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Fiction Paranormal

Grayling Cross

by (author) Gayleen Froese

Publisher
NeWest Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2011
Category
Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781897126738
    Publish Date
    Mar 2011
    List Price
    $19.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781897126851
    Publish Date
    Mar 2011
    List Price
    $11.99

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Description

Why is magic still a secret in Edmonton? Good PR.

Psychic Anna Gareau and public relations expert Collie Kostyna keep things quiet for local magicians and for their biggest client, an underground supernatural society known as the Embassy.

In Grayling Cross, an investigator arrives in town on the trail of a missing teenage psychic, and hires Anna and Collie to be his liaisons to the local magic community. Troublingly, though, he turns out to have a knack for suppressing magic, leaving magicians powerless and vulnerable—and the Embassy wastes no time telling Anna and Collie to get him out of town. And when an Embassy employee is found murdered in a house nobody should have been able to enter, with a weapon that never should have killed him, suspicion naturally falls upon Anna and Collie’s new client.

Was he involved in murder? And what is his relationship to a northern Alberta ghost town called Grayling Cross? To answer those questions, Anna and Collie must face unveiled threats from their employers, a city full of dangerous suspects, and the uneasy feeling that reality and morality are shifting around them.

About the author

The multi-talented Gayleen Froese is a novelist, musician, and communications professional. Having lived in Saskatoon, Toronto, and Prince Albert, she now resides in Edmonton's historic Alberta Avenue district. She has also worked as a radio writer and talk show host, an advertising creative director, and a communications officer.

Froese was featured on Canadian Learning Television's A Total Write Off, and was the overall winner of BookTelevision's 3-Day Novel Contest, filmed over three days in 2007 at an Edmonton Chapters bookstore. She was also shortlisted in the overall 2007 International Three-Day Novel Contest. Her non-fiction and humour writing has appeared in publications including SEE Magazine, The Rat Creek Press, and The Session.

As a musician, Froese has released three albums and played showcases across Canada, including Toronto’s NXNE. Her debut CD, Obituary, won an Undiscovered Artist Award from CBC Radio.

Gayleen Froese's first novel, Touch, is part of the NeWest Nunatak First Fiction Series. The book’s sequel, Grayling Cross, was released by NeWest in March 2011.

Gayleen Froese's profile page

Excerpt: Grayling Cross (by (author) Gayleen Froese)

“There are channels,” she said, “for adopted kids who want to find their parents. There are also agencies that specialize in it.”

“I know. This is different. Ian said I should talk to you.”

“Ian …” Collie said. As if there could be more than one answer.

“Ian McLaren.”

Anna let her head drop to her desk . From that position, she heard Collie’s response.

“Mandrake.”

“Uh … I don’t think he likes being called Mandrake,” the prospect said.

“I don’t think we liked the last four clients Mandrake sent us,” Collie countered. Reluctantly, Anna lifted her head.

“What exactly did Mandrake say about us?” she asked.

The prospect turned to her with undisguised relief. Apparently he was tired of talking to Collie.

“He said you were a retrocognitive clairsentient.”

“And do you know what that means?” Anna asked. “Because I don’t.”

Collie made a choking sound, which alarmed Anna until she realized it was the start of a laughing fit.

“Did Mandrake tell you that we specialized in anything?” Anna asked.

“He said to ignore the sign on your door.”

Anna glanced at the door. Maybe it had changed since her arrival five minutes earlier.

Nope. It still read, “Colette Kostyna, Public Relations.”

“Most people ignore it,” Anna said. She glared at Collie, who had more or less finished laughing. “Please step in anytime.”

“We’re, uh, not well-qualified detectives,” Collie said. “We just have some specialized knowledge and, because of that, we’re able to work within a certain community. I really am a PR person most of the time.”

“Huh.” The kid tried to lean back. His chair didn’t do that, so he gave it up and settled for resting one leg on the other, right ankle over his left knee. “I would have figured a retrocognitive clairsentient would be more broadly useful than that.”

“Regardless,” Collie said, “the situation is as I described it. So Ian was probably wrong to point you in our direction.”

“He told me what you did in Victoria,” the kid said. Anna was surprised to hear herself snort.

“And you took that as a recommendation?”

He looked at her, emotion seeming to push his sharp features forward.

Yes,” he said. “I told you I was in kind of a different situation.”

“Look,” Anna said, “Rowan … is it actually Rowan?”

The kid smiled. Something about the smile made Anna feel bad for him again.

“Ever since I can remember.”

“Rowan, Colette and I have one, ah, skill in this detective thing. One. You can call us if you have a problem you can’t explain to the police or to a real detective without sounding like you’re crazy. That’s it. If you can explain it to a normal person, or if you don’t care that you sound nuts, we are not for you. I mean … unless you’re pretty sure things can’t get much worse, I would question hiring us for any reason at all. Except PR. Collie knows how to do that.”

Collie raised her travel mug to Anna.

“We have got to get you on tape, make some infomercials.”

“I’m just saying,” Anna said, looking Rowan in the eye, “we can’t guarantee that we will not screw up and cause trouble. Unless you need our … unique point of view … you’re better off with professionals.”

Rowan shook his head and Anna got the sense her little speech had meant nothing to him. He had the look of a guy in the midst of a downpour who’d been threatened with a squirt gun.

“You have another skill.”

So that was what retrowhatsis meant. She’d figured as much. Fucking Mandrake.

Editorial Reviews

"Froese's writing is taut, laced with humour, and as efficient as one might want for what is, at its core, a diverting romp. She never takes the story too seriously, but neither is there any air of dismissiveness. The larger than life characters are rendered with broad gestures, lacking subtle nuance, but this too is appropriate for such an outsized tale."
~ Robert J. Wiersema, Quill & Quire

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