Where is That Irish Village?

Ballytullmac is a fictional Irish village where Dylan Maguire was raised by his grandmother in the Black Swamp Mysteries series. It is set near the Bog of Allen and is located near Croghan Hill, a real place that is the site of an extinct volcano. From the top of Croghan Hill, you can see for miles around, as the surrounding terrain is very flat in the bogs. It is located in County Offaly west of Dublin.

Before England colonized Ireland (the same way they did America) in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the island was divided into miniature “nations” just as the United States was divided into more than 500 Native American nations. Each was ruled by a clan, which was a close-knit group of family members and others loyal to that family.

The region of Croghan Hill was ruled by the O’Connor Clan; O’Connor was one of the last High Kings of Ireland before the Norman invasion (which serves as the backdrop in my book, The White Devil of Dublin).

In 2003, a remarkably well-preserved body was found in the bogs that is believed to be more than 2,000 years old. The man is measured at 6 feet, 6 inches, remarkably tall even for this day. He was murdered in his 20’s. The theory is that he was once a king in that region. It was believed during the Iron Age and the time of the druids that when bad fortune fell upon the community—such as famine, bad weather or natural disasters—it was the king’s fault. He would then have been taken to a special site, such as the ancient hill where kings were anointed, and killed to appease the gods. His body was found buried at the foot of the hill; he had wounds on his arm and chest; he had been decapitated and his body cut in half.

In later years, Croghan Hill was known as a fairy-mound filled with mystical powers.

In my newest release, Cloak and Mirrors, Dylan’s village of Ballytullmac is the backdrop for his marriage to Vicki Boyd. It is a tiny village with one main street (with lots of pubs!) and a Catholic church set on a hill overlooking the village. The priest at the church is Dylan’s best friend, Father Thomas Rowan, and it is Father Thomas who marries Vicki and Dylan in a traditional Irish ceremony.

They leave the next day for Donegal and the Wild Atlantic Way on the northwest corner of Ireland, which serves as the backdrop for the rest of the story. Sam, their CIA section chief, sends them into Donegal to pick up a microchip containing plans for Russia’s latest stealth technology. When the Russian decides to defect, however, it sends them across the island in an attempt to rendezvous with an aircraft that will remove the defector from Europe. And when they learn that the Kremlin has identified Vicki and Dylan, they find themselves fighting to escape. Watch the trailer below!

The official launch date for Cloak and Mirrors is March 17 (Saint Patrick’s Day) but it is already available at amazon in both paperback and eBook. It will be in all fine stores by March 17 in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Be very careful if you see any of my books advertised as free! They are never free and I have been notified that groups in Eastern Europe and Russia are offering free eBooks that are filled with malicious viruses.

 

p.m.terrell is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than 20 books in several genres. Her first book was published in 1984 and she became a full-time writer in 2002. She has mentored authors for more than 15 years and is the co-founder of The Book 'Em Foundation and the founder of the Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair. For more information, visit www.pmterrell.com.

Walking a Rope Bridge at Gunpoint

Would you walk a rope bridge at gunpoint?

Cloak and Mirrors, the 6^th book in the Black Swamp Mysteries Series, features a rope bridge in the climactic scene. I was inspired by the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, situated along the coast of Northern Ireland in County Antrim and not far from my ancestral home in Ballygawley.

The bridge was originally erected around the 1700’s when salmon fishing was big. The fishermen erected the bridge to a tiny island just off Northern Ireland’s coast called Carrickarede, which means the “rock of the casting”, where they would cast their nets. At one time, more than 300 salmon were caught each day. But by the turn of this century, less than 300 were caught in an entire season.

Today, the rope bridge is built for tourists—and therefore, for safety. It has handrails on either side and the slats are properly maintained. It is still a frightening trek, however, as the bridge can sway with both the strong Irish winds as well as the footsteps of every person in front and behind you. It is not for the faint of heart, and boats regularly transport visitors back to the mainland when they are so frightened that they can’t make the return journey across the bridge.

