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Heather Ames writes two mystery series (one with a paranormal twist,) standalone suspense, romantic suspense, and short contemporary romances. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling the world or dreaming up new adventures. She’s lived in five countries, seven states, hitchhiked around Europe, lived in a 6th floor walk-up in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower and worked as a bartender in Madrid. During a long career in healthcare, she has seen more dead and/or mangled bodies than the average person and carried pepper spray for safety when going to treat patients in the barrios of L.A., All these experiences enrich her novels. Learn more about her and her books at her website.
A Moment of Reflection
Serendipity is a strange and frequently bizarre journey into unknown territory. Sometimes it can be called karma. Other times, just plain annoying. But it’s always one of those sudden, out-of-the-blue experiences that makes anyone, even the most cynical among us, take a moment to wonder why and how it happened.
I had one of those moments this week. I’d worked on a blog post I thought was almost ready to roll when life lobbed one of those curve balls that, if written into a novel, would be dismissed as plot manipulation.
More than ten years ago, the transmission on my vehicle started experiencing problems. First it was one thing, which was fixed, but only a couple of weeks later, a bigger problem developed. My car went into the service department and ended up staying there two weeks. During that time, I was put into a rental at no cost while a decision was made about whether the repair would be covered by the manufacturer. While I wondered whether an extremely expensive repair was going to make me purchase a replacement, I found I really liked the rental vehicle. I also found that particular model was out of my price range, even one that had been previously owned. Luckily, the repair was covered, and when I did trade in that car, it was for one within my budget, not my fanciful daydreaming.
Jump ahead to two weeks ago. The vehicle I now owned suddenly stopped talking to me. When I took it in for that issue and a routine servicing, I received bad news…the cost of replacing the part was not only prohibitive, but another big-ticket problem was also discovered. I opted to fix the major oil leak, but not the silence. I figured I could always tune into a radio station on my phone, and I was assured the lack of verbal communication from the car wasn’t a safety issue.
But less than a week later, a warning message notified me that my transmission had failed. This time, there was no coverage to bail me out. With two big outstanding repairs, I realized I was going to have to find a replacement. While still in shock, I searched online, then tramped around a big used car lot with a hundred choices. But yesterday the dealership called. A newer version of the vehicle I had driven for two weeks all that time ago and really liked had just been traded in. It was within my price range, and it’s now in my driveway.
If I had written this story into a plotline, I know I’d have seen raised eyebrows, even eye rolls, and heard this was too much of a coincidence. Although all books in my Ghost Shop series have magical elements, I’m sure I’d have been told this particular subplot’s outcome could only have occurred as the result of using a spell or waving a wand. Detractors would tell me to rewrite the story, leaving serendipity by the wayside.
Sometimes, life not only imitates art, life upstages it. Those strange little unexpected, quirky moments that whisper to us from the ethers need to be acknowledged. This was one of those moments. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has experienced a momentary chill, or a moment of déjà vu. But writing one into a book? Maybe not.
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A Ghost Shop Mystery, Book 1
A reluctant psychic inherits a spooky metaphysical shop in Salem, Oregon and teams up with a retired detective who suspects his daughter’s drowning was no accident. Dark forces lead Sunny Kingston to rely not only on her new partner, Ash Haines, but her enigmatic, fortune-telling assistant, a gargoyle more animal than mineral, and a questionably human winery owner in search of redemption. Vincente Valderos has a hint of sulphur about him and a proposition that’s difficult for Sunny and Ash to ignore. But it comes with a bigger price tag than either of them may be willing to pay.
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