I hope you and yours had a fabulous Holiday Season and that 2024 is filled with adventure and happiness! We drove from Phoenix to Orange County on December 18, then enjoyed a great birthday dinner for my wife at a stellar restaurant the next day, accompanied by our son, daughter-in-law, brother, and the special guest of honor: Princess Charlotte! Days later, siblings, spouses, children, and grandchildren descended on the old homestead for a raucous Christmas party on December 23. Lots of noise, great food, and memories made. Can’t wait to do it again!
Here are a few lines from my next novel, The Emerald Cross. It is parts psychological, cartel, crime, and military thriller. Scheduled for release May 15:
The Tustin Police Department officers tried calming an inconsolable Ashley and defeated Jamie before cordoning off the property. Jamie stepped toward his sister-in-law. She was an idiot for the risks she’d taken and the events they prompted, but never in her wildest self-absorbed dreams would she have guessed she’d put Brooklyn and Maria in the path of ruthless killers. That’s what he forced himself to believe as he embraced her heaving body.
During interrogation by the police, Jamie asked Ashley to show him where she saw Maria hide the Emerald Cross. It was gone. In its place was a cream-colored envelope with a name handwritten across the front: Jamie Morales. Inside was a folded sheet of stationery with a message scribed in Spanish. An investigator stepped forward and asked for the letter, deeming it evidence.
Jamie thrust out a rigid arm to create space. And then he read the note.
If you are a NetGalley reader who enjoys all manner of thrillers, please make a note to consider an ARC of The Emerald Cross, my second novel, available for review in February.
If you enjoy dark psychological thrillers, consider getting lost in my first novel, Eagle Bay, released June 1, 2023. It is Book 1 of the Johnny McCloud series. I consider it pretty much unguessable, and I hope you’ll agree. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C17XWN4Y
For anyone struggling with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens of chronic illness or calamity, you might find comfort or solace through my memoir, Stand Up: a memoir of disease, family, faith & hope. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL5RXW8Q
The photo of the towering Cypress trees was taken from my brother’s backyard in Orange County. I love the dark, mysterious, and eerie elements of the image!
Cheers from the Sonoran Desert,
Ken Cruickshank
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