The Storytellers is my latest release and my first adult paranormal romance. It was so much fun to write and came as a bit of a surprise too, when I least expected it. Did you know there are upwards of 50 characters in the book? At E! I had a few opportunities to work on the show E! True Hollywood Stories for eonline.com. I always found the episodes so fascinating. For me it’s really fun to know the story behind the story. I hope you you do too. So, here’s 10 top secrets about The Storytellers, so just keep it between us, ‘kay? 
At the end of the post you’ll find the list of giveaway winners, congrats all!
1. Djucu nuts appear as lucky charms in The Storytellers and are considered lucky charms in the Caribbean. The nuts grow in tall trees deep in the Venezuelan jungles then float down waterways and into the Caribbean Sea and onto the beaches of Aruba & Curaçao.
2. My dad called the islands just off the northern coast of Venezuela the “A-B-C islands.” This is how I first learned about Curaçao. Ever since I heard Dad talk about the islands they captured my imagination and is one of the reasons why I chose the island of Curaçao as one of the settings of The Storytellers. (A-B-C Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao)
3. I visited Venezuela as a teenager and my experiences there influenced a few of the settings in The Storytellers and also influence my writing in general.
4. Dr. Alexandra Abernathy’s story line about archeology is loosely base upon some of the experiences my daughter had while she was on archeological digs in Israel and Jordan.
5. Because of my love of jade, I wanted to use jade as an important part of the cursed treasure in The Storytellers. In Central America The Mayans and Aztecs prized jadite jade. The name jade comes from the Spanish “piedra de ijada” — literally “stone of the pain in the side.” Early Spanish explorers gave it this name after they saw natives holding pieces of the stone to their sides to cure their aches and pains.
6. I wrote The Storytellers years ago and put it in a drawer and never thought I’d ever publish the story. It was only after some friends asked if I had ever written anything for adults that I was prompted to dig out the manuscript.
7. I set part of the novel in Georgia because I’ve had a wonderful time on book tours there and I used to love to look at the beautiful red soil out my window every year when we’d road trip from Chicago to Florida when I was a little girl. I remember one time we drive through the eye of a hurricane just outside of Stone Mountain, GA, a place we’d always overnight on the drive down.
8. The name of the mysterious character, Dr. Yuri Knorozov, is a nod to the Soviet linguist of the same name, (Nov. 19 1922-March 31, 1999) an epigrapher and ethnographer who is renowned for his decipherment of the Maya script.
9. Logograms make up the Mayan language and they captivate me. Each script is a little work of art.
10. One of the hardest parts of the novel for me to write concerned the naming and powers of the four idols at the heart of the story: Escrito holds the power of the writer, which we know as the power of the truth; Bailador, the power of the dancer, which holds the power of falling in love; Pintador, the power of the painter, which embodies the power of perception; and lastly Músico, the power of music, which transcends time and space and holds the power of emotion.
And the WINNERS are
KINDLE FIRE : drecordova
2 signed copies of Storytellers and swagpack: qwertzuio789 and grandmatinaof2
2 copies of Winnemuca: ddoan_562 & bobbyehopebooth
YAY!!! Thanks so much to everyone who followed the blog tour and took the time to enter the giveaway. Y’all rock!
I’m super excited about the paperback which will be available in the next few weeks. I’ve gotten lots of requests about its availability. And also, the book trailer is coming soon, stay tuned.
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