#GIVEAWAY Proof of Life by Shelia Lowe

I'm always excited to feature one of publicity firm Author/Guide's offerings and I'm super excited to not only showcase, Proof of Life but also I had the chance to interview her too. And Author/Guide is sponsoring a #giveaway, details below.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13: 978-0578453156
Publisher: Suspense Publishing
Release Date: 5-7-2019
Length: 272 pp
Beyond the Veil #2
Buy It: Amazon/IndieBound

Overview:

Five years removed from the most traumatizing night of her life that put her in an amnesiac state and took her young son away from her, Jessica Mack is thrust into a role that she is reluctant to occupy. A four-year-old boy has gone missing and is presumed to be in serious danger. Jessica’s ability to be a communication conduit with the deceased provides clues that she must act on with her inner circle of allies in order to rescue the boy before it’s too late. With her friend Zach Smith, an FBI agent with whom she solved a previous case, and Sage Boles, a mutual friend who has some secrets of his own but seemingly a big heart, Jessica must learn to use her gift/curse to prevent another tragedy from occurring.

Each of the characters in this book has so much personality that the reader can’t help but form a living image of them in their imagination. As a protagonist, Jessica has so much heart after having lost so much, plus wanting to find a purpose in her life no matter how she wishes that hers could be more normal and pleasant, that she becomes easily relatable. The mystery itself is a full-throttle, intensely suspenseful crisis that catches one’s breath away and demands that the pages keep turning. Using elements of forensics and the author’s knowledge in mediumship, and tying in neatly with not just the previous Jessica Mack story but the author’s celebrated Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting Mystery series, there are equal parts coziness and suspense to this story. Readers who enjoy this genre will no doubt add Lowe to their list of preferred authors after this book.

Giveaway is for one Print copy of
Proof of Life
US ONLY
Please Use Rafflecopter form to enter
Good Luck!

Interview with Shelia:

Sheila hi welcome to The Reading Frenzy, your new book, Proof of Life, looks fantastic!

Tell my readers a bit about it.

Thanks so much. Naturally, I’m delighted for a chance to talk about the book. It’s about a young woman’s reluctant journey into mediumship. For five years she’s been ignoring the voices she hears—she’s not crazy, they are from the spirit world—but now that she’s been asked by an FBI agent friend for help in locating a missing child, she has to start listening.

This is the follow up to the prequel What She Saw that was published in 2014.
What took so long for book 2 J?

When I wrote What She Saw, I had no idea that it was going to become the first in a series (or maybe a trilogy, as I don’t want to abandon my original series). All along, readers have asked whether I would write the next chapter in the story and I always thought I might. Then something happened to get it going.

At the end of 2016, the man I was dating died very suddenly of a heart attack. That devastating event re-awakened an interest in the Afterlife that began in 2000 when my 27-year-old daughter was murdered and I needed to know what happened next. Suddenly, I was thinking about writing a book with an Afterlife theme. And as I was thinking about it, I got this “inspiration” to bring back Jessica Mack, whose story began in WSS. In that book, she woke up on a train with amnesia. PoL takes up her story five years later.

As I began outlining the story I wanted to tell, I got the idea to bring in Sage Boles, a man with a mysterious past who was introduced in Written Off (#7 in the Forensic Handwriting series).  After that, everything fell into place and Proof of Life came into being.

a- Should we read What She Saw first before diving into Proof of Life?

Each story stands for itself, so you don’t have to start with WSS. Everything you need to know is found in PoL. But…after I finished writing Proof, I decided that if WSS was going to be the sequel, there needed to be some foreshadowing. So, a couple of months ago, I went back and rewrote the book. I’m a lot happier with it now and readers are saying nice things about it.

b- Also it says that although this is not in the Forensic Handwriting series characters from that series play an important role in this book.
What made you decide to spin off the series instead of incorporating this book into it?

Excellent question. As a handwriting analyst for more than fifty years, I have always worked hard to make sure that what I do is not seen as fortune-telling or occult in some way.  That misperception is something we in the field have always had to fight against. So, Claudia Rose, who has become friends with Jessica, makes an appearance in this book, as she did in What She Saw, but it’s not her story. In the future, some of the characters will no doubt continue to interact, but I will keep the two series separate.

Tell us about something about your star character Jessica Mack that surprised you as you were writing her story.

I discovered that as a teen she was a Goth and interested in the occult at a young age.

a- Was she a draw inside the lines kind of character to write or did she give you all kinds of trouble?

