Please welcome Barbara Casey author of The Nightjar's Promise
Barbara Casey will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
The Nightjar's Promise
byBarbara Casey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Fiction/Mystery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INTERVIEW:
INTERVIEW with BARBARA CASEY
The Nightjar’s Promise
Book 4 of THE F.I.G. MYSTERIES
What or who inspired you to start writing?
Even as a young child I enjoyed writing stories and poetry. But it wasn’t until I had graduated from college and was working as the Director of Public Relations and Vice President for Development at a college in North Carolina that the enjoyment became a compulsion. I was doing freelance work editing book manuscripts for several of the professors at the college when I started thinking of a book I wanted to write. I gave myself a year to write it and to try to find a publisher. Ten months later I had my first book contract and an option for my second book. I have been writing ever since.
What elements are necessary components for this genre?
I write both fiction and nonfiction for adults and young adults. I have found that by including elements of historical facts into my novels, it makes a better story. In each of the four books in The F.I.G. Mysteries, I have included something historical that ties in with each of the F.I.G.s (Females of Intellectual Genius). This historical element helps to explain why each girl was orphaned and why she is so talented.
How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
I came up with the idea for Book 1 – The Cadence of Gypsies—when I used to drive past an orphanage each day on the way to class at N.C. State University. The description of Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women is very similar to that orphanage. Seeing it each day really triggered my imagination and once The Cadence of Gypsieswas published years later, my publisher asked if I would expand it into a series. I had never even considered writing a series about these three young girls, but once I started writing The Wish Rider, I knew exactly what I wanted each book to be.
What expertise did you bring to your writing?
I opened the Barbara Casey Agency in 1995, and I represent authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. Since 2015, I have been a partner with a small, independent publishing house that specializes in nonfiction/true crime. Over the course of my writing career I have had over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction published. But probably, the one thing that has contributed to my success as a writer most is the fact that I am a military brat. My father was an officer in the Marine Corps and we were transferred every two or three years. I met a lot of interesting people and saw so many different places.
What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
I love animals and have always had a dog. Since living on our mountain here in Georgia, that love has increased tenfold. I have adopted three rescue dogs and three rescue cats.
As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
One of my books has been optioned for a major film, and another is under contract for a major film, so I will be involved with that. I am also considering writing another young adult series. I enjoyed the F.I.G.s so much – I think I would like to come up with something new that will be equally challenging to write, but enjoyable to read.
If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
It would probably be Carolina. She has the blood of Gypsies running through her veins, and she is such a caring person – especially where the F.I.G.s (her girls) are concerned. When everyone else ridiculed them, she opened her arms to them. Since she had also been adopted, she could emphasize with them.
Can you give us a sneak peek into this book?
Unlike the other two F.I.G.s, Dara and Mackenzie, who were placed in Wood Rose Orphanage very young, Jennifer was a young teenager when she became a resident there; so she knew her parents and what happened to them. When she discovers that what she believed to have happened to her parents—that they had been killed in a car accident—is not true at all, she is devastated and feels completely betrayed. That scene was hard to write, and even now I get tearful. This is the moment when Jennifer realizes that her parents are alive:
The Hall was hushed. The conductor, slightly disheveled, his arms now limp by his sides, smiled. They would be ready for their Thanksgiving performance. As before, no one spoke to Jennifer. They knew not to. After all, she was a genius with an unpredictable if not strange and prone-to-violence temperament—a FIG. She would remain turned inward, listening to the notes she had created and seeing the images until they were no more.
Not wanting to disturb her, the other musicians quietly packed up their instruments and followed the conductor quickly off the stage. Only Jennifer remained behind, still listening to the heart-breaking music, knowing what each note meant, lost in her “other” world. Liz, the graduate student at Juilliard who had been assigned to assist Jennifer with her needs while she was a student there, would be waiting outside for her no matter how long it took. She would make sure she got back to her room safely.
Gradually, Jennifer started to recognize the things around her. The images of The Wish Rider began to fade; the notes barely there. The lights in the great Hall had been left on but dimmed and would remain so until Jennifer was no longer in the building.
Jennifer’s violin and bow had been a gift from her parents before she turned two years old. Even at that young age, she had exhibited her genius having already mastered playing the piano—Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, she knew them all. By introducing her to a different musical instrument, her parents had hoped it would calm their emotional, erratic daughter—their prodigy disposed to fits of anger. Perhaps it would give her a new focus.
