This week, I’m excited to host one of my favorite authors, Marja McGraw.
Marja McGraw was born and raised in Southern California. She worked in both civil and criminal law, state transportation, and a city building department. She has lived and worked in California, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska and Arizona.
She wrote a weekly column for a small town newspaper in Northern Nevada, and conducted a Writers’ Support Group in Northern Arizona. A past member of Sisters in Crime (SinC), she was also the Editor for the SinC-Internet Newsletter for a year and a half.
Marja writes two mystery series: The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries, which are light reading with a touch of humor. She also occasionally writes stories that aren’t part of a series.
Marja says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and A Little Murder!
She now lives in Washington, where life is good.
Choosing One Moment
If you ever receive an inheritance, you may want to think it over carefully before you begin sorting through antiques and mementos. They aren’t always as they seem.
Carrie McFerrin learned this the hard way.
Here’s an excerpt from Choosing One Moment:
This is the scene when Carrie McFerrin travels to 1909:
That’s when the phone rang. Not my cell phone, but the crank phone I’d just hung on the wall. The one that wasn’t connected to anything.
Ring, ring, ring. There was a pause before there were three more short rings.
It took a moment to take it all in. I lifted the ear piece from the phone and stared at it for a moment before listening.
“Hello?” My voice squeaked when I spoke into the mouth piece.
The tinny sounding voice of my aunt said, “I need you to come now, Carrie. Hurry.”
Two things happened simultaneously. The line went dead and dizziness hit me like a sledge hammer. The nausea wasn’t far behind.
I dropped the ear piece and sat on the floor, hard, closing my eyes and trying to breathe normally. I couldn’t do it.
My heart pounded and my head was throbbing. No, it was more like the veins were pulsating. The nausea increased and I closed my eyes tighter, trying to will the dizziness away.
It felt like a high wind was blowing through the house.
Not possible.
There was a feeling of vertigo, and then as suddenly as it had come on me, it stopped. I didn’t want to open my eyes because I was afraid it would start again.
~ * ~
It felt like a breeze brushed my face and there was a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me.
Patricia must have come back and found me.
“Open your eyes very slowly, Carrie.”
I knew the voice, but something wasn’t right.
The hand started gently shaking my shoulder with more vigor.
“Open your eyes slowly, and don’t be shocked by what you see.”
Huh? Don’t be shocked? The voice alone was throwing me for a loop. I was sure I recognized the sound of the woman speaking to me.
“Slowly?” I asked, my eyes flying open at the speed of light.
“Oh, dear,” the voice said. “I wanted you to take things in a little at a time.”
I looked up and my mouth dropped open. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the woman was… No, it couldn’t be.
“Close your mouth, sweetie. It’s not ladylike to stare with your mouth open.”
“But…”
“You always trusted me. Do it again. I’ll explain all of this to you.” She waved her arm in an arc, taking in our surroundings.
Glancing past the woman, my mouth almost dropped open again. I wasn’t sitting in my kitchen, nor was I with Patricia. I was sitting on the ground outside of the house. There was more. The white house was still white, but it looked almost new.
There were wet clothes hanging on a rope that was spread between two trees.
“Aunt Genny? It can’t be you. I mean, it really can’t.”
“It’s me, but call me Elsbeth. People will still call you Carrie, which makes life a little easier.”
“Have I died?”
She laughed. “No, sweetie. You’ve come a long way to help me – a long way in time, that is. You’ve traveled through time.”
My ✰✰✰✰✰ Review
Carrie McFerrin inherits an old house from her aunt and then travels back in time to solve a mystery along with the same aunt, who had also traveled back in time. Carrie meets her ancestors, and must adjust to the “old way” of doing things. No modern appliances, no fast food restaurants, and she has to drink raw, unpasteurized milk. But she manages to adjust to these things, and a lot more. She actually finds she likes living in the early 1900s. While working to solve the mystery, Carrie meets a young man whom she falls in love with. I don’t want to give anymore of the story away, so all I’m going to say is that this time travel novel was a delight to read, with wonderful characters, a great storyline, and a surprise ending. I highly recommend this novel.
Choosing One Moment can be purchased at Amzon: https://www.amazon.com/Choosing-One-Moment-Travel-Mystery-ebook/dp/B01FV3FISO?ie=UTF8&keywords=Choosing%20One%20Moment&qid=1465145355&ref_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/choosing-one-moment-marja-mcgraw/1123828810?ean=9781533345806
Visit Marja’s Website: http://www.marjamcgraw.com/
And don’t miss Marja’s Mystery Blog: http://marjamcgraw.blogspot.com/
Marja and I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment.
It was fun to read about living at that time, wasn’t it?