Keeper Flashes

One of my favorite parts of The Keeper's Journal is when Carly O'Reilly is cyber-stalked by an unknown person, who hints they are wise to her sinister deeds.

Another favorite scene comes from Chapter Fourteen, when Shannon Larkin has a mini-psychotic break of sorts:

Shannon never knew what prompted her to look at the mirror, but her actions rendered her immobile with fear. Her eyes centered on the mirror, unflinching. An overwhelming sense of uneasiness filled her being, and she began to tremor slightly. As if she could not believe her eyes, she kept staring at the mirror, taking in the words and the meaning, over and over again. The fact that the message was left in red lipstick with a drawn heart did not seem to matter at the moment. Only the message mattered:

Greetings, Shannon! Did you think you could ever forget me? Remember, nothing is ever forgotten. Our day is coming soon. Our blood is intermingled, and the time has come.

She continued to stare at the red letters on the mirror. Her ears blocked the sound of running water as the tub overflowed onto the bathroom floor and began seeping toward her slowly. She dropped the box of bubble bath without realizing it, the powder spilling onto the small rug under her feet. A feeling of numbness overtook her, much as it had the other day in the drawing room when she discovered the last batch of roses destroyed in the garden. Her mind was in a whirl as memories crashed into her brain, of a past she thought completely put behind her. But here it was again, intruding upon her, fringing her life. She looked down at her empty hands and wondered idly what happened to the bath crystals. She frowned. She remembered getting them out of the cupboard under the sink, but where were they now?

I developed the idea for The Keeper's Journal in 1998, when I lived in a crappy little trailer on the outskirts of Chubbuck, Idaho. At the time, my personal life was a literal misery as my second marriage ground to a halt and financial resources were non-existent. Submerging my mind into a fictional world was the only way to deal with stress in the moment, but in the end it proved fruitful on a creative level.

My second husband never understood or accepted my inherent drive to write, which is only one of the many reasons the marriage fell apart after ten long years.

We live and learn.