Once more we welcome to this blog Barbara Casey, who's doing a virtual book tour for The F.I.G. Mysteries, a mystery available now from Gauthier Publications. The tour will run July 12, 2021 - August 6, 2021.
Barbara Casey will be giving away a $50 Amazon or Barnes&Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Please add your comment via this link:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3782/
Blurb
THE F.I.G.
MYSTERIES
Dara Roux,
abandoned when she was 7 years old by her mother. Exceptionally gifted in foreign languages.
Orphan.
Mackenzie
Yarborough, no record of her parents or where she was born. Exceptionally
gifted in math and problem-solving. Orphan.
Jennifer
Torres, both parents killed in an automobile accident when she was 16.
Exceptionally gifted in music and art.
Orphan.
THE CADENCE
OF GYPSIES: Book 1
Known as the
F.I.G.s (Females of Intellectual Genius), three high-spirited 17 year olds with
intelligent quotients in the genius range, accompany their teacher and mentor,
Carolina Lovel, to Frascati, Italy, a few weeks before they are to graduate
from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women. Carolina's purpose in planning the trip is to
remove her unusually gifted, creative students from the Wood Rose campus
located in Raleigh, North Carolina, so they can't cause any more problems
("expressions of creativity") for the headmaster, faculty, and other
students – which they do with regularity. Carolina also wants to visit the
Villa Mondragone where the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious document in
the world, was first discovered and attempt to find out how it is related to a
paper written in the same script she received on her 18th birthday when she was
told that she was adopted.
THE WISH
RIDER: Book 2
When
Carolina and the F.I.G.s return to Wood Rose, Dara decides that she wants to try
to locate her birth mother when she learns that she might be living in New York
City. Carolina, Mackenzie, and Jennifer accompany her and their search leads
them to a secret dangerous shadow world hidden deep beneath Grand Central,
constructed in what Mackinzie identifies as chevroned magic squares—N X N
matrixes in which every row, column, and diagonal add up to the same number—and
cloaked in the discordant B flat minor key music that only Jennifer can
hear.
THE CLOCK
FLOWER: Book 3
The three
FIGs—Females of Intellectual Genius—graduate from Wood Rose Orphanage and
Academy for Young Women after returning from New York City where Dara learned
why her mother abandoned her all those years ago, and they are now attending
universities where they can further their special talents. This means they will
be separated from each other and from Carolina, their much-loved mentor and
teacher who is “one of them,” for the first time in their young lives. They vow
to try living apart for one semester, in the so-called real world that doesn’t
include the orphanage; but if things don’t work out, they will come up with
another plan—a plan where they can be together once again. Dara is invited
through Yale University to take part in an exciting archeological project in China.
Jennifer, once again visualizing black and white images and the unusual sounds
of another cadence that seem to be connected to Mackenzie, is engrossed in
creating her next symphony at Juilliard. Mackenzie, because of her genius at
problem-solving, is personally chosen by a US Senator to get involved in a
mysterious, secret research project involving immortality that is being
conducted in a small village in China—not too far from where Dara is involved
with the archeological site. Once there, however, she finds herself facing a
terrifying death from the blood-dripping teeth of an ancient evil dragon. Her
best friends, the FIGs and Carolina, rely on their own unique genius and
special talents to save her as she discovers the truth of her birth parents.
THE
NIGHTJAR’S PROMISE: Book 4
Jennifer
Torres, one of the three FIGs (Females of Intellectual Genius) who is a genius
in both music and art, is the last to leave the closed rehearsal for her
upcoming performance over Thanksgiving break at Carnegie Hall when she hears
something in the darkened Hall. Recognizing the tilt of the woman’s head and
the slight limp of the man as they hurry out an exit door, she realizes it is
her parents who were supposedly killed in a terrible car accident when she was
15 years old. Devastated and feeling betrayed, she sends a text to Carolina and
the other two FIGs—THURGOOD. It is the code word they all agreed to use if ever
one of them got into trouble or something happened that was too difficult to
handle. They would all meet back at Carolina’s bungalow at Wood Rose Orphanage
and Academy for Young Women to figure it out. As soon as they receive the text,
because of their genius, Dara starts thinking of words in ancient Hebrew,
German, and Yiddish, while Mackenzie’s visions of unique math formulae keep
bringing up the date October 11, 1943. And as Carolina waits for the FIGs to
return to Wood Rose, she hears warnings from Lyuba, her gypsy mother, to watch
for the nightjar, the ancient name for the whip-poor-will.
In their
search for “The Nightjar’s Promise” and the truth surrounding it, Carolina and
the FIGs come face to face with evil that threatens to destroy not only their
genius, but their very lives.
Excerpt
From the Wish Rider:
Once the house got quiet and she
thought everyone was asleep, Mackenzie sat up, fluffed her pillow behind her
back, and pulled the little gold chain that turned on the white, hobnail glass
lamp next to her bed. Then she reached
for the small computer that was never far away, which applied logarithms and
other difficult mathematical calculations and stored information, and began
methodically punching in figures. Even
as unrelated and disconnected everything seemed to be, there was a certain
mathematical logic to it. There always
was, for numbers never lied.
