I'm hosting an excerpt today from archaeological thriller "The Granite Key". Enjoy the excerpt!
Book Excerpt
The man advanced out of the shadows.
He was close to six feet tall, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties.
Cassie knew this had to be a dream because of his strange outfit. Aside from
the cowboy hat, he wore a short denim jacket, a string tie around his neck,
jeans and snakeskin cowboy boots.
The gun flicked slightly in his hand.
“I tell you what. The service in this establishment ain’t very friendly.” He
flipped his hat aside and it landed on an oak sideboard. His dark brown hair
was combed back in a high wave. “I guess if you don’t want to help me, I’ll
have to roll up my sleeves and help myself.”
He moved forward toward the glass case.
Sybil darted past him and ran toward
the front door. He was faster. He grabbed her by the arm. “Now that’s no way to
treat your clientele, honey. Tryin’ to run off and shirk your responsibilities
like that.” He twisted her arm behind her back.
Cassie could see Sybil wince in pain.
Her sister looked around wildly for some other way out. The man tightened his
grip with one hand and pointed the gun to her head with the other. Sybil
struggled but he only wrenched her arm harder behind her back until she stopped
struggling.
“It seems to me like you can’t hear
what I’m sayin’.” The man cocked his head slightly, considering the matter.
“Maybe we should go someplace private where I can get through to you better.”
He shoved her toward the door but she
twisted out of his grip, running toward the back of the shop. He lunged after
her, tackling her. She fell hard against the showcase, head first. Glass
shattered and she lay still, face down on the floor.
Cassie could feel a cry of despair
rising in her throat but no sound came out. She willed her feet to move. They
seemed to twitch slightly but nothing more. All she could do was watch.
The Granite Key
Title: The Granite Key
Author: Nancy Wikarski
Genre: Archaeological Thriller
THE ARKANA SERIES: Archaeological Thrillers That Defy
History
Volume One - The Granite Key
"Think
'MEDIUM meets THE LOST SYMBOL' and it only begins to describe the pleasures of
THE GRANITE KEY - 5 Stars." (Kindle Nation)
A Wake-Up Call
In a nightmare, nineteen year old Cassie Forsythe sees her sister attacked by a
man in a cowboy hat who demands something called "the key." Her
nightmare mutates into reality before the night is over. Cassie is called to
identify her sister's body--murdered exactly as her dream foretold. Cassie
dismisses her vision as a fluke and fights to get on with her life. Disconnected
and aimless now that her only family is gone, she drifts until the evening when
she catches the man in the cowboy hat ransacking her sister's apartment. He
bolts with an odd-looking stone cylinder--the granite key. From that moment,
Cassie's normal world evaporates.
A Secret Society
She learns that her sister led a double life--retrieving artifacts for a secret
organization called the Arkana. The Arkana's leader, an elder named Faye,
explains that her group performs a controversial kind of archaeology. They
scour the globe for evidence of ancient pre-patriarchal civilizations in hopes
of salvaging the lost history of the world. Their network of troves safeguards
artifacts from highly sophisticated goddess-worshipping cultures on every
continent. Cassie's sister had the psychic ability to touch an artifact and
relive its past. Cassie has now inherited this gift. Faye wants the girl to
take over her sister's role in the organization. Cassie doubts her powers but
agrees. Now an insider, she is transported to the Arkana's mysterious
underground vault in the countryside outside Chicago where the group tackles
the mystery of her sister's murder.
A Dangerous Cult
The Arkana learns that the man in the cowboy hat is a hired mercenary named
Leroy Hunt and that he is working for a fundamentalist religious cult known as
the Blessed Nephilim. He takes his orders directly from the cult's domineering
prophet--Abraham Metcalf. The granite key which Leroy stole is inscribed with
hieroglyphics revealing the location of a mythological artifact reputed to have
mystical powers--the Sage Stone. Although skeptical of its legendary
capabilities, the Arkana is still afraid to allow the relic to fall into the
cult's hands. Abraham's fanatical belief in the power of the Sage Stone could
be the catalyst to start a war of religious genocide.
Unlocking The Key
Before she died, Cassie's sister took photos of the strange markings on the
granite key. The Arkana decodes the hieroglyphics which point to the ancient
ruins of Minoan Crete as the hiding place of the Sage Stone. Faye hastily
assembles a retrieval team including Cassie, her newly-appointed bodyguard
Erik, and a British researcher named Griffin. The band of treasure hunters is
mismatched and wildly dysfunctional from the start. Griffin has never gone on a
field mission, Erik treats his inexperienced colleagues with contempt, and
Cassie second-guesses her psychic hunches. She battles to prove herself to Erik
at every turn. Their internal clashes rival the bigger crisis of what to do
when they come face to face with their enemies.
A Matter Of Life Or Death
Even as they rake through megalithic tombs and Minoan palaces for clues,
Abraham dispatches his son Daniel and hired gun Leroy Hunt to recover the Sage
Stone. The Nephilim operatives won't hesitate to kill anyone standing in their
way. Will Cassie and her teammates avert global disaster or find themselves
casualties of Abraham's mania to exterminate the world of unbelievers? The
Granite Key holds the answer.
Author Bio
"There's
a 52% chance that the next Dan Brown will be a woman ... or should we just make
that 100% now?"
--Kindle
Nation
Nancy
Wikarski is a fugitive from academia. After earning her Ph.D. from the
University of Chicago, she became a computer consultant and then turned to
mystery and historical fiction writing. She is a member of Mystery Writers of
America, the Society Of Midland Authors, and has served as vice president of
Sisters In Crime - Twin Cities and on the programming board of the Chicago chapter.
Her short stories have appeared in Futures
Magazine and DIME Anthology,
while her book reviews have been featured in Murder: Past Tense and Deadly
Pleasures.
She has
written the Gilded Age Chicago History Mysteries series set in 1890s Chicago.
Titles include The Fall Of White City
(2002) and Shrouded In Thought
(2005). The series has received People's Choice Award nominations for Best
First Novel and Best Historical as well as a Lovey Award for Best Traditional
Amateur Sleuth.
She is
currently writing the seven book Arkana Archaeology Thriller Mystery series.
Titles include The Granite Key
(2011), The Mountain Mother Cipher
(2011), and The Dragon’s Wing Enigma (2012). The fourth volume in the
series, The Riddle Of The Diamond Dove,
is scheduled for publication in December of 2013. Ms. Wikarski’s work on the
Arkana books has prompted Kindle Nation to call her one of its favorite
authors.
Links
Title: Grandpa Bernie’s Bedtime Stories
I
didn’t begin my career as an author by writing stories. First, I was a
storyteller. Let me explain. Many years ago, when our children were very
young, I would sit on their beds at bedtime and tell them a story.
Instead of reading a story written by someone else, I preferred to make
up my own story right on the spot. They were stories about animals who
learned to fly, children who talked to birds, alligators who were
friends with elephants, and even one about a horse that learned to jump
like a kangaroo. Our children loved them. So I made up lot of stories.
Then there was a long period of time when there was no one who wanted to
listen to my stories because they had all grown up!
