SHADOW'S WAY
by Barbara
Frances
GENRE: Suspense
BLURB:
Prepare to be spellbound. Barbara Frances' long-awaited third
novel, “Shadow's Way,” takes you to the coastal, deep South, where the past and
the present mingle in a gothic tale of insanity, murder, and sexual intrigue.
You'll meet the beautiful Elaine Chauvier, former actress and
proprietor of Shadow's Way, her family's antebellum home; the esteemed
Archbishop Andre Figurant and his fallen identical twin, Bastien; newly arrived
Ophelia and Rudy, here to explore their Chauvier roots and their ties to
Shadow's Way; and the mysterious Madame Claudine. Under a veneer of piety and
graciousness, i.e., the questions: What is good? What is evil? What is reality?
Excerpt:
Archbishop Figurant gazed down the
extended maple table, luminous from layer upon layer of bee’s wax. Soon they
would be arriving. It was going to be a hard hitting but necessary meeting,
long overdue. Abandoning protocol, he would be going against the Church’s
hierarchy to expose a long-lived charade of denial and hypocrisy. No longer was
he going to ram his head up his self-righteous ass. He was going to act.
Lanita entered the room with a large
tray of chicken sandwiches and fruit pastries. “Oh, ‘cuse me, your Excellency.
I didn’t know you were already here. I’ll be out of your way in no time.” Her
words hummed with the rhythmic cadence of a Caribbean island. Neat as a pin in
a freshly starched uniform and hair tucked away in a plain white turban, she
slipped from point to point, smooth and efficient.
“You’re fine, Lanita. I’m trying to
get my thoughts in order. You’d best put out some ashtrays. I anticipate
Monsignors Flannigan and Murphy will burn up a field of tobacco when they hear
what I’ve got to say.” She laughed out loud. “Maybe I should put out the
whiskey, too, yes?
“No, they’ll have to survive on
coffee or water today.” He smiled at her. “Be good for them.”
He and Lanita had a comfortable
relationship. She had been his housekeeper for six years. He knew some of her
secrets and she knew some of his. Late afternoons he often watched her from the
upstairs window as she rode her bicycle home, hair fanning out in an Afro halo
and a colorful skirt billowing in the wind.
Read two more chapters from Shadow's Way HERE!
AUTHOR Bio
and Links:
Barbara Frances has plenty of stories and a life spent acquiring
them. Growing up Catholic on a small Texas farm, her childhood ambition was to
become a nun. In ninth grade she entered a boarding school in Our Lady of the
Lake Convent as an aspirant, the first of several steps before taking vows. On
graduation, however, she passed up the nun’s habit for a college degree in
English and Theatre Arts. Her professors were aghast when she declined a PhD
program in order to become a stewardess, but Barbara never looked back. “In the
Sixties, a stewardess was a glamorous occupation.” Her career highlights
include dating a very gentlemanly Chuck Berry and “opening the bar” for a
planeload of underage privates on their way to Vietnam.
Marriage, children, school teaching and divorce distracted her
from storytelling, but one summer she and a friend coauthored a screenplay. “I
never had such fun! I come from a family of storytellers. Relatives would come
over and after dinner everyone would tell tales. Sometimes they were even
true.” The next summer Barbara wrote a screenplay solo. Contest recognition, an
agent and three optioned scripts followed but, weary of fickle producers and
endless rewrites, she turned to novels. Shadow’s Way is her third book. Her
first, Lottie’s Adventure, is aimed at young readers. Her second, Like I Used
To Dance, is a family saga set in 1950’s rural Texas. Barbara’s fans can be
thankful she passed up convent life for one of stories and storytelling. She
and her husband Bill live in Austin, Texas.
Barbara welcomes questions or comments about Shadow’s Way at
barb@barbarafrances.com.
Buy Link
Giveaway:
$25 Amazon/BN GC
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