Apparently, life doesn’t end when you get married.
When a couple freezes to death on a fifty degree day, Cassie is called in to investigate. The couple ran a daycare out of their home, making preschoolers the key witnesses and even the prime suspects.
Two of those preschoolers are Cassie’s youngest siblings, suggesting conditions at home are worse than she feared. As Cassie struggles to care for her family, she must face the truth about her mother’s slide into depression, which seems to be taking the entire town with it.
Then Cassie, too, is attacked by the supernatural cold. She has to think fast to survive, and her actions cause a rift between her and her husband.
No, life doesn’t end after marriage. All hell can break loose at any time.
Buy Links
·Barnes and Noble
Print Release: July 15, 2018
Audiobook Release: TBA
Excerpt:
Chapter
1
Apparently, life doesn’t end when you get
married. I suppose that’s obvious, but it’s hard to tell from the way Happily
Ever After stories dominate our culture. At any rate, marriage seemed like such
a solid conclusion to the stories I had to tell that I ended my first four
memoirs the day I married Evan Blackwood.
If only I’d known then that all hell
was about to break loose.
My name is Cassandra Morgan Ursula
Margaret Blackwood, and if you think that’s a mouthful, go ahead and call me
Cassie. Most of my friends still do, although I no longer feel unworthy of the
full appellation.
To be fair to my younger self, eager
to share her journey of self-discovery with the world in the wake of some
powerful events, things were quiet for almost two years. More happened to my
two best friends than to me during that time. Oh sure, I consulted with the
sheriff’s department here and there on cases that mystified them. I also worked
with my husband and a dozen others to form and support the White Guard, an
organization attempting to unify and protect the magical world. We made some
big gains when Matthew was able to convince most of the magical world that his
nemesis was using blood magic to control people’s minds – including mine and my
husband’s.
It was a sobering moment for us.
But mostly during that time, I grew a
baby and took care of her. I always wanted children, maybe because I’m the
oldest of nine and having kids around seemed natural.
Anastasia Blackwood turned one in
mid-December, right around the time my youngest siblings, Michael and Maya,
both turned two. Honestly, I would have preferred to have two separate parties
– or even three – to give each child his or her due attention, but my mom
wasn’t up to it. She wasn’t up to much anymore, including party planning, so it
fell to me and Juliana, seventeen now and pretty much already an adult. The
last two years had aged her, as the responsibility for raising Michael and Maya
fell heavily upon her shoulders.
The day started normally enough.
Juliana, with Michael and Maya in tow, arrived at my place several hours before
the party to decorate. My two best friends, Madison and Kaitlin, came to help
too, the latter with a one-year-old son of her own. Madison, pregnant but not
showing just yet, volunteered to keep the toddlers out of trouble. “For practice,”
she said, although we all knew she was doing us a favor. I’d return that favor
as soon as she realized how badly moms need breaks sometimes.
Yeah, I know, babies and birthday
parties and maybe life really does end when you get married. Or at least loses
its sex appeal. Although for the record, I still found Evan as sexy as ever. I
mean, the man could drive me to orgasm with a single, magical kiss.
Damn, but it was addictive.
The Cassie Scot Series
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective (Cassie Scot Book One)
Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot Book Two)
Mind Games (Cassie Scot Book 3)
Stolen Dreams (Cassie Scot Book 4)
Madison's Song (Cassie Scot Book 5)
Kaitlin’s Tale (Cassie Scot Book 6)
·Audible
Guest Post:
Writing a Series
Cassie
Scot was supposed to be a four-book series. Each book centered on a
self-contained mystery, while the series dealt with some character growth and
struggles. I wrote those four books together, even though they were released a
few months apart, so that I had at least a solid rough draft of Stolen
Dreams (book four) done before the original Cassie Scot went public.
It
was an ideal way to write a series. I had a plan, changed the plan a dozen
times, and rewrote to accommodate my new plans.
Then
Cassie’s two best friends, Kaitlin and Madison, decided they needed stories of
their own. I accommodated them, but it wasn’t as easy. The first four books
were now set in stone, the rules of the world fixed, meaning that I had a
silent partner in my new books: Younger me!
These
days, I’m working on other projects, but Cassie still won’t stay quiet. Before
I sat down tow rite Frozen, she kept saying, “Hello? Are you there? I’m
not dead. I just got married. Not the same thing.”