Five different addresses from five
different areas of the city; yet they were an equal distance from the
center—the center being Grand Central Terminal.
It was more than just a strange coincidence, as Larry had said. More than likely he just didn’t want them to
worry. There had to be a logical reason
for it. And what did the number “61”
have to do with everything?
Mackenzie pulled up another app she
had installed on her computer before leaving Wood Rose that gave a lot of the
history of Grand Central Terminal and the area that surrounded it. She also
wanted to research the five addresses as well and had downloaded documents she
had found in public records. The first
address they were going to the next morning was in an older part of the city,
she quickly discovered, but the apartment building itself was fairly new. The original building had been destroyed by
fire several years back. She tried to pull up a tenant list to see if she could
get any background information on who lived there, now as well as before the
building burned, but hit a dead end.
The excitement of the past
twenty-four hours and her concern for Dara suddenly left her feeling exhausted.
She once again pulled the little gold chain; and tiptoeing into Dara’s room,
quietly slipped into her friend’s bed and immediately fell asleep. From the
screen of the small computer left behind, next to the white, hobnail glass
lamp, a faint light illuminated the number “61.”
Author bio and links
Originally
from Carrollton, Illinois, author/agent/publisher Barbara Casey attended the
University of North Carolina, N.C. State University, and N.C. Wesleyan College
where she received a BA degree, summa cum laude, with a double major in English
and history. In 1978 she left her
position as Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at
North Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own
manuscript evaluation and editorial service.
In 1995 she established the Barbara Casey Agency and since that time has
represented authors from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.
In 2014, she became a partner with Strategic Media Books, an independent
nonfiction publisher of true crime, where she oversees acquisitions, day-to-day
operations, and book production.
Ms.
Casey has written over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction
for both young adults and adults. The awards include the National Association
of University Women Literary Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award, the
Independent Publisher Book Award, the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel, the IP
Best Book for Regional Fiction, among others. Two of her nonfiction books have
been optioned for major films, one of which is under contract.
Her
award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in
both national and international publications including the North Carolina
Christian Advocate Magazine, The New East Magazine, the Raleigh (N.C.) News and
Observer, the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Sunday Telegram, Dog Fancy, ByLine, The
Christian Record, Skirt! Magazine, and True Story. A thirty-minute television special which Ms.
Casey wrote and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh, North
Carolina. She also received special
recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of Albanian
children’s stories. Her award-winning science fiction short stories for adults
are featured in The Cosmic Unicorn and CrossTime science fiction
anthologies. Ms. Casey's essays and
other works appear in The Chrysalis Reader, the international literary journal
of the Swedenborg Foundation, 221 One-Minute Monologues from Literature (Smith
and Kraus Publishers), and A Cup of Comfort (Adams Media Corporation).
Ms.
Casey is a former director of BookFest of the Palm Beaches, Florida, where she
served as guest author and panelist. She
has served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Palm Beach and Martin
Counties, Florida, and was the Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of
Children's Book Writers and Illustrators from 1991 through 2003. In 2018 Ms. Casey received the prestigious
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for
her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing
and other areas. She makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest
Georgia with three cats who adopted her, Homer, Reese and Earl Gray - Reese’s
best friend.
I had the opportunity to ask Barbara a couple of questions. Her answers you can read here:
Any weird things you do when you’re alone?
I am a bit of a clean freak.
Every morning after I feed the cats, I dust the furniture and hard wood floors.
Once I have done that I feel I can concentrate on my work. That, and
occasionally I like to sing Pucinni’s Nessum
Dorma from his opera Turandot. But only if I am alone.
What is your favorite quote and why?
“Adversity is the opportunity to
develop character.” I have always liked this quote because everyone has
adversity in their lives, but the negative can be changed to something
positive. I prefer to see a glass half full rather than half empty.
Who is your favorite author and why?
Simply for pleasure, I enjoy
reading the Make Way for Lucia series
by E.F. Benson, a British author from the early 1900s. I really love the way he
presents his characters with all of their flaws, likeable and without
condemnation, yet so realistic. These books always make me laugh.
What, in your opinion, are the most
important elements of good writing?
I believe it is important to
never talk down to your readers. In both fiction and nonfiction, truth,
accuracy, and a story line that is supported by interesting research and strong
characters are the things that bring a book to life for the reader.
Where did you get the idea for this book?
When I was attending N.C. State
University in Raleigh, I lived off campus and drove to the campus for my
classes every day. On the way I passed an orphanage situated on a large expanse
of land and surrounded by a brick wall. That memory stayed with me for years
until eventually it came to life in The F.I.G. Mysteries.
Links
www.barbaracaseyauthor.com
www.barbaracaseyagency.com
Amazon
Author Page with Buy Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Casey/e/B001K7S4IW/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
