Featured New Book: A Question of Fire by Karen McCullough

I’m part of a forthcoming anthology of essays. I’ve mentioned this before. They’re built around Stacy Juba‘s book, Twenty-Five Years Ago Today, and will be out sometime in the fall. You’ll want to check it out, I know — if only to read my essay. Which you know you want to.

Anyway, I told my fellow anthology contributors to feel free to drop in for a Featured New Book Spotlight. Last week, Michele Drier did. This week, it’s Karen McCullough with her new book, A Question of Fire

I asked her: What song makes you think of your book?

Metallica – Nothing Else Matters

So many lines of this song resonate with me and remind me of my novel, A Question of Fire. In the larger sense, it’s kind of a personal theme song. I’ve never been one to write to the market or even to stick to a particular genre. I wrote A Question of Fire at a time when there was no real market for romantic suspense, but I HAD to write that book. It was in my head, begging me to get it down. And when it was done (and revised several times), a number of the rejections I got from agents and editors played that theme: like the book, don’t know how to market it. It took almost ten years before it finally found a publisher. It’s been out of print for a long time, but I have the rights back to it, and I’ve recently released it in ebook format. I’m incredibly thrilled to make this book available again.

“Every day for us something new, Open mind for a different view.” When Catherine Bennett is the recipient of Bobby Stark’s dying words, it catapults her into a world of danger and new possibilities. If she were a different sort of person, she might have ignored the plea the dying man made of her and just hidden out until the peril passed. But that would have left his brother, Danny, in danger of being convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. Danny isn’t a particularly nice or attractive person, but Cathy isn’t the sort who would leave him in danger when she has the key to rescuing him. Or part of the key, anyway.

“Trust I seek, and I find in you” is one of the themes of the book. None of the main characters in A Question of Fire are particularly trusting sorts, for a variety of reasons. The heroine is a journalist and professionally skeptical. The hero has been burned by a former wife who cheated on him. Danny is a young man whose violent, abusive upbringing has taught him to trust no one but his late, older brother. In the course of the story, all three learn to believe in each other, sometimes painfully, sometimes stumbling toward it. And several times in the course of the story that trust is tested in desperate situations.

“So close, no matter how far.” In a pivotal scene in the story, the heroine is separated from the other characters and her life is in mortal danger. There’s only one thing she can do, but it’s risky, and it involves a huge leap of faith in her distant companions.

“And nothing else matters.” In the end…. Well, you’ll just have to read the book to see.

Oh, yeah. You guys KNOW I approve of the choice. (Be glad I didn’t link to Godsmack’s version of the song. Heard it yet? Heard it when Sully and James sang together when they toured together? Mmm. Yeah. Good stuff, there. Anyway, back to the book.)

book blurb!

When Catherine Bennett agrees to attend an important party as a favor for her boss, she knows she won’t enjoy it, but she doesn’t expect to end up holding a dying man in her arms and becoming the recipient of his last message. Bobby Stark has evidence that will prove his younger brother has been framed for arson and murder. He wants that evidence to get to his brother’s lawyer, and he tries to tell Cathy where he’s hidden it. Unfortunately, he can only manage to give her a cryptic piece of the location before he dies.

The man who killed Bobby saw him talking to her and assumes she knows where the evidence is hidden. He wants it back and he’ll do whatever it takes to get it, including following her and trying to kidnap her.

Cathy enlists the aid of attorney Peter Lowell and Danny Stark, Bobby’s prickly, difficult younger brother, as well as a handsome private detective to help her find the evidence before the killers do.

Buy links!
Amazon (for Kindle)
Barnes & Noble (for Nook)
Other formats (Smashwords)

Personal links!

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