NIKI: Mark, thank you for having me. Life has been a whirlwind recently and quite exciting. As you might suppose, as the chair and founder of the Grace Awards, I've been pretty busy with this year's literary contest. We announced the winners this week. I am thrilled with the quality of the winners. In fact, a few of the judging teams felt the finalists were so good they had a difficult time selecting a novel for top honors, but of course, they did. This should be the biggest problem facing Christian publishing today.
The other thing I want to brag about is my publisher's decision to go from ebook format to print. I'm thrilled my Sanctuary Point classic murder mystery series with romance was chosen by Desert Breeze Publishing to be among the first books to come out in paperback. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share a bit about BURNING HEARTS, the first novel in this series, now out in paperback.
BURNING HEARTS:
Historical Murder Mystery with Romance, mid-1940s
---arson/murder, action, and romance
---Sweet romance, sophisticated themes presented tastefully
Can a sheltered young seamstress, disillusioned by the horrors of WWII, escape an
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Erica Brogna’s parents doted on her and taught her to think for herself. Many boys she grew up with had fallen in the WWII, shaking her childhood faith. In rides a handsome stranger, at the hour of her most desperate need. A woman who is her close friend and mentor is trapped in a burning house. After making an unsuccessful rescue attempt, Erica stands by as this man rushes into the inferno and carries her friend’s lifeless body out.
Lorne Kincade can’t out run his past on his Harley Davidson WLA, the civilian model of the motorcycle he rode in the war. He’s tried. He’s been a vagabond biker in the year since the war ended. His Uncle Ivar bequeathed him a ramshackle cottage in Sanctuary Point, on the Great South Bay of Long Island, NY and now he’d like to hope for a future again, repair the miniscule place, and settle down. The only problem is, a young woman with hair the color of mink is starting to get under his skin and that’s the last thing he needs.
EXCERPT:
Chapter One
Long Island, New York
September 1946
Erica Brogna hurried down Hill Street, eager to sketch her new design, a forest green taffeta dress with a swirling skirt for a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary -- her first significant assignment. She paused to inhale the salt scent on the ocean breeze, and her gaze lingered on a copse of red, rust, and gold maples near Ada's house and dress shop.
She smiled, pulling her cardigan tight around her, and dropped the newspaper Poppa asked her to bring to her mentor and employer. She retrieved the paper and saw Bess Truman smiling as she entered Walter Reed Army Hospital. With the war over, the First Lady visited broken soldiers in long-term care. Erica slapped the paper closed before rage and depression overtook her. So many boys had not come home.
Chin jutted out, she smoothed the pleats of her skirt and marched toward Ada's house.
She'd think on pleasant things and hand the paper over without a fuss as she did every morning.
Nothing would ruin this day.
She climbed Ada's wooden front steps and opened the door.
Smoke filled the living room Ada had turned into a fabric shop. Erica waved a hand in front of tearing eyes. Gray vapors, like swirling fog, partially obscured bolts of fabric stacked against the opposite wall.
"Ada! Ada, answer me please." Dropping the newspaper, Erica rushed toward the stairs, trampling Bess Truman's image. "Ada can you hear me?"
Coughing, she grabbed on to the cutting table in the middle of the room, steadied herself, and reached for the phone -- no dial tone. Perhaps the fire melted the line.
She yanked the collar of her blouse over her nose and mouth against the smoke. The stairs loomed before her, seeming as impossible to scale as Mount Everest. She lunged forward, gripping the baluster, and thrust herself up two steps. Since Ada wasn't outside, she had to be upstairs.
As Erica climbed, the smoke thickened and swirled around her. It was darker with each step.
One hand clasped the rail and pulled, and she advanced a few more steps. Heat blasted against her skin from above, and soft crackling sounds drew her gaze to the upstairs landing.
Squinting into the smoke, she lost her grip on the banister, missed the next step, and fell backward tumbling to the bottom.
The back of her head smacked against the baluster, and wooziness followed sharp pain.
She tried to stand but couldn't get her bearings.
Will triumphed over ability. She hoisted herself, ignoring the dull throb at the back of her skull. Her palms stung, the skin scraped off during her fall. She took a deep breath, and a coughing fit seized her. Shallow breaths were the better alternative.
Planting her penny loafer on the bottom step, Erica began her climb again, shaken but with new resolve. If she could reach the top of the stairs, she could also make it to Ada's bedroom.
Halfway up, the scratches on her palms pulsated as the temperature rose. So did her knees -- must've scraped those, too. The pungent smoke shrouding her darkened, and grit clung to her skin. She couldn't see the banister or the top of the stairs and each breath took effort.
Poppa's lectures on fire drills flashed into mind -- stay low in a fire to get fresh air. She dropped to her knees and crawled, ignoring her pain. A sickening smell made her stomach lurch.
Inch by inch she crept, now three quarters of the way up. Hot, putrid air assaulted her windpipe, and she doubled over, her insides trembling.
Heaving herself forward, she maneuvered up one more step, but the smoke pushed back, choking her. She sobbed, knowing she couldn't make it to Ada, and scrambled down, hoping she could find help.
AUTHOR BIO:
Like so many writers, Nike Chillemi started writing at a very young age. She still has the Crayola, fully illustrated book she penned (penciled might be more accurate) as a little girl about her then off-the-chart love of horses. Today, you might call her a crime fictionista. Her passion is crime fiction. She likes her bad guys really bad and her good guys smarter and better.
She is the founding board member of the Grace Awards and is its Chairman, a reader's choice awards for excellence in Christian fiction. She writes book reviews for The Christian Pulse online magazine. She was an Inspy Awards 2010 judge in the Suspense/Thriller/Mystery category and a judge in the 2011 and 2012 Carol Awards in the suspense, mystery, and romantic suspense categories. BURNING HEARTS, the first book in the crime wave that is sweeping the south shore of Long Island in The Sanctuary Point series, finaled in the Grace Awards 2011 in the Romance/Historical Romance category. GOODBYE NOEL, the second book in the series released in December, 2011 won the Grace Award 2011 in the Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller category. PERILOUS SHADOWS, third in the series released July, 2012, and DARKEST HOUR, the fourth in the series released in February, 2013. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the Edgy Christian Fiction Lovers (Ning). http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/
PURCHASE LINKS:
Amazon. http://tiny.cc/wfl6ww
Barnes and Noble. http://tiny.cc/oil6ww
Nice! Love the setting. When I was a girl, I fell in love with the Judy Bolton series. One of the things I liked about Judy was, unlike Nancy Drew, Judy actually grew and changed.
ReplyDeleteDonna: We all have our favorites. Nike is developing a great historical mystery series that really captures that era.
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