The Emotional Impact

I read recently that most consumers will purchase a book based on its emotional impact. I began to consider my own purchases: what attracted me to a book, what compelled me to buy it, and what causes me to read through to the end versus setting it down halfway through.

A favorite book is Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I am not a mountain climber and I am not particularly athletic. But the idea of average people placing themselves into extraordinary circumstances has always appealed to my sense of adventure and imagination. This is a true story about people who climbed Mount Everest in May 1996 and of their fight for survival when a storm caught them unawares at or near the summit.


The cover wouldn't have necessarily captured my attention. To be honest, I don't remember why I picked it up in the book store and began to thumb through it. But I do know that when I glimpsed the photographs of some of the people--people I didn't know at that point whether they lived or died--I was hooked. I had to read of their ordeal.


At that point, unbeknownst to me, I was emotionally invested in that book. The investment grew as I read it. I felt as if I knew the people--where they came from, the families they left behind as they followed their dreams, what drove them to do what they do. I turned the pages well into the night, knowing I wouldn't rest until they were off that mountain safely.


And when some died on the mountain--and twenty years later, their bodies are still there, frozen in place--the images couldn't escape. I still, to this day, recall Beck Weathers' superhuman effort to descend that mountain even though he was blind; I still think of the oldest Japanese woman to summit the peak, only to die on her way down; I still think of the postman who saved his hard-earned money to do something extraordinary--and lost his life in the process.



The movie based on the book brought these people to life once more, and of course I had to see it. I went with someone who hadn't read the book and hated the movie, though I could have watched it repeatedly. Another friend actually signed up to travel to Base Camp. So obviously what captured my imagination captured someone else's but repulsed another.


What was the last book you read? Did it make an emotional impact on you in the store or as you heard about it? Did it continue to make an emotional impact on you as you read it?


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The Tempest Murders is now available as an audio book. Irish Detective Ryan O'Clery comes to life through the voice of actor Jack Nolan. Listen to a free sample on amazon.

Moving to Audio Books

I have some very exciting news to share. This summer, two of my books have been made into audio books - The Tempest Murders and The White Devil of Dublin. This is particularly exciting for me because both books are written from the point of view of Detective Ryan O'Clery, an Irishman who has moved to North Carolina and works for the Lumberton Police Department.

The audio books are narrated by actor Jack Nolan. An Irish descendant himself, he truly brings Ryan O'Clery to life.

In The Tempest Murders, Detective Ryan O'Clery is working a series of homicides when he discovers a journal kept by an uncle five generations earlier. The journal details the same type of murders - only these took place nearly two hundred years earlier, as the Night of the Big Wind swept the Atlantic Ocean across all of Ireland.

As Hurricane Irene barrels toward the North Carolina coastline, Ryan discovers even the killer's description matches exactly. And as he falls in love with television reporter Cathleen Reilly, he begins to wonder if she is the reincarnation of Caitlin O'Conor, the woman lost to the killer as the storm raged in Ireland - and if he is the reincarnation of Constable Rian Kelly. Now he's in a race to rescue Cathleen before the killer finds her - or is history destined to repeat itself?

Visit amazon.com to listen to the first chapter. The audio book is unabridged, so you get all the excitement of the printed and eBook editions. It is also available on iTunes and at ACX (Audible).


To celebrate this new phase of my career, my website has also been completely redesigned. I hope you'll check it out, as more than 3,000 pages and images were painstakingly upgraded to the new look and interface. Let me know what you think of it! The URL is www.pmterrell.com. You'll find all of my books (except my computer books), my background information, links to all my social media, and links to my blogs and Book 'Em North Carolina.

And I'm curious: how do you like your books? As audio books, printed books or eBooks?

Reincarnation - Do You Believe?

Detective Ryan O'Clery has always had dreams of a beautiful woman. But unlike dreams in which the person may not appear in detail or certain characteristics change over time, his never did. It wasn't until he discovered a journal kept by an ancestor who lived centuries earlier and half a world away that he realized his dreams were actually the other man's memories.

In this scene in The Tempest Murders, Ryan is having a conversation with his sister Claire soon after he meets the woman he has been dreaming about since he was a small boy. He knew immediately that she was his soul mate; she looked identical to his dreams - and the memory of who she was in 1839 Ireland.

Claire cocked her head to study him. “I had a funny feeling you were needing me today.”

“Did you now?”

She didn’t answer but continued to study him. Her eyes were astute and after a minute, he stepped around the island and pulled her to him. He closed his eyes and held her, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“You’ve always known when I needed you.”

“Aye, Re. We’re joined together, you and I.” They stood for a moment in silence before she pulled away. “Are you sad on account of the divorce? It’s only natural, you know—”

“It isn’t that.”

“Well, what is it then?”

He could have gone to his grave with his secret inside him, had she not already known he was troubled. And she always knew. She’d known since she was six years old and he’d never been able to keep anything from her. “You remember the dreams I’ve always had?”

She cocked her head again. When she looked at him, she didn’t blink, as if she was totally focused on every word. “Aye.”

“They’ve become more frequent.”

“It’s only natural, Re, for you to dream about the perfect soul mate when your marriage has just dissolved.”

“She’s real, Claire. And she’s here.”

“What are you saying?”

He gestured toward the back yard. “It happened yesterday. I was cooking outside there. And right before I put the meat on the grill, she just stepped through the hedges there.”

“She just materialized in your own back yard.”