During the days in which the fishermen used it, however, it was not as sturdy or as well maintained, which further inspired the description in Cloak and Mirrors. In my book, I have located a similar rope bridge at an interior lough (or lake) that is exclusively used by the fishermen, so it more closely resembles the original rope bridges. They were strung in early summer and removed by late summer—usually lasting only from June to September. These bridges rarely had a handrail and the slats might be horizontally placed (with the length sideways) or vertically placed (one or two boards placed lengthwise as in the picture above), depending on the available wood. Sometimes the fishermen’s netting was used to keep the slats in place.

In Cloak and Mirrors, Vicki, Dylan and Brenda are fleeing from Russian operatives attempting to capture them. Not only must they navigate the bridge to reach an island in the lough, but they must do so under gunfire - one hundred and fifty feet above the water with no handrail.

The official launch date for Cloak and Mirrors is March 17, but you can pre-order the book now from amazon. The paperback sells for $16.95 (follow this link) and the Kindle sells for $6.99 (at this link).

Read an excerpt, watch the book trailer and find out more at http://pmterrell.com/cloak-and-mirrors/.

Visiting Ireland’s Croaghgorms

The winds whistled and swirled in the frosty night like a chorus of apparitions dancing and bobbing, leaving soft whispers against Dylan’s ear, enticing, cajoling, flirtatious and deadly. Ah, but they could drive a man insane on a night like this, he thought, pulling his collar tighter about his ears. He wore an Irish tweed cap and still the winds licked at his hair like fingers running through it, soothing, insistent and treacherous.

So begins the chapter in which Dylan Maguire traverses the Croaghgorms, the Irish word for “The Blue Stacks” and perhaps better known to visitors as The Blue Stack Mountains. It is one of Ireland’s major mountain ranges and is situated in County Donegal. One road cuts through, called the Barnesmore Gap, an isolated road that one wouldn’t want to travel alone. Stories of apparitions abound in The Blue Stacks and particularly along Barnesmore Gap, including one of a woman who hitchhikes in the dead of night, only to disappear while in the unsuspecting driver’s car.

If you’ve ever been to Ireland, you know how mystical and magical it can be. The mists dance like phantoms, weaving in amongst the trees and the rocks until you aren’t quite sure whether otherworldly creatures are watching you, following you as you make your way. The winds can be cruel, especially when coming off the North Sea in the winter; as Dylan recalls later in the book, it’s the lazy winds that are the worst of all—called that because they’re too lazy to go around a man, they simply cut straight through him…

Donegal is situated in the Republic of Ireland but it is considered part of Ulster, the region that was divided from the Republic in 1921, making it part of the Border Region. It was after the Easter Rising of 1916 that Ireland won her independence from Great Britain, but six of the nine counties of Ulster were separated from the Republic, named Northern Ireland and is today considered one of four countries of Great Britain (along with England, Scotland and Wales).

There was once a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland manned with guards but those disappeared after the European Union was formed, making it possible to travel between the two countries as easily as Americans travel between states. This also made it possible for Dylan, along with a Russian defector and a fellow Irishman, to travel through the Blue Stacks on horseback in Cloak and Mirrors, weaving between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The mountains range from grassy slopes on which sheep graze to steep and rocky climbs. Occasionally, one will see an abandoned cottage with a thatched roof, most likely the home of a tenant farmer a century or more ago. The ground here, with little exception, cannot support crops so the tenant farmer and his family might have eked out barely enough to keep them alive, along with the more ample lamb they raised. In a region isolated and rugged, every bit of the lamb would have gone to good use, including the organs, the bones and the wool.

It is interesting to surmise what might have happened to the family; perhaps they starved during one of the Famines that struck Ireland with a savage vengeance. Or perhaps they were fortunate enough to migrate elsewhere; a costly, long and grueling journey across the Atlantic to America or to other countries around the world. They left behind a stone cottage that will stand for centuries longer, the thatched roof likely caving in, the area around the home overgrown as if the land is determined to claim it once more. All that is left in the haunted remains are the memories of what once was.

It is to one of these cottages that Dylan Maguire and his fellow travelers are heading en route to a rendezvous with a helicopter that is expected to receive the Russian defector and take him to America… If they survive.

