by Martha Carr
Time to get the war well underway and time to find the identity and whereabouts of the Keeper and the cell around him. Time to kill them all and finally destroy the Circle.
Pre-order The Keeper Returns December 8th on Amazon.
Will also be available for sale on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited starting December 22nd.
Martha’s Notes
The Traitor’s Revenge – The Wallis Jones Series 02:
Written October 19, 2016
Thank you for not only picking up this story, the first book in the series, but for reading it all the way to the end, and NOW you are reading this as well. I am very grateful for each and every reader. It’s a great feeling for any author. The next book, The Keeper Returns is up for pre-order on December 8th and will be out for you to read on December 22nd, including in KU. My plan is to have a new book in the series every 22 days and to make sure that happens I’ve already written a few ahead and have run the books through the best readers – Diane and Doreen Velasquez. I’m still hard at work on another book further along in the series, making sure there are just must as many plot twists and that the pace keeps your heart racing as the conspiracy grows and grows.
I had a mind for puzzles – and a good conspiracy is a puzzle that unfolds, after all – and loved creating complicated treasure hunts, writing clues that went throughout our house that eventually led to a prize. That sounds like a good book, doesn’t it? Then there were the board games that had moving parts and took forever to play. I wish I had saved some of those.
Most of my inventions were for my little brother when we were both really young. He was a really good sport and went along with all of my inventions. I even threw him a birthday party when I was eight and he was turning six and put on a magic act. Mystery and suspense with some complications was in my nature.
The artist Rube Goldberg was an early hero of mine. He created complicated machines with a lot of moving parts just to do a simple task. His cartoon drawings were depictions of the same thing and won him a Pulitzer prize. They were like conspiracies built into an object.
The Wallis Jones series is also a complicated conspiracy with a lot of moving parts that spread out in every direction. All of it is leading somewhere and some of it you’ll see coming, some you may not. That’s part of the fun.
I started this book just as I was crawling out of the Great Recession and getting over being a former newspaper journalist. Journalism was my fallback job in case everything else went wrong. Newspapers had been around for hundreds of years, they weren’t going anywhere, right? I was still writing a national column on politics but it wasn’t really paying the bills. However, when other journalists I knew called me to get a few words of encouragement I kept that to myself. Didn’t need to pile on as we watched hundred year old newspapers still making money get shut down.
Instead, I worked as a census taker, (fortunately, they gave me my own block to canvas), did marketing for a really nice house painting company in Chicago, helped to edit a nursing manual, was a ghostwriter on a couple of books, and a lot of other odd jobs that added up to miraculously paying the bills.
I lived in a small Chicago apartment in Lincoln Square that was shaped like a square with four small rooms. When I first moved in I had three and a half chairs, a dresser and a bed and that was it. Then a neighbor helped me get a glass dining room table to put in the tiny kitchen. We got the table out of the alley from some neighbors who were dumping everything and leaving town quickly. I tried to get the story on that but they didn’t want to answer my questions as they were loading up and driving away. I always like to get the backstory if I can.
Anyway, that first holiday, Thanksgiving, around the start of writing this book, I told my grown son he could invite any friends who didn’t have a place to go, they could come over to my place. I didn’t say anything about the money. I figured, I would figure it out.
He put it on Facebook. I laughed and said, we’ll make room. I knew it would all be okay. Up to that point I’d managed to survive a terminal diagnosis, watching newspapers evaporate and a few other things. This was actually a good thing. At Thanksgiving the table was crowded and there was a lot of laughing and talking.
Every time I needed to get something out of the oven, a few people had to get up and move to the side. No one minded. That Christmas we did the same thing and more people showed up. By Easter, it looked like a café and I was borrowing chairs and plates from neighbors. Writing this book and those times gathered together with so many people are some of my best memories. I still don’t know how I paid for it all but there was always enough for leftovers.
The story you just read is the second of many in the series. Self-publishing has turned out to be one of the better decisions in a short series of them that I made after cancer, the Great Recession and a lot of moves across different parts of the country. I’ve met so many great people, like Michael Anderle who writes The Kurtherian Gambit series and shares what he’s learned as an indie author with an open heart – always there to answer my questions, or Dave Robbins who has helped me to change the covers – twice. Same goes for Michael Bingham-Hawk who’s helped me to redo the website – twice.
It took a great group of indie authors to help me go over the details of the cover, the titles, the descriptions of the book so that my voice became stronger across all of the platforms. It seems I’ve been walking the same path as the main character, Wallis Jones who’s had to learn what real strength is and that eventually life makes you focus, stand up and do something about it. Of course, her story is mixed in with intrigue, some badass car chases and a few bodies dropping, and a plot that will keep twisting and turning. I still have a few twists and turns in my own life, minus the dead bodies, and always with a large gang itching for an adventure and some fun.
That’s where all of you come in with this adventure. There are so many ways you can be a part of this with me. If you like the series you can leave a review, send me ideas for other books in the series, become part of the advance team or any other great idea you want to share. I’d like to hear them all.
You can pre-order The Keeper Returns, Book Three in the Wallis Jones series starting December 8th, 2016 on Amazon. On sale and available in Kindle Unlimited starting December 22nd.
If you enjoyed The Traitor’s Revenge, please consider leaving a good review at Amazon or Goodreads. Your kind words and encouragement help any author.
If you want to help with the end of this series or with future series, please consider becoming part of the Advance Team. Join the Facebook Group and let me know you’re interested.
There’s more – you can sign up for the Wallis Jones newsletter and keep up to date with upcoming books in the series, be the first to hear about publishing dates, giveaways, news items on real conspiracies we live with all the time (and how to avoid them) and other exciting news! You can also hang out with me on Facebook and see what the main characters are pinning at Pinterest plus a few tools of the spy trade. Join in and help to decide on new shoes, a better gun or a high-tech spy tool you just have to share with the rest of us.
I am the author of five books and my newest work, The Traitor’s Revenge is the second in the Wallis Jones series.
I’ve written a weekly, nationally-syndicated column on world affairs and life that has run on such political hotspots as The Moderate Voice.com and Politicus.com. My work has run regularly in such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune and Newsweek.
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