http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
One of my Modern Storytelling authors has a new book out! Islands is a romantic suspense adventure by Sara Stamey!
“Welcome to Paradise!” is what archeologist Susan Dunne hears on arrival on a Caribbean island to research petroglyphs and solve the mystery of her brother’s drowning. This sunny tourist paradise conceals shadowy secrets—violent native unrest, sunken treasure, and a bloodthirsty cult masquerading as Voodoo.
Despite threats, Susan literally
dives into her investigation of the sunken treasure ship where John drowned. To
find the truth, she must work with her number one suspect—Vic Manden, the
troubled salvage expert who worked the site with John. Attracted to the
unpredictable Manden, Susan is soon in over her head.
~~~
Inspiration for Writing Islands
by Sara Stamey
Since the new
ebook edition of my romantic suspense novel Islands
was released by Book View Café publishing this month, everyone has been asking
if the free-diver on the cover is a photo of me, and I wish I could say yes. If
I had pics of my underwater explorations from my time teaching scuba in the
Virgin Islands and other Caribbean locations, this could have been me. In those
hot, tropic days, I practically lived in the sea, and like my character John in
the novel, I wished to be reborn as a dolphin.
The question
raises the issue of inspiration for my stories, and place has always been a big
one. I’ve traveled and lived in a number of exotic locales, and my fascination
with the geography and culture of foreign places stirs my writing muse. The Islands storyline started with my
journals while living in the Virgin Islands – the diving and sunken treasure
angle pretty obvious, since I did some diving on wrecks and found a lovely
antique perfume bottle exactly like the one my archeologist Susan Dunne
inherits from her brother John.
I’ve been accused
of having a “Hemingway Complex” in needing to actively explore the world in
order to write about it, and my literal immersion in the tropic seas permeates
the story of Islands – crucial to
both the plot and the rebirth that Susan undergoes. I will probably never
succeed in capturing with words the magic and mystery of gliding weightless in the
shimmering clear depths among fish and coral, but I hope I give readers at
least a taste of it.
After moving to
St. Thomas, I started research in the island archives, and pieced together bits
of actual ship logs for the “Parker Manuscript” that starts Islands. And yes, crew of ships caught
in storms or pirate attacks actually did seal notes or pieces of their logs in
bottles or tubes and toss them into the sea, hoping they’d be found! The story
blossomed with the colonial history of the slavers and African religion as the
roots of Caribbean Vaudun (Voodoo). In one of the St. Thomas “jungle towns,” as
the native quarters were called by many locals, I stumbled upon a funky little
hole-in-the-wall café, Le Lambi’s, pretty much like the one where James takes
Susan for lunch. And there I noticed some interesting décor suggesting the
owners might have connections to the Vaudun, which officially didn’t exist in
the formerly Danish Caribbees.
I started hearing
references to “Jumbies” (mischievous spirits) and “power spots,” and some of
these seemed connected with the petroglyphs Susan is researching in the novel,
so of course I checked out any sites I could find. I also delved into the local
herbal lore, and while on my petroglyph hikes tried to find some of the plants
used for healing and protective charms. When I learned about two very similar,
shiny red seeds – “crab eyes,” a nasty poison, and “Jumbie seeds,” a protection
against tricksy spirits – they ended up playing a role in the plot.
In addition to
working as a scuba guide and instructor, I also did some cruising through the U.S.
and British Virgin Islands as deck hand on a yacht, absorbing the larger expanse
of sea and islands, and I try to impart that glorious, sensual paradise that
exists beyond the frantic pace of tourism taking over some of the more
developed islands. There are so many contrasts of people and place, and that
tension helps drive the plot and character issues for me. Susan is a fish out
of water when she first arrives in the tropics, and part of the story concerns
the unraveling of her preconceptions about the native society, as well as her
ideas about “reality.” A scientist and self-described “logical person” from the
cool, laid-back Pacific Northwest, she’s jolted by the unexpected fast pace of
the tourist town and in-your-face locals, some of whom scoff at her quest for
“the truth” about her brother’s drowning as well as possible pre-Columbian
contact from Africa evidenced by the petroglyphs.
As a side note on
creating characters: I must admit I enjoyed basing a flamboyant anthropologist character, rejected by academia
for his radical theories, on a real-life professor I had interviewed years ago
about the theories of pre-Columbian contact in the Americas. He was
insufferably arrogant and scoffed at the theories that, these days, are pretty
much universally accepted by scholars. Just one of those little pleasures for
authors!
People have asked
for a sequel, and Susan and other characters clearly have issues and further
adventures to explore. I’ve started the next novel, set in southeast Mexico, Belize,
and Guatemala, drawing on my travels in those areas. Happy trails and pages to
you!
~~~
Novelist Sara Stamey’s journeys include treasure hunting and teaching scuba in the Caribbean and Honduras; backpacking Greece and New Zealand; operating a nuclear reactor; owning a farm in Southern Chile; and now teaching creative writing at Western Washington University. Resettled in her native Pacific Northwest, she shares a backyard wildlife refuge with a menagerie including her very tall husband Thor. Follow her blog at http://www.sarastamey.com
You can purchase her new ebook edition of Islands on Amazon.com or www.BookViewCafe.com (formats available for both Kindle and epub readers)
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