I love writing about Ireland; the memories I have there are always warm even when the lazy North Sea winds cut straight through me. If you would like to read a chapter from my newest release, Cloak and Mirrors, that takes place in the Blue Stack Mountains and the cottage mentioned above, follow this link.

The book is due to be released on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2017. Vicki and Dylan discover the CIA can even hijack a honeymoon… While staying in a remote Irish manor house along the Wild Atlantic Way, they are directed to retrieve stolen documents on Russia’s newest stealth technology. But when the CIA asset decides to defect, their mission becomes much more complicated. And when they discover the Kremlin wants them captured, they’re in a fight for their lives.

Watch the book trailer below!

p.m.terrell is the internationally acclaimed author of more than 20 books, including the award-winning series Black Swamp Mysteries. Cloak and Mirrors is the 6^th book in the series. Right now the first book that introduces Vicki and Dylan, Vicki’s Key, is on sale for just $2.99 on Kindle. It’s a great opportunity to be introduced to these two. After Cloak andMirrors is released, Vicki’s Key will return to the original price of $6.99. Visit the author’s website at www.pmterrell.com for lots more information.

Looking Forward to 2017

Like a lot of people, I am grateful to see 2016 coming to a close and I am looking forward to a fabulous 2017. It is shaping up to be an ambitious year for me:

Cloak & Mirrors, the 6th book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2017. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a St Patrick's Day release (March 17) because Vicki and Dylan return to Ireland. They get married in the village where Dylan grew up and then depart for the north part of the island for their honeymoon. Sam needs for them to perform one small CIA task in Donegal, and of course everything goes wrong and they find themselves in jeopardy once again.

After mentoring authors for more than 15 years, I've decided to share my knowledge through a new venture, The Novel Business. Authors can sign up to receive free emails with tips on conducting writing as a business, insights into the publishing industry and a lot of marketing tips. For more in-depth information, I am rolling out a variety of premium courses. Check out information on the 52-week (a full year!) Marketing Plan of how-to videos.

My favorite physician of all time is Dr. Godfrey Onime, and I am very pleased to announce that I will be working with him in 2017 on a variety of books, including one about the medical community's role in helping victims of Hurricane Matthew and a series of inspirational books. Check out his website here.

I am also continuing work inspired by three Neely brothers who left my ancestral village of Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in the 1720's to make their destinies in America. There is a tremendous amount of research involved but the book is well underway. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a 2017 release.

I am also starting my second year in college. I am working on a double major, one involving cybersecurity and another involving marketing with an emphasis on digital (Internet) marketing. Computer technology has been very good to me over the years and with technology changing as rapidly as it has in recent years, I wanted to keep my skills up to date.

I will also be updating my website, www.pmterrell.com, over the next few months. I have two sections, one pertaining primarily to my contemporary work and another to the historical books of the Neely family, River Passage and Songbirds are Free. I may divide it further so it will be easy and fun to navigate and friendlier for mobile devices.

So 2017 will definitely be an ambitious year for me. I am very excited!

Happy New Year!

p.m.terrell is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than 20 books in several genres. Her first book was published in 1984 and she became a full-time writer in 2002. She has mentored authors for more than 15 years and is the co-founder of The Book 'Em Foundation and the founder of the Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair (www.bookemnc.com). She is also the founder of The Novel Business (www.thenovelbusiness.com). For more information, visit www.pmterrell.com.

Holiday Traditions

Well, it's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm ready to start the Holiday Traditions! Each year on the last Friday of November, I create the annual Christmas gift to all my brothers and sisters and my dad. It's the Neelley Family Calendar, made special because it includes pictures of the family as we were growing up as well as today and it contains all those special dates like birthdays and anniversaries as well as dates from my dad's genealogy research.


I use PowerPoint to create the pictures. I also have Adobe Photoshop but for some reason it's been easier to use PowerPoint for the monthly pictures.

This is the picture I used in July 2016, which includes my dad as a young boy, at his desk as an FBI Special Agent-in-Charge of the Greenville, Mississippi office during the 1960's, with my niece Marissa and nephews James and Stevie (who are all grown up now!) and my dad getting his special FBI retiree badge in Jackson, Mississippi.