Like the piano, Jennifer had quickly mastered the violin. Yet, still her mood swings continued, her emotional outbursts remained unpredictable and misunderstood. And even though she was also exhibiting extraordinary talent in painting that seemed to accompany her musical abilities, by then her parents realized that no matter how many instruments Jennifer mastered and no matter how many art canvases she painted, she wouldn’t change. She couldn’t. That was her genius.
The violin—European—was made from a Carpathian elm wood now extinct; the bow, made from the same wood, with horsehair strings and a silver frog. Near the delicate frog was a silk grip, aged and beautiful. Jennifer flipped her long blond ponytailback and forth, something she usually did whenever she felt a keen sense of accomplishment or unflappable determination, then carefully placed her violin and bow in the worn leather case next to her.
As she secured the latches, she became aware of an unfamiliar shuffling noise, a noise that somehow seemed out of place and intrusive in the stillness of the massive Hall. She glanced toward the exit door. With no warning the stone that she had been carrying around in her chest for as long as she could remember seemed to explode causing her to catch her breath. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body and bent over in her chair trying to breathe. The excruciating pain was made worse by the thought that someone had been listening to the closed rehearsal and watching her, and was now trying to slip away.
She didn’t understand why the rock came now. Things had been going so well. As the pain eased, she once again glanced at the exit door. When she did the black and white images that usually preceded the musical notes only she could hear flashed before her eyes. Violent, ugly, black, thick brush strokes—like one reversed “z” overlapping another.
It was happening again. This was the way it always started when a new musical composition was beginning to form in Jennifer’s mind. An image would come to her, black and white—like a charcoal or pencil drawing. Over time it would gradually change to color; and along with the color would come a beat—the cadence she called it; first softly, then pronounced, loud, and vibrating. When she felt the vibration of the cadence—after the black and white image had changed to color—it was then she knew she needed to capture its musical essence. This was when she wrote the notes on eight-stave musical paper as she heard them in her mind.
Her vision was blurred with tears as she stared toward the door leading from the Hall making it difficult to see. But she knew.
Even with the crushing pain in her chest, the confusion of black and white images dancing before her eyes, and the absence of light, she knew.
She heard the musical notes—indiscriminate and unformed—but that would soon change. Eventually she would hear the cadence; the images would become well defined and detailed. But now, instead, she saw the slight tilt of the woman’s head, the way the man walked favoring his left foot, and she knew.
The door opened, allowing the blinding brilliance of the late afternoon sunlight to stream into the darkened Hall that only moments earlier had been filled with music—her music, and she watched the man and woman vanish. The man and woman who had taken care of her and, she thought, had loved her. The man and woman who were dead—killed in a terrible car crash.
Jennifer knew.
And in that one brief instant in time, the unbearable feelings of grief, the overwhelming sadness, and the confusion she thought she had overcome and made go away suddenly consumed her as though they had never left; and the thick glass walls she had so carefully built around herself in order to survive suddenly shattered.
When the door had closed and all was still once again, she took her phone from her pocket. Breathing deeply through the pain and tears, trying to focus, she struggled with trembling hands. The black and white images blocked out her vision, and the discordant notes deafened her. Slowly and deliberately she pressed each letter—T—H—U—R. Again the ragged image of one backward “z” then the other surfaced in her thoughts along with something else—a bird? She pressed more letters—G—O—O—D until she had what she wanted, then she inserted the three email addresses—Dara, Mackenzie, and Carolina. Because there was no doubt in her mind, because she had never felt so helpless, so hurt, and so confused in her young life, and because she had never known such betrayal, she pressed the send button.
The last thing she saw was the one word she had entered. The word Carolina had told them to use if ever anything came up that was too big for them to handle. All they had to do was send their special word to each of the others and they would all meet at Carolina’s bungalow at Wood Rose—no matter when—no matter what. It was their special code. It was their promise to each other.
THURGOOD
Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?
I do not, and for several reasons, but one reason is my time. I have so little free time, and the other reason is that I really am superstitious when it comes to my writing. I can’t share anything about it when I am writing. It is only after it is published that I can finally talk about it.
Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?
Because The Nightjar’s Promiseis the final book in THE F.I.G. MYSTERIES, I wanted to allow each of the characters who had been in all of the books to find their own resolution. One of the minor characters throughout the series is Miss Ball, the headmaster’s long-time secretary who had been working at Wood Rose from when it was first built. She is extremely disciplined, hard-working, and doesn’t take any guff from anyone, including Headmaster Thurgood Harcourt. She doesn’t approve of all of the mischief the F.I.G.s get into on the orphanage campus, but she loves them and supports them without anyone even realizing. Like each of the other characters in the series, I think I found the perfect resolution for Miss Ball at the end of the book.
