The Woods of Hitchcock by Ann W. Jarvie

 

Today we welcome award-winning author Ann W. Jarvie to Andi's Book Reviews. She's sharing with us her journey to becoming a writer as well as an excerpt from her new psychological thriller The Woods of Hitchcock. Enjoy both before you download your own copy. Then be sure to follow the tour for even more. Best of luck entering the giveaway!

The Woods of Hitchcock by award-winning author Ann W. Jarvie is a thriller about a psychically gifted Chicago copywriter and victim of violence who returns to South Carolina's equestrian country to solve a riddle involving murder, the metaphysical and the secrets of her eccentric family.

Suzanne Clayborn is a psychically gifted southerner working in her dream job in Chicago, which also conveniently takes her away from the ghosts of her past. But when she's nearly killed, she realizes all she wants is to return home to her eccentric family, her horse and the one place she feels safe: Hitchcock Woods, an enchanting equestrian forest in South Carolina.

But instead of finding solace, Suzanne becomes entangled in a murder spree, while stumbling upon an old manuscript, written by her sage grandmother. As she explores it, Suzanne uncovers a tome of long-buried family haunts and ancient metaphysical secrets offering healing and inspiration. She also begins to understand her unwanted psychic abilities, especially after meeting a mysterious stranger in the Woods whose ominous riddle suggests others close to her will die within the week...

Brimming with raw emotion and a trail of psychological twists, a story of hope and transformation begins to unfold. Yet with the riddle's deadline looming, Suzanne's present must ultimately collide with a violent past. Will she be able to solve her life's riddle and fulfill her destiny? Or will she die along with those she loves?

Read an excerpt:

For Suzanne, the Woods possessed a special nurturing power, awesome and quiet, that was able to draw an assemblage of friends, neighbors and varied strangers, bonding them together at the level of heart, horse and hound like no other place on earth. Even the forest’s subcultures held her respect and fascination with their vast mini-universes, pulsating with life. The fuzzy caterpillars were already nesting in their massive weblike tree tents, as silent as seeds sprouting, dreaming of their aerial futures. Carolina lizards were guarding their stands of shrubs from the moist bunkers of leaf mold and fallen bracken. Honeybees worked on the pollen of azaleas under nutrient-rich pine needles, swaying and green. The staccato knocks of the pileated woodpecker mixed with the intermittent calls of cardinals and blue jays, while the lulling songs of warblers carried weightlessly on an ethereal stream of a humid wind.

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My journey to becoming a writer

My journey to becoming a writer began in high school, thanks to a wonderful teacher who saw something she liked in my writing, selected me as yearbook editor, and encouraged me to major in journalism in college, which I did. It was also about the same time, I learned of a family death mystery that triggered an insatiable curiosity in me about it as well as a whole host of metaphysical subjects. I discovered that my maternal grandmother, Henrietta, had lived on an Apache reservation with her physician husband until he mysteriously died there.

I am a product of my grandmother’s second marriage, so by the time I became interested in this family mystery, most of those involved had already passed away, including Henrietta. My mother was able to tell me a few stories about her mother’s positive relationships with Indigenous Americans and shamans, but no one could answer the questions I had about her first husband’s mysterious and premature death. So I started making up a story about it. My first novel, The Soul Retrieval, is the result and with a Henrietta-inspired character as my protagonist. The research for this novel took me to strange places and down many fascinating spiritual and metaphysical paths, and I’ve incorporated many of these insights into my novels. But there’s so much more to learn and share!

Because I was working full-time as an advertising copywriter in Chicago and raising my children while I was trying to write The Soul Retrieval, it took me many years to complete. But, after moving to Arizona and taking an early retirement ten years ago, I was finally able to devote quality time to fiction writing. I finished The Soul Retrieval and started on my next novel, which I had planned to be a thriller and sequel. I’m happy to report The Woods of Hitchcock took me much less time to write. I could focus on it in Arizona, of course, but I’d also been holding the seeds for it in my mind, since childhood.

When I was growing up in South Carolina, and first heard the name “Hitchcock Woods,” which is a real place, even as a young teen, I honestly thought it sounded more like a suspense novel than the enchanting equestrian forest preserve that it is. Perhaps I was seeing into my own future. While I was living in Chicago and started writing novels, I kept coming back “home” and to Hitchcock Woods, walking and riding horses in it with family and friends, eventually realizing it, as well as Chicago, would be the ideal settings for my protagonist, Suzanne Clayborn, and her suspenseful Hero’s Journey.

The Woods of Hitchcock and The Soul Retrieval are part of my “Henrietta Series.” In The Woods of Hitchcock, my Henrietta character plays a secondary role as the sage grandmother to my protagonist. I’m currently working on the third novel in this series, although like the first two, it will stand completely on its own. And that’s where we are now.


Thank you, Andi’s Book Reviews, for the opportunity to share my writing journey. It’s my hope that it has provided inspiration to other writers, to follow their own Hero’s Journey, no matter how long or where it takes them.

Ann W. Jarvie has a B.A. in journalism and twenty-five years’ experience as a writer in advertising and public relations agencies, in Chicago and South Carolina. Although it stands completely on its own, The Woods of Hitchcock is an indirect sequel to Jarvie’s award-winning debut novel, The Soul Retrieval, which received four literary awards, the highest score by Writer’s Digest e-Book Awards’ judges (5 out of 5 on all points) as well as myriad positive reviews. Jarvie currently lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona with her husband, their boxer dog and boxer mix rescue.


Website and Social Media:
ANNWJARVIE.COM

facebook.com/annwjarvie

instagram.com/annwjarvie

twitter.com/annwjarvie

Ann W. Jarvie will be awarding a $75 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway