AWAKENING MACBETH, is full of secrets.

My family secrets become my character’s secrets.

Their secrets become a frightening truth.

“A page turning paranormal romance”– KIRKUS REVIEWS. Cue the trailer!

Family secrets

My grandmother used to say never wake a sleeping child too quickly. Their soul wanders in sleep and needs time to return before the child fully awakens.

I never asked her where this strange notion came from. Where does the soul wander? How much “wake-up” time is enough time?

Later I heard someone say that if you die in a dream, you’re dead in real life.

It wasn’t hard to put those two notions together. Add a troubled veteran and a woman coping with her father’s suicide. It’s a recipe full of secrets.

Location, location, location

AWAKENING MACBETH takes place in many of my former haunts:

Charlottesville, Virginia

The novel begins in Charlottesville VA, where history professor Brodie Macbeth plans to give bad news yet ends up getting some instead. I went to the University of Virginia for my Masters degree and taught US Foreign Policy there for a year.

Related: Read Chapter 1 of AWAKENING MACBETH

The University of Virginia campus was designed by Thomas Jefferson. The heart of the university is The Lawn with the original student rooms still in use. I lived off campus and when I walked to classes early in the morning, I often saw robed students with pails of toiletries on their way to the community bathrooms. (On a day like today, they’d be walking mighty fast)

University of Virginia, courtesy UVA.edu

Some of my favorite scenes in the book take place at the University, including a cocktail party in one of the gardens enclosed by Jefferson’s serpentine brick walls. The graduation reception for my department was held in one of the gardens and I still remember the air of colonial elegance. Another favorite scene takes place in the University-owned Boar’s Head Inn. One night a bunch of girlfriends and I got dressed up and went there for drinks. We were all on the brink of a shiny new graduate degree and the world was our oyster, as the saying goes.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Photograph taken by Michael Reeve, 15 September 2003. Realesed under GFDL by the author.

Several years ago, we took a family vacation to Edinburgh. Our timing was off, however, and it was hard to find a hotel in the city. We ended up at the Dalmahoy golf resort and were we glad we did! In between tramping the city, touring Holyrood castle, and inspecting Loch Ness for sea serpents, we explored the walking trails and the small church on the Dalmahoy estate.

The Dalmahoy became the inspiration for the Dingerhoy hotel and golf course where Brodie and Joe Birnam have dinner, watch the sheep on the hillsides, and talk about survival, grief, and strength.

Entrance to the Dalmahoy golf resort, courtesy of www.dalmahoyhotelandcountryclub.co.uk/golf/

Another critical conversation takes place in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Garden, a beautiful bowl-shaped park in central Edinburgh. With all the fantastic architecture, art, and shopping that Edinburgh has to offer, it is easy to forget that the city is very green and offers wonderful spots to take in the city’s history. Right after that conversation, Brodie has her palm read by a knowing Gypsy, at a café in the shadow of the magnificent St Giles Cathedral.

Literary destinations

Throughout AWAKENING MACBETH, Brodie deals with the legacy of her father’s suicide. He ahd left her a library of British history and his will stipulates that she must read them in order. Why, you ask.

That’s another secret.

She dreams of the places she reads about. In her dreams, someone will kill her to learn a secret about her father–that Brodie doesn’t know.

Here is where those nightmares take her:

–Shakespeare’s London and the Globe Theatre from SHAKESPEARE by Peter Ackroyd

–An Antarctic island with a polar expedition from ENDURANCE by Caroline Alexander

–A pub serving British flyers during WWII from FIGHTER BOYS by Patrick Bishop

–The Tower of London during Anne Boleyn’s execution from THE WIVES OF HENRY VII by Antonia Fraser , and

–With Wellington’s army in the Battle of Waterloo from  NAPOLEON AND THE HUNDRED DAYS by Stephen Coote

So if you’d like to travel through British history in Professor Brodie Macbeth’s dreams, AWAKENING MACBETH is the novel for you.

More Macbeth?

When I first wrote AWAKENING MACBETH (with the cringe-worthy title of SOUL MATE, of which there are a dozen or so books already called that) I envisioned a trilogy (AWAKENING MACBETH, HUNTING MACBETH, KILLING MACBETH, you get the idea.) AWAKENING MACBETH ends with unanswered questions, the most compelling of which is what happened to Brodie’s mother’s soul?

I even wrote two chapters of the next book, which answers the question and sets up a new soul-stealing challenge for Brodie and Joe to surmount.

Related: Romance’s Newest Hero is a Wounded Warrior

But I don’t know if I will ever write a second MACBETH book, let alone a trilogy. A writer has just so much time and emotional effort to expend.

Let me know! How many more secrets can you handle?