park.

After another night in Savannah, I went north to Clarksville, another spot that is a setting in the book. Travel can be slow. The road North was only on a freeway for a short time as it went towards Nashville, then it was two-lane highways most of the way from there. It took quite a while to travel the 175 miles, plus an accident on the freeway delayed traffic for almost an hour while police cleared it.

At Clarksville, I stopped at Fort Defiance to check out the Civil War history there. Basically, Clarksville was in the more neutral territory of the war and evidently switched sides based on who was occupying the city. The display at the very architecturally-pleasing museum was interesting and the story was told from a woman at home while her husband fought point of view. After Shiloh, it seemed pretty tame, but it’s good to know that there were calm spots in the war.

From Clarksville, I drove back to Memphis, which took most of the last day I had and I ran into major construction on the freeway in Memphis, which forced my Garmin to route me through some exciting back streets in the city to get to my motel near the airport. Bottom line? I didn’t even get down to Beale Street this trip, but I have been there before.

So, that’s my research trip to Tennessee and now all I have to do it incorporate the essence of it into Funeral Singer: A Song for Menafee.

Lillian's Loft