Welcome to 2024!

IWSG First Wednesday of the Year.

Our purpose is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Join us and be a part of this supportive group.

The awesome co-hosts for the January 3 posting of the IWSG are Joylene Nowell Butler, Olga Godim, Diedre Knight, and Natalie Aguirre!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. 

Remember, the question is optional! Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors?

I follow both, but mostly I follow those who recommend books frequently. I always like to find good recommendations, and Book Bub is great for that.

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Rattlesnake is getting some good reviews.

**** What a great read on a winter evening when a fictional ghostly character is just what you need to make you appreciate a quiet life. This book makes you turn the pages to find out what happens next.

***** I found myself enthralled with this story from beginning to end. The author deftly weaves the strands of past and present into an intriguing mystery that leaves the reader wondering what’s going to happen next.
Ms. McKenzie’s tales never fail to entertain, and Rattlesnake is no exception.

Here’s how the story starts:

I

Catherine 1865

Kevin will do as I tell him. He’ll stay at the house until I return. In these past months, the angry fire inside my chest has forged me into a formidable force that even a rebellious younger brother doesn’t dare challenge.

Yes, I feel some remorse after speaking to him so sharply and seeing the hurt in his eyes, but there’s nothing else I can do. This undertaking is my responsibility as is he.

With one more stern glance his direction, I close the back door. How often I’ve walked down these steps from the house and across to the mine. I can make my way without looking, but today I’m carrying dangerous cargo, so I must go more slowly, taking care where I step.

So much depends on my getting this right that I can’t stop trembling. I need to brush these trickles of perspiration threatening to sting my eyes, but I don’t dare. My hands have other business.

How I wish time ran in more than one direction. If it did, I’d take all of us back and make different decisions—ones that would keep us far away from this place called Rattlesnake.

We came here because Pa said this was where he’d make his fortune. Silver practically sprang out of the earth, begging to be taken, made into coins or fine tea sets, he said.

The truth?

Rattlesnake was as far as our money would take us. It was as far as Pa’s heart could journey from where he’d buried our beautiful mother.

Pa was no miner, no desert dweller. He was a fisherman from along the Scottish coast. But here we were thousands of miles from what any of us knew. Kevin, Pa, and me in a land where the sun cooked everything down to bone and nobody we met knew what a heath looked like. But everyone knew what foreigners looked like, and they let us know straight away that we didn’t belong.

I remember our first day in this place. I remember the eyes with no welcome in them. I remember it all, and I regret I didn’t try to persuade Pa to go on a bit more or to turn back, but I was only seventeen—his daughter who shouldn’t question her pa’s judgment, so I lowered my eyes and kept quiet.

Soon it was too late for warnings and just the beginning of regrets.

Rattlesnake’s available in Kindle and Paperback! Hope you’ll buy a copy. If you do, I’d love a review.

Happy New Year!