And no calendar is complete without the December well wishes with the whole family! This picture was taken at my niece Marissa's wedding - yep, the same young lady in the picture above this one!


I use Microsoft Publisher for the calendar months. I plug in the holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, and for added fun, some of my dad's genealogy dates.

I lay it out on legal sized paper so when it's folded, the calendar is perfect for hanging. The local PostNet in Lumberton, North Carolina prints the copies, staples it in the middle and punches a hole for hanging. Then on Saturday, they will be wrapped and ready to mail first thing Monday morning.


What holiday traditions do you have?


The genealogy information is a very important part of the calendar because I grew up with stories of my ancestors. They inspired trips to Ireland to visit my ancestral home in Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland (the graves on my family's property are shown here; the stones were rumored to have been destroyed by the British Army searching for hidden weapons of the IRA), and visiting that region inspired A Thin Slice of Heaven as well as the next book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series. The trailer for A Thin Slice of Heaven is shown below.

Genealogy also inspired my bestselling book, Songbirds are Free, the true story about the capture of Mary Neely by Shawnee warriors in 1780 near present-day Nashville, Tennessee, and River Passage, winner of the Best Drama Award, about the Neely's journey to Fort Nashborough at the height of the Chickamauga Indian Wars.


And the Irish men in the Black Swamp Mysteries Series and Ryan O'Clery Mystery Series are inspired by the men in my own family. I am currently working on a book inspired by the three Neely brothers who left Ballygawley in the early 1700's to seek the American dream. Below is the trailer for The Tempest Murders, which takes place against the backdrop of the worst storm in Ireland's history.



For more information and to read excerpts from any of my books, visit www.pmterrell.com.

The Long Road Back...

It's nice to know when someone disappears, they are missed. Particularly when I have been writing two books each year for the past several years, and two books per year have been published - one in the spring and one in the fall. And as I get back on track, there are four books scheduled for release in the upcoming 24 months.


My disappearance from the public eye began several years ago when I had to cancel part of a book tour due to a heart abnormality which resulted in the sensation that I had stopped breathing (actually, my heart was stopping), followed by a series of extremely rapid heartbeats as my heart rushed to catch back up.


I underwent a heart ablation, which literally everyone told me was a standard procedure and there was "nothing to it". I was on the table for about four hours, under general anesthesia, and the procedure was not successful.

And there was a complication.


Shortly after the procedure, I complained that my leg was hurting. I was assured that it was normal and it would soon heal. Not only did it not heal but I soon found myself almost unable to walk. I went through a variety of diagnoses and treatments from knee pain to arthritis to hip pain, but none of the medication worked and I began relying on a cane. Steroids resulted in a lot of weight gain, which put even more pressure on my leg.


Then, quite by accident, we discovered the root cause.


It turned out that during the heart ablation, I suffered nerve damage. And it turns out that approximately 10% of nerve damage is brought about by heart procedures. There is no cure for it, and in my case it created excruciating migrating pain from the bottom of my foot to the top of my hip.


Once we had the diagnosis, I was placed on Lyrica. That's when things became real interesting. The Lyrica immediately blocked the nerve pain, allowing me to begin to get back to my former self - physically. Unfortunately, a side effect was the inability to write. I simply could not focus. Even following a conversation was challenging. I stopped public appearances because I couldn't even focus enough on what I was saying.


Flash forward to today and I am on a different medication - Gralise, which was originally developed for nerve pain resulting from shingles, but which also has had a tremendous affect on my damaged nerve. It helps with the pain and I no longer feel as though I am in a thick mental fog. I have been able to exercise again and more importantly, I am getting back to my writing.


I have been incredibly fortunate because my doctor took me seriously and he stayed active in finding the cause, even though it took several years, specialists and tests. When I was ready to give up, he was not.


