Title: Parallel Secrets
Author: ML Barrs
Genre: Mystery
Book Blurb:
TV journalist Vicky Robeson is RV camping with Pete Harris, her enticing new beau. Her phone pings with a news alert. A girl’s been kidnapped in the tiny town where Vicky’s life changed forever. Vicky joins the search, aiming to redeem herself for past errors. She faces mortal danger when she investigates small town secrets that overlap with her own.
Excerpt:
Joan crept soundlessly in his wake. She had roamed outside all her life, ever since she was big enough to get out of the house by herself when the yelling and fighting and hating got to be too much. After dark was the best. There were so many ways to hide.
Clouds skittered past the half moon, which gave off enough light for Joan to easily follow the overgrown path. The crunching of her father’s passage helped, too. He was either going to the lodge or the cabin. She’d know after he crossed the creek. Before she stepped onto the first rock of the footpath across the creek, she glanced back at the house. The glow from the kitchen was the only light, other than the moon.
Joan hurried to catch up. He was quieter now. She didn’t want to lose track of him. He took the uphill path to the lodge. The path was overgrown and barely visible, with trees and bushes overlapping it. The ground was dry, branches and twigs brittle underfoot. She had to move like a hunter. Joan had spent a lot of time in the woods with her big brother Bill Junior, back when he was still a good guy. He’d hunted ever since he could carry a rifle. Bill taught her how to track and shoot and get around in the woods and swamp. She missed him.
As she drew close to the lodge clearing, she heard men’s voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She hunched behind a bush. The Bastard was nowhere in sight. Silently she drew herself up to move closer. An arm snaked around her neck and cut off her breath. “You little shit. You think I don’t know you’re sneaking around after me?”
The Bastard’s horrible breath burned her ear as he tightened his grip. Joan thrust herself up as hard and fast as she could, throwing him off balance. She kicked back at his knee. He staggered backward, cursing under his breath. The instant his hold loosened, Joan ran toward home, wheezing, furious that she’d let him catch her. She could hear him behind her, running full tilt, breaking branches. He was catching up.
He caught her hair and yanked her down just before the creek. He kicked her again and again. She rolled and scrambled, trying to escape him. She struggled to get back on her feet. He slammed his ham of a fist into her jaw. She thudded down on the rocky ground, fighting the void at the edge of her mind. He dropped his knee into her belly, his big hands at her throat. He was breathing heavily but was otherwise silent, almost calm, as he throttled her.
Joan struggled and twisted. She was going to die. His ugly face and the moon over his shoulder were the last things she would ever see. The moon was fading away to darkness when The Bastard collapsed half on top of her, his hands still grasping her throat, but softening. Joan screamed silently, as she had learned to do as a child, and squirmed out from under him.
And there stood her mama, Harriet, holding a rock that was surely covered with her husband’s blood. The moonglow shone behind her, haloing her messy hair and tiny body in its nightgown and robe. It was so like Mama to place the rock on the ground instead of dropping it. She looked sadly at Joan and sank gently to the dirt.
“Oh, Mama, are you okay? Omigod. He was going to kill me!” Joan picked up the rock and made sure The Bastard was good and dead, then crawled to her mother. They huddled together in the shadows, staring at the body, twisted on its side in the dim moonlight. A pool of blood spread around his head, a dark and fitting crown.
Joan shivered. “Goddamn, the fucker was going to kill me! You saved me, Mama.” Harriet sighed. “I should have done that a long time ago.” Joan closed her eyes, wishing it all away. After several minutes, or maybe it was longer, she shuddered awake. Everything was still there—The Bastard, bloody rock, blood on the ground. Where had her trembling, frail little mother found the strength?
“Come on, Mama, we need to get you back to the house.” They stood, both quivering. “We need to get rid of him.” Harriet’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’ll take care of everything. Let’s get cleaned up. I’ll come back.” Harriett didn’t argue. She could barely stand, much less help move him, but she had never appeared stronger. She had suffered more from the disease that was her husband than from the cancer within her.
The house appeared unchanged, but it would never be the same. Joan took charge. She started a washer load of their blood-splattered clothing, helped her mom bathe, and put her to bed before she jumped into the shower. She dressed in rough clothing and heavy boots.
“I’m going, Mama. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” “What are you going to do, honey? You can’t lift him.” “I’ll drag him. I know a place. First, I’m going to get rid of the truck. If anyone comes looking for him we’ll say he was here but left right after supper.”
Joan didn’t see anyone on the way to the bus station, twelve miles away by road. She left the truck parked at the station, which like everything else was closed up tight. She made the return trip on foot, taking the shortcut through the woods and the edge of the swamp.
More than three hours after she left the truck, as the sky began to lighten, Joan arrived back at the creek. There was no pool of blood, no sign of what happened. The Bastard was gone.
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If you could dress up as anything or anyone this Halloween, what or who would it be and why?
A vampire, because I love to suck life stories out of random people I meet.
Explain why your featured book is a treat to read:
Everyone has secrets, right? At least, they do in Parallel Secrets, starting with Vicky Robeson, a TV journalist who’s determined to redeem herself for mistakes of her past. Readers are treated to strong characters, clear writing, and a complex plot that pulls everything together in a satisfying finish.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs October 1 – 31, 2024
Drawing will be held on November 1, 2024.
Author Biography:
ML Barrs is from a family of thirteen children born to an immigrant mother and the son of a coalminer. At fifteen, she dropped out of school and ran away from the family mobile home. Homelessness quickly grew old. She earned a GED, graduated college, married, and had two children while launching a career as TV news reporter. Later, as News Director, she led teams covering terrorist attacks, devastating storms, major elections, and the conflicts and joys of everyday life. She retired as General Manager of a TV station and is living her dream of writing mysteries. What drove Maria as a journalist is what drives her protagonist—a deep longing to find truth and set something right.
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