Guest Post: Courtney Harvey

Have you ever felt that you were in the right place at the right time? Ever felt that something led you on a path and put you exactly where you never knew you needed to be until you were there?  And once there you knew with absolute certainty that this is what you were meant to do?  Not only is that the message inside my debut novel "Open Window: Truth from the Shadows," but it is also what led me to this point in my life.

 

Ever since I was a little girl, writing was something that brought happiness to my heart.  I was chosen to attend young author conferences as an elementary student. In middle school my creative writing assignments which were supposed to be five pages were always fifty.  In high school the essay writing left me feeling expressionless, so I wrote poetry.  There was something about creating imagery by twisting words into interesting formations that moved me. As I entered into college, however, I fell harder in love with visual art. I pursued art education as a career and became a K-8 Art teacher, though I never lost my love for words.  I always thought I wanted to write and illustrate children's books; it seemed the perfect way to meld together my love for both subjects.  And though I have several children's stories tucked away, it was always the illustration that held me up.  For some reason I could never seem to finish the visual piece of it, and so the stories still sit tucked away.

 

I have been teaching art for 13 years now and have since gotten married and have three beautiful little girls.  In 2009 I decided to go back to school to finish my Master's degree in Art Education, which I had started before the kids. At about that time I had a strange paranormal experience that left me feeling a bit shaken.  I woke up one morning thinking what would it be like if someone with actual psychic abilities had experienced the same phenomenon?  And suddenly a story developed in my head. There were characters with personalities and histories; they felt so alive to me.  I tried to push it away, as I was furiously working on a thesis and had no time to entertain such craziness!  Yet those characters wouldn't go away. The story wouldn't let me focus and I was consumed. So I played a game; I promised myself every night that I would work for two hours on academic reading and writing, and then I would let myself write creatively when I had fulfilled that promise.  It was in those late nights and early hours of the morning that "Open Window" poured out of me.  After about 14 months, and one Master's Degree completion, I was finished writing. I shared it with an acquaintance with an English degree who I knew to be not only fair and outspoken, but also a lover of books. She loved it, and encouraged me to move forward. I was terrifed, and didn't know which direction to take.  But my daughters had watched me through the process, had seen me working hard and I couldn't let them see me give up on a dream.  Somebody had said to me that no matter what happens, my girls would always have my voice and a piece of me recorded forever to pass down to their children, and that gave me the courage to go through with my dream; for them.  So with their support I decided to self-publish, and put my work out there to the world.  As someone with a thin skin and sensitive nature, it has been hard at times, but I can't help but feel certain that this is where I'm meant to be. 

 

I am so happy to share this book, which I hope to be the first in a trilogy that follows Alex Wells, a young medium who feels shame at her abilities.  She tries to push them away until her sleeping mind is invaded by a young man who had tragically taken his own life and is seeking redemption.  Though she tries to ignore him and be the normal teenage girl everyone expects her to be, he haunts her relentlessly, eventually forcing her to face her own fears and acknowledge her ability.  But in doing so, she enters dangerous territory, being pulled down into the same depths that forced him to take his life.  With little support from friends and a mother who sees her as crazy, Alex has to find her way back to the person she knows she should be, all the while fighting to be the voice for the ghost in her head, and trying to discover the mystery behind the strange pull she feels toward the new boy in school.  Without giving too much away, I will say that there's a little bit of scary, paranormal edge with the twists and turns of a mystery, combined with a hint of romance that I have been told appeals to all ages. I just recently had a 70 year old man raving to me about it!  I thank everyone for taking a chance on an "unknown" and hope that if you do pick it up, you enjoy!

 

You can read the first chapter on http://courtneyharvey.wordpress.com/  and find it for your Kindle or in paperback on Amazon, Kindle Edition, Paperback and Smashwords.