So now I am catching up on four books and if I can meet my deadlines now (fingers crossed!) they will be released in 2017 and 2018:

Near Neely Home (now gone) at Glencull,
outside the village of Ballygawley,
County Tyrone, Northern Ireland

1. The sixth book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series has political strategist Christopher Sandige paying a visit to a human genome specialist after her report landed on the President's desk - a report that could have catastrophic repercussions.
2. The seventh book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series has Dylan Maguire and Vicki Boyd heading to Dylan's native Ireland for their wedding. Of course Sam wants them to take care of a small CIA mission while they're on their honeymoon, which leads to another encounter with Dylan's past.
3. The third book in the Ryan O'Clery Mystery Series has the Irish detective investigating a series of disappearances that lead him to a prominent citizen's doorstep.
4. And another historical book about the Neely family. This one is inspired by my trips to Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the home of my ancestors. In the 18th century, three brothers left Ballygawley for America and this book follows their lives as they chase the American dream. One became a pub owner in New York, another owned a fleet of sailing ships that took goods - and later Irish people fleeing from famine - between Ireland and America. The third became a successful rancher. His son, William Neely, would later clear the land around the original Fort Nashborough, and William's daughter, Mary Neely, would be captured by Shawnee warriors in 1780. (The rancher brother, by the way, is also my ancestor.)

In addition, I have had so many authors ask me for advice over the years that I have begun The Novel Business, a new website in which I'll be offering courses on everything from marketing and promotion to inside information on the publishing industry. Check it out if you have the chance.

It's great to be back!

An Exciting Week!

This has been an exciting week for me because for the first time in two years, I have a breeding pair of angelfish.

If you've been following my posts for awhile, you may remember that Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick had so many successful clutches that I lost count. But after Stevie passed away, Lindsay was uninterested in anyone else. Angelfish usually mate for life.

I have a black angel and a silver angel in a community tank that includes a marble angel, a pleco, about two dozen tetras and about a dozen corydoras. When they decided to lay eggs on an intake, I didn't give it much thought because with so many others in the tank, there would be little chance that they would survive.

However, John and Christie McFish (of Fleetfish Mac fame) have surprised me. Their eggs hatched within a few days and I now have several dozen babies ready to swim.

Once the eggs hatch, the mother or father catch the babies in their mouths and spit them out someplace where they can get plenty of food. In this case, it's on the intake itself where algae has formed. The angelfish stay glued to this by their little heads. In this stage, they are called wigglers.

As they grow, they become strong enough to eventually pop off and swim on their own. This is a dangerous time because they could get sucked into the intake itself, or they could be eaten by another fish. They are barely the size of a hat pin, and they are translucent. They are also shaped like bullets and not the shape we identify with angelfish.

During this phase, the parents will need to keep them corralled. Normally, I would have had them in a tank by themselves with a piece of foam over the intake to prevent anyone from being sucked into it, and there would be no predators in the tank. However, because they are in a community tank, I inserted a small screen between them and the others; it only reaches partway but it prevents a direct line-of-sight. I also removed the third angelfish to another community tank. The pleco was found dead the morning after they laid their eggs; I suspect during the night, the pleco attempted to eat the eggs and the parents viciously defended them.

The tetras and corys are remaining at the far end of the tank and both angelfish check frequently to make sure they stay on their side!

The next phase is called the Invisible Phase. Many of the babies will seem to disappear; they are actually living on the bottom of the tank, in the gravel, where predators are less likely to discover them. I do have an infant tank at the ready, filled with water from the original tank, and I will attempt to capture at least a few. Then I'll see what the survival rate is between those that are in the dedicated infant tank versus those that are kept with the parents.

And what do babies eat when they are barely the size of a hatpin? I will feed them First Bites, which is manufactured specifically for baby fish, and finely crumbled brine shrimp. As they grow over the course of the next eight weeks, they will eventually be weaned onto finely crumbled fish flakes, and then onto regular fish flakes.

Between the age of eight and twelve weeks (depending on their size) they will go to the local pet shop for sale. Although some breeders will sell the babies when they are the size of a dime, I wait until mine are the size of a quarter. By then, their coloring has taken effect and they have the beautiful lines of the angelfish.

