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N. N. Light
Aug 10, 20234 min read

The Man in Cabin Number Five is a Mystery and Suspense Event pick #womensfiction #mystery #giveaway



Title: The Man in Cabin Number Five, Guest Book Trilogy Book One


Author: Chrysteen Braun


Genre: Women’s Fiction, Literary Fiction


Book Blurb:


When Annie Parker discovers her husband’s infidelity, she doesn’t let it destroy her. She packs her bags and heads to Lake Arrowhead, Ca, the mountainside town where her family used to summer. Immersing herself in the restoration of seven 1920s era cabins, Annie begins to put the pieces of her life back together. But starting over is never easy.


Alyce Murphy needs closure. When she discovers her father did not die from a heart attack, as she’s been led to believe for the last 30 years, but in a murder/suicide, she is determined to uncover the truth of his death. But when she visits the cabin where her father ended his life, Alyce has to accept she may never know the true story.


Annie is looking towards her future while Alyce needs to put the past to rest. In parallel stories, both women are drawn to the rustic mountainside cabins as they search for the missing pieces---but they soon discover that the cabins have their own stores to tell.



Excerpt:


Of all the things I’d been thinking about that morning, mailing a package, making a deposit, picking up David’s dry cleaning, I’d definitely not thought about the state of my marriage.


I realized my purse and my keys were sitting on the kitchen floor. I hadn’t heard them drop. I hung up the phone, not even thinking Susan was still on the line. I went upstairs to our bedroom and stood in the doorway. The room didn’t look any different from when I’d left that morning, but I felt a chill pass through me. I looked at the bed we’d shared for over eight years and wondered where we’d gone wrong. Then, I couldn’t help but wonder if David had ever made love to anyone else in here. The thought turned my stomach.


I knew he wouldn’t be home for a few more days, so I went through his things to see if there was anything he’d hidden...anything that would give me some idea what he was doing. I carefully started going through his dresser, then thought what the hell, and dumped everything out on to the floor. What difference did it make now anyway if he knew I’d gone through his things? After a few minutes, I hated to admit I was disappointed; there wasn’t anything incriminating anywhere. Of course not.


I went through his sport coats and jackets, and there I found a few credit card receipts, but nothing unusual stood out. I closed his closet doors and then opened them again. Rage burned through me and, like a madwoman, I ripped everything off their hangers and let them fall to the floor. I hoped that would make me feel better, and as I looked at the heap before me I instantly felt a quick stab of remorse for behaving so childishly, but my bitterness pushed it away.


I pulled our wedding album out of one of my drawers and I looked around at the carnage I’d created. By now I was numb. I brought the album into the living room and found my way to my favorite chair. The only sound in the house was the tick tock, tick tock of our antique grandfather clock. Gradually, my breathing returned to normal and, as it did, I sighed.


I opened the album and there on the first page was a close-up of me looking away from the camera. The rest were of me and David, of our parents and the kids. I proceeded to rip each page out, dropping them all on the floor in front of me.


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What makes your featured book a must-read?


If you love Women's Fiction with suspense, starting over, small town stories and a pinch of romance, then my series is a perfect read for you. The Guest Book Trilogy, which is soon to become a series, follows Annie Parker as she starts a new life up in the magical Lake Arrowhead mountains. She's bought and restored a series of 1920s era cabins and soon realized they all have stories to tell. Annie's life parallels those she meets, the people who know someone who stayed in one of her cabins, and it's only in the end that we learn the stories about their lives.


Giveaway –


Enter to win a $35 Amazon gift card:



Open Internationally.


Runs August 8 – August 21, 2023.


Winner will be drawn on August 22, 2023.


Author Biography:


Chrysteen Braun is a California native, born and raised in Long Beach.

The mountains, where she and her husband had a second home, were the inspiration for her first three books, The Guest House Trilogy. These fictional restored cabins from the late 1920s all had their own stories to tell.


Her writing crosses genres of Women’s Fiction with relationships, and a little mystery and intrigue. She’s published articles about her field of interior design and remodeling, both for trade publications and her local newspaper.


She lives in Coto de Caza, with her husband Larry and two Siamese cats.



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