“Aye. Right there between’st the gardenias and the patio.”

“Re.”

“I know it sounds unbelievable—”

“It sounds insane.”

“But I swear it’s the truth.”

“You weren’t hallucinating.”

“Have you ever known me to hallucinate?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“There you have it.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“My first time to hallucinate hasn’t happened yet.”

She shifted her weight from one hip to the other, her eyes still focused on his. “And what did you do there, after she materialized in your own back yard?”

“We had dinner.”

She raised one brow.

“She’s the woman I’ve dreamed about, all these years. She even had the dragonfly tattoo on her ankle. Of course, in my dreams, it was always a birthmark, but—”

“Lots of women have dragonfly tattoos on their ankles.”

He combed his hair with his fingers but the locks fell back onto his forehead immediately. “It happened so fast. And it felt so right. I’ve always had this feeling, like I had a twin in the womb with me. And somehow, coming into the world, that twin was lost. I’ve always lived with this emptiness, as if someone ought to be there who isn’t.”

“I know you have, Re. I’ve always known you have.”

“When she was here, when we were together, it—it was as though I’d found my twin. The other part of myself. She made me whole somehow.”

“Your twin soul.”

“She is my twin soul, Claire. I know we’ve been together before. I know we have.”

Is reincarnation possible? It is a question that Ryan struggles with. A staunch Irish Catholic, he's been raised to believe in one life followed by heaven or hell. Now he must come to terms with the very real possibility that he has known this woman in another life - and that it may end in murder, just as it did nearly two hundred years earlier.

The Tempest Murders is available in all fine book stores, retailers and online. It is a finalist in the 2013 USA Best Book Awards and a 2014 International Book Awards nominee. You can find it on Kindle by following this link, in trade paperback on amazon here, and for all other eBooks formats you can follow this link. It is also available in the iBooks store and on Nook.

WIP Wednesday

I will know by the first of September whether my book, The Tempest Murders, will be published this year. If so, it will be released in time for the Christmas season.

It is a stand-alone book and not part of the Black Swamp Mysteries series. However, for all my fans who love Irishmen, you'll be happy to know it features an Irishman named Ryan O'Clery. Here is the plot:

Detective Ryan O'Clery has experienced vivid dreams throughout his life of a woman he loved and lost. When he stumbles upon his ancestor Constable Rian Kelly's journal, he discovers that what he thought were dreams were really Rian Kelly's memories. Nearly two hundred years before, Rian lost the great love of his life during the worst storm in Ireland's history--and during the height of the storm, his soul mate was murdered by a serial killer.

Now Ryan O'Clery is working a series of murders eerily similar to Rian Kelly's cases--but half a world away in North Carolina. Every victim matches the description of his soul mate. And when a reporter, Cathleen Reilly, appears on the scene to cover the cases, she looks identical to Rian Kelly's love -- and the woman in all of Ryan O'Clery's dreams.

Ryan becomes convinced he is the reincarnation of Rian Kelly and Cathleen Reilly is his lost soul mate. As Hurricane Irene barrels toward the North Carolina shore, Ryan must stop the killer before history repeats itself... but time is running out.

The book confronts the question, Is history destined to repeat itself? Or can Ryan stop a killer and be reunited with his eternal soul mate?

Do you believe in soul mates?

When Songs Inspire

Last week I finished my 15th book and off it went to my agent. This one will be released by a publisher other than Drake Valley Press so I don't yet have a release date on it. I have to say I am disappointed I finished it because I fell so in love with the main characters and the premise behind the plot.

Ryan O'Clery is a detective working a serial killer case. He's had vivid dreams his entire life of another place and time and a woman he would have given his soul for but who tragically died at the hands of a killer. Now the dreams are becoming more frequent and when he meets a reporter, Cathleen Reilly, who looks identical to the woman in his dreams, reality and fantasy begin to blend together. And when he comes across a journal from a detective in 1839 Ireland that mirrors his serial killer case exactly -- ending in the death of his beloved Caitlin O'Conor to the hands of a killer - he becomes convinced that he is the reincarnation of Rian Kelly and Cathleen is Caitlin. But as Hurricane Irene barrels down on the North Carolina coastline, he begins to wonder if he can alter events in this lifetime - or if they are destined to play out the same scenario, lifetime after lifetime, always ending in Cait's death.

My agent is shopping a movie deal and if fantasies come true, I'd love to hear Alex Band's song, Will Not Back Down, as the movie trailer and theme song. Imagine this scene and then listen to the song:

Ryan and Cathleen had a misunderstanding due in part to Ryan jumping to conclusions and not allowing her to explain her past, though he is madly in love with her. He discovers she's left for the Outer Banks as Hurricane Irene approaches the coast - and he's also discovered the serial killer is following her. In a dramatic attempt to stop Fate from repeating itself, he goes after Cathleen and tries to reach her before the hurricane overtakes the island and sweeps her out to sea -- and before the killer can find her and end her life as he did nearly 200 years earlier during the worst storm to hit Ireland in more than 300 years.

This was the best audio I could find of Will Not Back Down:

What songs do you envision for the books you are writing or reading? Do you ever associate a specific song with a book or movie?

p.m.terrell is the award-winning author of more than 15 books, including Vicki's Key (released in March 2012) which is a 2012 International Book Awards finalist and a 2012 USA Best Book Awards nominee. Read more about her and her books at www.pmterrell.com.