To read more about my angelfish breeding, check out other blog posts at www.vickisangelfish.blogspot.com.

p.m.terrell is the author of more than 18 books in several genres. Her award-winning Black Swamp Mysteries features CIA operatives who use fronts as angelfish breeders to conceal their real identities. Visit www.pmterrell.com for more information and to read sample chapters.

Why CIA Operatives are Fish Breeders

In the Black Swamp Mysteries Series, CIA psychic spy Vicki Boyd and CIA operative Dylan Maguire have a front as tropical angelfish breeders. But why are they pretending to be fish breeders? Why not be office staff, financial advisors, website designers, book editors, or a host of other career options?

The idea came to me because I breed freshwater angelfish as a hobby. If you haven't checked out my other blog, Vicki's Angelfish, you'll find videos, pictures and information including some adorable pics of baby angels swimming with their parents - or hanging by their wee heads on leaves.

But whenever I began talking about my angelfish - or any fish for that matter - people's eyes glazed over. (At left: Lindsay Buckingfish, who is a flamboyant ten inches tall.) I discovered that I could actually bore a person in ten seconds flat. That's when I realized it was the perfect front for a CIA operative.

Neighbors would think they were the most boring couple in the world, and they'd likely leave Vicki and Dylan alone.

They could work out of their home, so no one from an office setting would miss them when they disappeared for a few hours - or a few days.

They would have no storefront and no one would ever have a reason to meet with them. They would sell their baby angels wholesale to pet stores - all done online.

There are a few challenges, however.

They have to feed the angels and keep those tanks clean. Fish don't breed in dirty water, and angels are particularly finicky. They want the conditions perfect for their fry.

They also need to feed the fish on a regular basis. I feed mine daily; however, breeders will often stop feeding the fish three days prior to shipping them so their water will remain clear during transit. Luckily, Sam (their CIA boss) has filled in for them when they've been out of town on assignment.

If you were an undercover CIA operative, what business would you choose as your front?

In Search of My Irish Past: Part 3

Last week, I wrote about the introduction of the first Irish character in my writing - Dylan Maguire, who made his appearance in Vicki's Key and the Black Swamp Mysteries Series. A little known fact about the book is the original plot called for Vicki to kill Dylan in self-defense; the intent was for him to start out as someone she would fall hard and fast for, but who ultimately would turn out to be someone else - and someone very dangerous to her.

However, in my effort to make him the kind of man she would fall in love with, I must have done the job exceptionally well because the initial editors and reviewers sent the manuscript back to me and said there was no way he was going to die. He was the most likable character I'd ever created, and he had to remain in the entire series. I rewrote portions of the book and to my relief as well as everyone else's, he became Vicki's permanent love interest.

In Dylan's Song, the fourth book in the series, Vicki and Dylan arrive in Ireland for two purposes: his grandmother is dying and they have been given a CIA assignment: to locate an operative who had gone missing in Dublin, rescue him and return him to the States.

When I developed the village in which Dylan grew up, it was based on a village in which someone close to me once lived. Ireland is dotted with small villages, many of them with only a few hundred inhabitants. Ballygawley, the village my ancestors once owned, today has fewer than 1,000 residents.

There are only 4.6 million residents in the Republic of Ireland today and yet more than 34 million Americans are of Irish descent. The population of Dublin is almost 600,000, which means that nearly 14% of Ireland's population lives in the capital. The second largest city, Galway, has more than 250,000 residents. Between Galway on the west coast and Dublin on the east coast are tiny villages that are sometimes comprised of not much more than a main street and a few farms and businesses.

In Northern Ireland, the population is 1.8 million, of which 280,000 live in Belfast.

In the village where Dylan grew up, the Catholic Church appears almost to loom over the village from a nearby hill; it symbolizes both the culture of Ireland, its ties to the past, the role it plays in its present, and perhaps its link to the future. (Shown here: St Vincent's Catholic Church in Kerry, Ireland.)

Dylan, Vicki and her sister Brenda (who joins them in the book), walk from their rented cottage to the church, to his grandmother's home, and into the main street of the town. In America, we are accustomed to driving everywhere, even if where we're going is just a mile from where we started. However, in Ireland most people walk everywhere.

