D-Day for FRENCH PERIL:

In a few hours, FRENCH PERIL, will be a published book. It’s exciting and scary. I am going through a terrible case of angst as if I was passing an exam tomorrow. I spent years wishing and praying to be published. Yet I am terrified. My first book TO LOVE A HERO, a story set in a Russian country, was published on January 17, two days before my birthday. Now six months later almost to the day, FRENCH PERIL is released. Two books in six months. It took me five years to revise, edit and sell TO LOVE A HERO, but it took six months to write, edit and publish FRENCH PERIL. I guess it’s called building experience.
Here are the links to buy my books:

TO LOVE A HERO http://www.cerridwenpress.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419913686

FRENCH PERIL
http://www.cerridwenpress.com/RecentRelease.asp

Let me go back to my trip to release the stress.

Malta is built on a cliff. You can see the city walls here. And the Church of St. Paul who converted the locals.

Spilt in Croatia: City walls and the statue of their patron. His toe is golden. Tourists rub it for good luck.

Here is the first scene from FRENCH PERIL:

“Chinese restaurant… Malaysian student…”

Cheryl Stewart raised the volume on her cell phone and pushed it closer to her ear to decipher the intermittent mumbling. “What’s wrong, Doc?”

“Heart…stomach…” A pause amplified the labored breathing of her mentor.

She connected the hardly audible words. “You’ve been to a Chinese restaurant with a Malaysian student when you felt sick?” Leaning forward, she tightened her grasp on the phone. “Where are you now?”

“Am… Amb… ” The strident wail of an ambulance siren interrupted his effort and Cheryl’s pulse raced at the sound.

“Which hospital are you going to?” God, she should have insisted he take better care of his health.

“ER… Cam…bridge Hos…pital…”

“I’m coming.” It made sense that the paramedics had rushed him to the medical center closest to Harvard School of Architecture.

“Don’t. I need… ” Doc’s voice, suddenly forceful, filled the line and then collapsed as if he’d lost his last shred of energy.

“Yes, what do you need?” Her throat constricted in anguish. She’d do anything to help the man she’d considered a surrogate father for the last eight years.

Her question must have triggered some awareness. “Go to France. My plane ticket in my office. Left drawer. Take my laptop… Password statue.” His voice shattered, then came back. She didn’t know if she’d missed something. “Go. Careful. Watch… ” His panting reached her across the line, louder than his words. “Tell François…tell…”

“Yes?” She probed, her heart drumming in the deafening silence.

“Go…tomorrow.”

“What about you?”

“Maybe food poisoning… Better soon.” He grunted and gasped. “Go.” The connection was cut. Cheryl checked the calling phone number. His cell phone. Had Doc closed the line because a new surge of pain assailed him?

Professor Howard sick? He hadn’t missed a day of work since she’d sat in his class for the first time eight years ago. Should she disobey his orders and rush to the hospital to reassure herself he wasn’t in danger? She bit her lip, hesitating. No, she couldn’t do that. If he’d taken the trouble to call her on his cell phone while in the ambulance writhing in pain, she’d better do exactly as he said.

Her briefcase under her arm, she left the graduate students’ studio at Harvard School of Architecture and strode down the hallway to Professor Stanley Howard’s office. He’d given her a key two months ago when she worked with him on the statue’s project as part of her Ph.D. thesis. She unlocked his office, closed the door behind her and went straight to his desk.

After collecting her laptop carrying case, she left the studio and locked the door. As she glanced down the hallway, she gasped. A man was just stepping out of Doc’s office. What the hell was he doing there? Except for Cheryl and security, no one else had a key to her mentor’s office.