Thank you so much for inviting me to visit with you and for your wonderful questions. My very best to you and your bloggers. ~Barbara
BLURB:
The Nightjar’s Promise
Jennifer Torres, one of the three FIGs (Females of Intellectual Genius) who is a genius in both music and art, is the last to leave the closed rehearsal for her upcoming performance over Thanksgiving break at Carnegie Hall when she hears something in the darkened Hall. Recognizing the tilt of the woman’s head and the slight limp of the man as they hurry out an exit door, she realizes it is her parents who were supposedly killed in a terrible car accident when she was 15 years old.
Jennifer Torres, one of the three FIGs (Females of Intellectual Genius) who is a genius in both music and art, is the last to leave the closed rehearsal for her upcoming performance over Thanksgiving break at Carnegie Hall when she hears something in the darkened Hall. Recognizing the tilt of the woman’s head and the slight limp of the man as they hurry out an exit door, she realizes it is her parents who were supposedly killed in a terrible car accident when she was 15 years old.
Devastated and feeling betrayed, she sends a text to Carolina and the other two FIGs—THURGOOD. It is the code word they all agreed to use if ever one of them got into trouble or something happened that was too difficult to handle. They would all meet back at Carolina’s bungalow at Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women to figure it out.
As soon as they receive the text, because of their genius, Dara starts thinking of words in ancient Hebrew, German, and Yiddish, while Mackenzie’s visions of unique math formulae keep bringing up the date October 11, 1943. That is the date during World War II when the Nazis—the Kunstschutz—looted the paintings of targeted wealthy Jewish families and hid them away under Hitler’s orders. And as Carolina waits for the FIGs to return to Wood Rose, she hears warnings from Lyuba, her gypsy mother, to watch for the nightjar, the ancient name for the whip-poor-will.
As they search for “The Nightjar’s Promise” and the truth surrounding it, Carolina and the FIGs come face to face with evil that threatens to destroy not only their genius, but their very lives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
Right on time, the guard arrived at the front gate and unlocked it. Once he drove away, Jas slipped unnoticed through the entrance into the cemetery. When he had first been given the assignment, the cemetery bothered him, especially the mausoleum. Unfamiliar sounds and smells, being surrounded by cold stones and even colder death, made his imagination work overtime so that by the end of each day when he left—just before the guard locked the gate—he would be nervous and irritable; at night, unable to sleep. Now, after all this time doing the same thing day in and day out, he was used to it. In fact, he sort of enjoyed it—thinking about the dead and all the different ways their lives might have come to an end. Lately, his imagination had taken a more brutal turn. More violent and macabre.
Ignoring the hundreds of grave sites that stretched in every direction, he quickly made his way toward the mausoleum. Having already been there many times before, he knew exactly where he wanted to go and what he needed to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Originally from Carrollton, Illinois, author/agent/publisher Barbara Casey attended the University of North Carolina, N.C. State University, and N.C. Wesleyan College where she received a BA degree, summa cum laude, with a double major in English and history. In 1978 she left her position as Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at North Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own manuscript evaluation and editorial service. In 1995 she established the Barbara Casey Agency and since that time has represented authors from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. In 2014, she became a partner with Strategic Media Books, an independent nonfiction publisher of true crime, where she oversees acquisitions, day-to-day operations, and book production.
Ms. Casey has written over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction for both young adults and adults. The awards include the National Association of University Women Literary Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel, the IP Best Book for Regional Fiction, among others. Two of her nonfiction books have been optioned for major films, one of which is under contract.
Her award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in both national and international publications including the North Carolina Christian Advocate Magazine, The New East Magazine, the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer, the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Sunday Telegram, Dog Fancy, ByLine, The Christian Record, Skirt! Magazine, and True Story. A thirty-minute television special which Ms. Casey wrote and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh, North Carolina. She also received special recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of Albanian children’s stories. Her award-winning science fiction short stories for adults are featured in The Cosmic Unicorn and CrossTime science fiction anthologies. Ms. Casey's essays and other works appear in The Chrysalis Reader, the international literary journal of the Swedenborg Foundation, 221 One-Minute Monologues from Literature (Smith and Kraus Publishers), and A Cup of Comfort (Adams Media Corporation).
Ms. Casey is a former director of BookFest of the Palm Beaches, Florida, where she served as guest author and panelist. She has served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Palm Beach and Martin Counties, Florida, and was the Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators from 1991 through 2003. In 2018 Ms. Casey received the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing and other areas. She makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest Georgia with her husband and three cats who adopted her, Homer, Reese and Earl Gray, Reese’s best friend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
Barbara Casey will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