When my sister was in Dublin, she was struck by how fast everyone walked. She was taken by the beautiful architecture and was moving more slowly so she could see the sights when a man walking by himself strode past her at a fast clip. As he passed, he said into the air, "And there's a lost one."

It seems tourists are easy to spot.

Dylan's village lies near the Bog of Allen, which stretches for nearly 400 square miles in the center of Ireland between the River Shannon and the River Liffey. The bogs are topped with peat, which is harvested in much the same way as sod farms in the States. Among other uses, peat is used to make fireplace "bricks" which are burned in lieu of wood.

The bogs go back into ancient Irish history. Because of the unique composition of the bogs themselves, skeletons and artifacts which would normally have deteriorated are surprisingly well-kept. In the Bog of Allen Nature Center's Museum, a 2,000 year old oak boat is on display, which was excavated from the bog.

Also found was a jar of butter, which has surprising details about the lives and customs of people who lived in or near the bogs a thousand years ago. It was a custom for people to bury food as a gift to the Gods and as a way of asking them to provide a bountiful year. Butter was an expensive and rare commodity and yet someone buried a jar of it in the bogs as a gift to the gods. A thousand years later, it is surprisingly well preserved.

Over the years, many tools, jewelry, clothing and even bodies have been found throughout the bogs. The findings inspired the scenes in which Dylan Maguire finds gold artifacts. In a twist of fate, the ground caves in, burying the priceless items - but Dylan has not forgotten them, and readers will find him in future books planning to secretly excavate them.

I was captivated by the moors of England when I was growing up. One particularly suspenseful book is Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, which takes place in the rural English countryside. Heading into the climax, we find our heroine trying to escape a killer as she flees over the moors. The soft earth and the way her feet sank into the ground intrigued me. The vision remained with me for years and when I moved to southeast North Carolina, which has similar swampland, I knew I had to write books that included this unforgiving terrain - a terrain that becomes as much of an antagonist as a character of flesh-and-blood.

Setting the backdrop of Dylan's Song near the Bog of Allen allowed me to use that unique terrain, to set a midnight scene there as Dylan escapes with one man wounded by a gunshot while another clings to life from months in an underground dungeon.


Next week: come with me while I discuss the most severe storm in Ireland's history: The Night of the Big Wind, which swept the Atlantic Ocean across the island from west to east in January of 1839, which inspired the backdrop of The Tempest Murders.

Suspending Disbelief

One of my favorite childhood books was The Wizard of Oz. Most of us are familiar with the story of Dorothy, who is transported from her home in Kansas during a hurricane to the mystical world of Oz and her trials and challenges in finding her way home again.

To fully appreciate the story and become immersed in it, however, the reader must suspend disbelief. From the Munchkins to good witches and bad witches... to a talking scarecrow, a tin man and a lion... we have to be willing to leave our present world behind and enter hers.

Suspending disbelief in books has grown increasingly more popular since the rise of science fiction, a genre unknown until this past century, in fantasy, the genre in which The Wizard of Oz falls, and in horror. Horror has been around for some time - who hasn't read Dracula or Frankenstein, for example? It, too, has gained additional popularity with the rise of vampire novels, otherworldly creatures, and paranormal abilities.

There is a believable way in which to write such a book. In The Wizard of Oz, we begin in Depression-era Kansas with a young woman on a farm who could have been any one of us. A bump on the head and a cyclone later, we enter the world of Oz - and at the end of the book, Dorothy is left wondering if it was all a dream. The next books in the series tell us otherwise, as Dorothy returns to Oz again and meets more mystical creatures.

Books that allow us to suspend disbelief are often those that begin with something we deem normal; in another of my favorite books, The Mummy by Anne Rice, we begin in England with the daughter of an archeologist. The mummy was removed from his tomb in Egypt and transported to England, and by the time he begins to come alive, the story is so expertly told that we are ready to suspend disbelief.

What does it take for you to suspend disbelief? Is there a fantasy, horror or science fiction story that you have particularly enjoyed?

