What do you think of Quiet Deception?

Ann Gaylia Obar, an author you want to meet and read about if you haven't had a chance before.

OakTara has published three of Ann's novels: Singing in Babylon (romance, November, 2010); Quiet Deception (mystery/romance) and Searching for Home (romance, international intrigue), the last two in August, 2011. Distant Thunder (romance) is under contract with OakTara (www.OakTara.com ).

Ann also writes two blogs per month for OakTara’s Bindings column in www.ChristianPost.com (http://blogs.christianpost.com/ bindings)

Ann and her husband enjoy the laid back life on Whidbey Island in Washington State’s Puget Sound. (Watch out for snow and black ice right now, Ann). It’s the background for her current work in progress.

Anxious as I am to learn a little about her newest book?

Quiet Deception is a mystery/romance.

Todd Edwards, much loved son of a widowed pastor, grew up with his friend, Byron White, victim of an abusive father, in the changing culture following World War II.  As adults, both settle in as professors at a Christian college and fight demons from the past, Todd from the Viet Nam conflict, Byron from past sins. Then Byron vanishes from his office one snowy evening, and Todd is left with guilt from a last meeting.

Several years later, Kim Frazier, one of Todd’s students, stumbles on the mystery and determines to solve it. She endures an adversarial relationship with Todd, the controlling Dr. Edwards to her, and she notices that he hovers over ancient pieces of paper. Where did they come from? Perhaps he stole them from Dr. Byron White, whose picture in an earlier school annual attracts her with its vulnerability. But ghosts from the past haunt several of her professors, and more than one of her teachers harbored dislike for Byron.

Kim’s discovery of the startling truth leads her to resolve her own doubt-wracked journey into adulthood.

Ann says: I’ve returned to my Tennessee roots for this one. I include an old Tennessee legend that fascinated me. The book is character-driven. Each suspect and protagonist has a dilemma to resolve, most tied in some way with the vanished professor.

JOIN ME IN CHECKING OUT ANN'S EXCERPT FROM QUIET DECEPTION:

            [Todd] thrust aside the class lists and decided to search for an article he needed, one he’d written himself on the Soviet Union’s involvement in the Middle East.

            Todd remembered putting it in a box in the lower cabinet. The box should be labeled, because he always labeled boxes. Stooping, he opened the doors and grabbed a box. He turned it on the floor, trying to figure out why it had no label.

            A chill gripped him as he sat back on his heels and stared. He recognized it now, a carton of books he hadn’t bothered to go through because it didn’t seem as important as Byron’s papers and clothes.

            He opened the box and pulled out heavy books. They looked to be a set of encyclopedias. He started to put the books back when he noticed the corner of a paper sticking out from one of them. No, not a paper, but a thin plastic covering, the kind you put over documents for protection.

            He flattened the book on the floor and opened it. It was the V book of the encyclopedias. His gaze fell on the topic at the top of the left page. Viet Nam.

A shiver chased down his spine. Byron might as well have been in the room with him. Todd knew, as one senses things beyond reason, that Byron had put these documents in this book for him.

            He stopped breathing, then exploded in an exhalation when he saw the note. It was scrawled—not in Byron’s usual neat script; rather written as though in haste—but he knew it for By’s handwriting.

Great excerpt which really gives us a grasp of what to look for. Ann is graciously offering to do a giveaway too.

READ THE EXCERPT ABOVE. WHAT DO YOU READ THERE

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