Shadows Way by Barbara Frances - Book Blast and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be giving away a $25 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the rest of the stops on the tour.

Prepare to be spellbound. Barbara Frances' long-awaited third novel, Shadow's Way, takes you to the coastal, deep South, where the past and the present mingle in a gothic tale of insanity, murder, and sexual intrigue.

You'll meet the beautiful Elaine Chauvier, former actress and proprietor of Shadow's Way, her family's antebellum home; the esteemed Archbishop Andre Figurant and his fallen identical twin, Bastien; newly arrived Ophelia and Rudy, here to explore their Chauvier roots and their ties to Shadow's Way; and the mysterious Madame Claudine. Under a veneer of piety and graciousness, i.e., the questions: What is good? What is evil? What is reality?

Read an excerpt:

The first encounter Ofelia had had with her sister’s unbridled cruelty occurred within weeks after her arrival. She had been in the breakfast area arranging flowers where she could easily hear Elaine’s raised voice in the next room. “Lily Mae, that half-breed sister of mine is just like her mother, a regular whore. She, too, is breaking up a nice family. That man she’s seeing is the father of two lovely girls, just like my father was.”

For several seconds Ofelia held the vase with shaking hands. This was intentional. Elaine knew where she was. Ofelia stomped into the dining room and smashed the costly vase at Elaine’s feet. Shards of glass flew in all directions while water ran into the cracks of the hardwood floor. Elaine jumped back with a slight scream. Fresh flowers were scattered around her shoes.

Ofelia picked up a large piece of glass and pointed it at Elaine. “Don’t you ever, ever call my mother that again, or I swear to God I’ll scar up that pasty white face of yours.” Elaine was more frightened than she had ever been. “You can call me a whore if that makes you feel superior, but don’t ever again call my mother that. You understand, you mean disgusting bitch.”

Staggering back a step or two, Ofelia dropped the shard stunned by the fierceness within her. “You bring out the worst in people,” she snarled in Elaine’s face and walked steadily out of the room, feeling that a kindred wolf spirit was within her.

Two chapters available at http://shadowsway.com/chapters.html

About the Author:

Barbara Frances has plenty of stories and a life spent acquiring them. Growing up Catholic on a small Texas farm, her childhood ambition was to become a nun. In ninth grade she entered a boarding school in Our Lady of the Lake Convent as an aspirant, the first of several steps before taking vows. On graduation, however, she passed up the nun’s habit for a college degree in English and Theatre Arts. Her professors were aghast when she declined a PhD program in order to become a stewardess, but Barbara never looked back. “In the Sixties, a stewardess was a glamorous occupation.” Her career highlights include dating a very gentlemanly Chuck Berry and “opening the bar” for a planeload of underage privates on their way to Vietnam.

Marriage, children, school teaching and divorce distracted her from storytelling, but one summer she and a friend coauthored a screenplay. “I never had such fun! I come from a family of storytellers. Relatives would come over and after dinner everyone would tell tales. Sometimes they were even true.” The next summer Barbara wrote a screenplay solo. Contest recognition, an agent and three optioned scripts followed but, weary of fickle producers and endless rewrites, she turned to novels. Shadow’s Way is her third book. Her first, Lottie’s Adventure, is aimed at young readers. Her second, Like I Used To Dance, is a family saga set in 1950’s rural Texas. Barbara’s fans can be thankful she passed up convent life for one of stories and storytelling. She and her husband Bill live in Austin, Texas.

Barbara welcomes questions or comments about Shadow’s Way at barb@barbarafrances.com.

http://shadowsway.com
http://barbarafrances.com

Buy the book at https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Way-Barbara-Frances-ebook/dp/B07FZ895H1/ref=sr_1_1

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