The Making of a Psychic Spy - Part 19

When I decided to write the Black Swamp Mysteries series featuring CIA psychic spy Vicki Boyd, I decided I would make her role and the missions she worked as close to reality as possible. I immersed myself in reading true stories of psychic spy missions, much of which is available through the Freedom of Information Act or has been declassified.

One name that popped up over and over again was Russell Targ. You might remember him as a pioneer who helped to engineer lasers and laser technology that we often now take for granted. He is a physicist and an author, and during the 1970's and 1980's, he worked at Stanford Research Institute. His mission there was to explore psychic abilities and what became known as remote viewing. The funding for the project came from the CIA. Yes, that CIA.

As a scientist, Targ looked for proof. The results were often astounding, and led to more than 100 papers he published on ESP research as well as plasma physics and laser technology. One of his more recent books is The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities. He is known for pushing the boundaries of science and exploring the relatively new frontier of parapsychology, of psychic research, of spirituality, and of those things we can not explain in a three-dimensional world.

The Making of a Psychic - Part 13

In earlier posts on psychic spies, I mentioned empathic abilities. This is something that Intelligence agencies are cultivating, not only with psychic spies but with analysts as well. It is also something that is increasingly being shared with law enforcement, airport security and others tasked with being on the front lines of stopping crime, whether it is domestic or acts of terrorism.

When someone is empathic, it means they have the ability to "read" a person's emotions. We have all experienced this at one time or another. For example, when we see a child or an animal experiencing trauma, our eyes might well up with tears, we might feel sadness, or we may even feel agony or heaviness.

We've all watched movies where we had to reach for a tissue. Who didn't feel compassion while watching Lassie, Old Yeller, Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump or Pay It Forward?

So what makes a person a professional empathic?

Someone who cultivates their empathic abilities or who uses those abilities in their work is a professional empathic.

Step number one is in recognizing our own feelings and our own prejudices.

Step number two is in recognizing what is coming from someone else.

For example, suppose you are feeling pretty "normal" one day and then you attend an event and suddenly feel the heaviness of anger wash over you, for no apparent reason? Then shortly after you leave, you feel back to normal again. Most people would brush this off, never giving it a second thought. But an empath will look for the reason for the sudden change in emotion. They'll go into the meeting or event knowing that they are not angry. When they feel that emotion wash over them, they'll begin to observe others in the crowd, particularly those physically closest to them. They will often be able to identify the source.

What goes hand-in-hand with the abilities to feel the emotion are the capabilities needed to observe specific behavior.

The CIA has in recent years employed more women in positions where they can observe behavior. Women pick up on nuances that men often overlook. A woman might say that a particular behavior just doesn't feel right, or they'll question why someone had a particular habit or why they've suddenly picked up a new one. Men are much more likely to curb their curiosity or brush it off.

Female analysts were behind a great deal of the work that went into finding Osama bin Laden. In The Pendulum Files, Sam, the CIA department head, explains to Dylan how the agency allocates analysts:

“We’ve got scores of analysts in Washington,” Sam said. “Some of them are tracking on one specific individual. That’s all they do, day after day. They know what that person ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They know who they saw and where they went and who they phoned. Hell, they even know when they’ve crapped.”

“Scintillatin’ job, I’m sure.”

“Others have a target group. The Russians. The Chinese. The Eastern Bloc. Then those are divided into sections, reaching down to groups of three and then to one.”


Psychic spies take this a step further. When more information is needed than what an analyst can obtain through other means, they use the psychic spies to infiltrate the individual's life. Suppose, for example, that an able-bodied man is seen suddenly using a cane - but only when he walks a particular path. Could it be that the cane is equipped with a poisoned tip, such as one used by the Soviets? An analyst might pick up on the fact that the cane is used and narrow it down to when it's used. Then a psychic spy is tasked with determining what is going on behind closed doors that the analyst can't see.

This series is based on the psychic spy, Vicki Boyd, in the suspense series Black Swamp Mysteries. The author, p.m.terrell, researched the use of psychic spies in a variety of governments including the United States and the former Soviet Union, and shares some of her research in this series of blogs. The latest in the series, The Pendulum Files, is available in all fine book stores and online. Visit www.pmterrell.com to download a sample chapter or visit the amazon page here.