Since I already knew a younger Jessica from writing What She Saw, it was interesting rediscovering her several years later and digging deeper into her motivations and fears now she was in her early thirties. More importantly, while I was working on Proof of Life, I was told by three different spirit mediums (yes, I’m a psychic junkie) that my daughter, Jennifer, was working on the book with me. I felt the truth of that statement on a couple of occasions when Jessica’s behavior produced some questions that I couldn’t answer on my own. Suddenly, the solution would present itself and I felt that Jen was providing the answer I needed.

Your background in handwriting analysis led to your writing some non-fiction books on the subject.
What led you from non-fiction to fiction?

As it happens, it was the other way around. I always wanted to write fiction and started when I was fourteen. My mother moved us here from England just before the Beatles arrived. I was madly in love with Ringo, so I wrote stories about that. Later, I wrote a mystery novella. And then all of a sudden, I was grown up, married, then divorced, with three kids, and writing technical papers about handwriting.

I was often asked when I was going to write a book about handwriting, and in 2000 I had an opportunity to do that—The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis. A year later, a publisher contacted me and asked me to write Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous for Barnes and Noble. Still, my love of mystery made me want to write a novel. I had heard that you should “write what you know,” so I created Claudia Rose, a handwriting expert whose work mirrored mine (she’s not me, though).

Last year, when the Idiot’s Guide finally went out of print, I rewrote it with a new title and self-pubbed it along with two more advanced books on handwriting psychology. I’m currently working on a book about the business of handwriting analysis for practitioners. Much more fun, though, later this year, I will be researching the third Beyond the Veil Mystery in Europe and England. I have the title and can’t wait to find the story that goes with it.

a- Are you still called upon to analyze handwriting professionally?

Yes, that’s how I make my living. So far, writing books hasn’t risen to that level but I keep working at it. For the first half of my career I mostly prepared personality profiles from handwriting for employers. These days, most of my practice involves handwriting authentication. In other words, I identify forgeries.

Sheila thanks so much for taking time from your very busy life to answer my questions. Good luck with the new book!

Thanks for asking me. I hope I wasn’t too wordy. If any of your group would like bookmarks or signed bookplates I would be happy to mail them.

All best,

Sheila

Reviews:

"A wonderfully human voice, intense emotions, and a deep dive into the Afterlife. Lowe has created a brilliant backdrop in 'Proof of Life, ' allowing readers to explore life-altering questions via the imminently likeable Jessica Mack."
--K.J. Howe, International Bestselling Author of "Skyjack"

"The voices recovering amnesiac Jessica Mack hears compel her to search for a missing four-year-old boy, a quest that leads her to the doorway between life and the afterlife and challenges her beliefs on every level. This story rocks."
--DP Lyle, Award-Winning Author of the Jake Longly and Cain/Harper Thriller Series

"A compassionate heroine bridges the divide between the spirit world and earthly evil in this well-paced thriller. 'Proof of Life' will keep readers flipping pages all night!"
--S.W. Hubbard, Author of "Another Man's Treasure"

"Fiction can sometimes be a powerful and inspirational way to teach us about life and the afterlife. 'Proof of Life' celebrates this truth."
--Gary E. Schwartz, PhD, University of Arizona, Author of "The Afterlife Experiments"

"A brain injury, followed by a coma opens a door wide into the Spirit World. 'Proof of Life' will have you on the edge of your seat, late into the night as you discover we don't die."
--Sandra Champlain, Author of #1 International Bestseller "We Don't Die - A Skeptic's Discovery of Life After Death," and host of We Don't Die Radio

"A delicious glimpse at what happens when the veil between the two worlds unexpectedly parts. I dare you to put this book down!"
--Suzanne Giesemann, Author of "Messages of Hope"

About the author:
Like her fictional character Claudia Rose in the Amazon #1 Bestselling Forensic Handwriting Mysteries series, Sheila Lowe is a real-life forensic handwriting expert. Author of the acclaimed The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis, Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and Handwriting Analyzer software, she is president of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes education in the area of handwriting, and on the board of directors of the Scientific Association of Forensic Examiners. Sheila holds a Master of Science in psychology, teaching and lecturing around the US, Canada, and the UK. Her latest nonfiction book is Reading Between the Lines, Decoding Handwriting. She lives in Ventura, California, with Lexie the Very Bad Cat. Despite sharing living space with a feline, however, Sheila does not write cozies. She describes her books as medium-boiled psychological suspense.


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