BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR MARIANNA HEUSLER

Today at Book Club Friday we welcome Marianna Heusler, the author of the Edgar nominated young adult mystery, The Night The Penningtons Vanished. Her next book in the series is The Day The Fortune Teller Died. Marianna is here today to tell us about that book and her own paranormal experiences. Marianna is also the author of five other novels, including the Polycarp series, published by World Wide Mysteries. Two additional mysteries are scheduled for publication this summer. Learn more about Marianna at her website. 

Marianna is giving away a copy of The Day The Fortune Teller Died to one of our readers who posts a comment to the blog this week. -- AP

The Day the Fortune Teller Died is geared towards a YA audience and is the sequel to The Night the Penningtons Vanished.

This book explores something which has always fascinated me – necromancy.

Isabella and her friends visit Stella, who claims that she can speak to the dead. But the dead don’t come alone – they bring thousands of cockroaches with them, which fall like raindrops from the ceiling. So Stella’s clients must bring umbrellas while they watch Stella perform.

And perform is the operative word.

Of course, Stella gets murdered and thus begins the mystery, which puts Isabella and her friends in danger. But it got me wondering –

Is there any way to break the barrier between life and death?

I teach third grade girls, who want desperately to believe in ghosts.

I tell them the story of Houdini – such an extraordinary man, capable of doing what no one else ever could –

He promised his wife that if there was any possible way that he could come back to her, then he would return.

He never did.

When I was a teenager, I awoke one night and I saw a man kneeling by my bedside. I had never seen him before and I have never seen him since. Terrified, I jumped across the room, woke my sister, and I began to scream hysterically. She wasn’t sure why I was shrieking but she figured it must be pretty bad. She, too, released bloodcurdling screams which alerted my mother.

My mother came in and made a pretense of searching the room. She concluded that I had a bad dream.

I don’t think so.

Years later, my sister believes that the man who knelt by my bed was a soul in purgatory. He didn’t mean to scare me. He just wanted me to pray for him.

I am still praying.

Thank you Marianna for a very interesting post. Readers, if you’d like a chance at winning a copy of The Day The Fortune Teller Died, post a comment, and be sure to check back Sunday to see if you’re the lucky winner. -- AP