It’s
great that my character is still talking to me. This makes writing new books in
her series easy. The hard part, once again, is that silent writing partner of
mine. I no longer have the freedom to go back to book one and make little
changes to pave the way for new elements I’d like to introduce. For better or
for worse, my world is my world. I now find myself taking something of a leap
of faith with each new volume I write, armed with only a few vague ideas of
what might happen next.
Frozen
is
once again self-contained, but it definitely sets up the promise of new
adventures to come. Maybe even new, deeper explorations of the world around
Cassie. I knew some of this all along, but I’m making up a lot as I go along. I
trust my future self can handle it. I also trust she’s going to read this and
have some choice words for me when she does. :)
Honestly, writing a series is fun. It gives me the
chance to go deeper into characters and world than any single book can. It also
gives me the chance to revisit favorite characters, and it keeps me from having
to reinvent a world from the ground up with each new volume. I like reading
series too, and for the same reason. I get invested. I can’t wait to read more
about Harry Dresden, Charlie Davidson, Mackayla Lane, Katherine “Kitty” Kat
Martini, and others. I hope readers feel the same way about Cassie Scot.
Interview with Christine Amsden
Can you tell us a little bit about the
characters in Frozen?
Cassie Scot is once again the central figure in the
seventh book in her series. This time, she’s married, she’s a mom, and she’s
growing up, but she’s still investigating strange occurrences in the Eagle Rock
area.
In book one, Cassie was the only “normal” member of a
magical family. Now, Cassie knows that she was never normal, and that even
without active magical powers, she has a lot to offer. This doesn’t mean life
is easy.
The cast of supporting characters is vast, and I find
myself learning more and more about them as I continue writing. The children,
in particular, are going to end up playing an important role in this and future
books in the series.
Can you tell us a little bit about your
next books or what you have planned for the future?
Forgotten Magic is the eighth book in the Cassie Scot
series and the second of what I am now thinking of as the post-HEA trilogy.
I have finished the book and don’t have a blurb but in
a word I would say Forgotten Magic is … intense! I’ve upped the stakes,
putting the secret of magic itself at serious risk. The book centers around a
magical disaster that both threatens Eagle Rock and simultaneously brings its
citizens together in a way they’ve never been before. I’m meeting new
characters, and learning more about the old ones … I’m really excited about
this one!
How long would you say it takes you to
write a book?
Anywhere between two months and two years!
Honestly, there’s no good answer to that question. I
wrote Frozen in about two months. Granted, I did a lot of work before I
started writing, but focused work was very quick. It’s the fastest I ever wrote
a book, but I got out Metamorphosis (unpublished) in 3-4. I was on the
verge of thinking I could claim to pound out several books a year, though, when
I finally accepted that Playing God (another work in progress) needed a
THIRD round of significant revisions bordering on a rewrite! Yikes! And in the
past, books have taken me a year or more to write.
It’s a creative process. It’s not linear, it’s not
always predictable. Sometimes ideas are flowing, sometimes I’m stuck. I’ve
decided in recent years to be more accepting of the reality that books take as
long as they take to write and I can’t rush it. In this way, I’m trying to have
more fun and not burn out (again).
What is your favorite childhood book?
A Wrinkle in Time – one of these days, someone might
even make a movie version that has anything to do with the reality I recall!
If you could spend the day with one of
the characters from Frozen who
would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular character, where you
would go and what you would do.
Well, I’m married, so I supposed I can’t choose Evan
or my husband would get jealous. In which case, I’d like to hang out at the
lake with Madison, who I’ve always felt an affinity for, at times moreso than
Cassie.
What was the hardest scene from Frozen to write?
The epilogue, because it wasn’t originally there – an
editor told me It needed one and I more or less agreed but I felt like I had
mostly ended the book where I wanted to and the follow-up scene just wasn’t
happening on command!
What made you want to become a writer?
Wait … there was a choice?!?!
Just for fun
(a Favorite song:
Take me to Church by Hozier
(b Favorite book:
Stolen Dreams (You didn’t say I couldn’t pick my own!)
(c Favorite movie:
Deep Impact
(d Favorite tv show:
Sense8
(e Favorite Food:
Chocolate
(f Favorite drink:
Tea – Cinnamon Orange Spice at the moment
(g Favorite website:
Headline Analyzer http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/ (I’ve been
playing with it a lot lately … I got 125% on “Real people; extraordinary
situations” which may be my new tagline.)
Thanks so much for visiting with us
today!
Thanks for having me!
About the Author
Christine Amsden has been writing fantasy and science fiction for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and relationships, and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.
At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, which scars the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.
Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. In addition to being a writer, she's a mom and freelance editor.
Social Media Links:
0 comments:
Post a Comment