Join us for this tour from July 5to July 25, 2022!
Series Details:
Book Title: THE SERAPHIM’S SONG – Book 5, The F.I.G. Mysteriesby Barbara Casey Category: YA Fiction (Ages 13-17), 213 pages Genre: Mystery, Fantasy Publisher: Gauthier Publications (Hungry Goat Press) Release date:April 2022 Content Rating: G. THE SERAPHIM’S SONG is suitable for all readers – adult and young adult.
Book Description:
Many changes have taken place at Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women while Carolina and Larry were on their honeymoon in Frascati, Italy, on the Granchelli farm. The newlyweds have been given a larger bungalow; Ms. Alcott, niece of the founder of Wood Rose, and Mrs. Ball, assistant to the headmaster, have moved into a bungalow together; and Jimmy Bob, caretaker and night watchman at Wood Rose has moved from his family home down the road a bit into a small bungalow on the orphanage property with his hound dog Tick, as well as his new cat and her litter of kittens.
Summer is coming to an end and the F.I.G.s will soon return to the universities to complete their special projects. They are starting to feel anxious, and the coping mechanisms they have used their entire lives are starting to work overtime. Dara’s thoughts turn to an unknown language, possibly from another world; Mackenzie focuses on the relationship of math to music; and Jennifer keeps hearing the note of B flat minor and is drawing dark swirls on her canvas board.
Barbara Casey is the author of several award-winning novels and book-length works of nonfiction for both adults and young adults, and numerous articles, poems, and short stories. Several of her books have been optioned for major films and television series.
In addition to her own writing, Barbara is an editorial consultant and president of the Barbara Casey Agency. Established in 1995, she
represents authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.
In 2018 Barbara received the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for her extensive
experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing and other areas.
Barbara lives on a mountain in Georgia with three cats who adopted her: Homer, a Southern coon cat; Reese, a black cat; and Earl Gray, a gray cat and Reese’s best friend.
If you have been coming to fundinmental for a while, you probably know how much a cover can influence me. That is why I invited Barbara Casey here to tell us her thoughts. Take it away Barbara.
THE ARTFUL EXPRESSION OF BOOK COVERS
One of the things I am most pleased about in
writing The F.I.G. Mysteries is the fact that my publisher is also a
professional and extremely talented artist. From the beginning when she first
published Book 1 – The Cadence of Gypsies
– she sensed the emotional tenderness underlying the story. The cover she
designed – an obscure symbol found in the Voynich Manuscript – expressed that
emotional tenderness perfectly. At that time, I wrote The Cadence of Gypsies as a stand-alone novel. After it was published,
however, my publisher convinced me to expand it into a series. The original
cover metamorphosed into something different that was perfect because it now
tied in with the other covers on The Wish
Rider, The Clock Flower, The Nightjar’s Promise, and now, The Seraphim’s Song.
Each cover symbolizes the main underlying
theme of the book in a beautiful and sensitive expression. Books 1 through 4
have focused on the personal emotional journeys of Carolina and the females of intellectual
genius as they search for answers to explain why they were placed in an
orphanage and who their biological parents were. With those answers for the
most part found, The Seraphim’s Song elevates
Carolina and the F.I.G.s to another level of understanding. There are new
questions; more answers are needed. This involves an ancient artifact that, in
fact, is a key to all knowledge in the universe that has been hidden in a cave
in China for as long as the planet Earth has existed. The cover shows a “key”
surrounded by colors of the universe. It is beautiful, and it is perfect.
It is really nice to visit with you again. Thank you for inviting me and for your continued interest in my books. All best to you and your bloggers. ~Barbara
I am so happy to have you here and look forward to ‘seeing’ you again soon, Barbara.
The Seraphim’s Song by Barbara Casey
GENRE: Fiction/Mystery
BLURB
Book
5 – The F.I.G. Mysteries
Many changes have taken
place at Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women while Carolina and
Larry were on their honeymoon in Frascati, Italy, on the Granchelli farm. The
newlyweds have been given a larger bungalow; Ms. Alcott, niece of the founder
of Wood Rose, and Mrs. Ball, assistant to the headmaster, have moved into a
bungalow together; and Jimmy Bob, caretaker and night watchman at Wood Rose has
moved from his family home down the road a bit into a small bungalow on the
orphanage property with his hound dog Tick, as well as his new cat and her
litter of kittens. Most important, thanks to the persuasive powers of Ms.
Alcott and Mrs. Ball, the F.I.G.s have been given a forever home at Wood Rose.
Summer is coming to an
end and the F.I.G.s will soon return to the universities to complete their
special projects. They are starting to feel anxious, and the coping mechanisms
they have used their entire lives are starting to work overtime. Dara’s
thoughts turn to an unknown language, possibly from another world; Mackenzie
focuses on the relationship of math to music; and Jennifer keeps hearing the
note of B flat minor and is drawing dark swirls on her canvas board.
Deadly forces and
natural disasters are unleashed into the world when Milosh, the evil young man
who placed a curse on Carolina when she searched for her mother, steals an
ancient artifact—a “key”—from an archaeological site near Puli, China on the
Yellow Sea where he is working. This artifact, when paired with a certain
note—B flat minor known as the Seraphim’s song—opens a portal that enables man
to communicate with the gods.
When the key gets lost
in a storm, Carolina comes into possession of it through Jimmy Bob’s dog, Tick,
and when she does, she hears Lyuba, her gypsy mother, tell her that time is
running out. The F.I.G.s and Carolina must go to the forbidden cave on the
Yellow Sea, the place where the early gypsies are believed to have settled
before travelling into Europe. For it is there where the key must be returned
before all is destroyed.
EXCERPT
As she usually did in the early, pre-dawn hours, Lyuba was
digging roots, in the dark of the crescent moon, and every so often replanting
a good piece of a root to grow next year.
The day before she had picked herbs, during that time when the essential
oils are at their strongest, before they could get evaporated by the midday
sun. Where she searched was her favorite
place, the place where the energies were strongest. Surprisingly, it was the old church graveyard
built on a slight mound just outside of the rural Italian village of Frascati,
which is why the other gypsy women stayed away.
Unlike Lyuba, they feared being so near the dead. They believed that
being near death would hasten their own, therefore they refused to go there.
Lyuba, however, saw death as the natural and necessary progression of life, in
another form, in a different dimension. She found comfort and solace in its
nearness.
A creek ran nearby, and a tall, unkempt yew tree grew near
the entrance to the graveyard, poisonous, but giving off positive
energies. It was a place Lyuba knew
well, having discovered it from earlier times when the travelers came this way.
It was there where she found peace.
She would prepare her potions from the roots, bark, and hard
seeds she gathered and make decoctions by soaking them overnight and boiling
them the next day. Some of the
decoctions she would add honey or sugar to; others she would thicken into syrup
or add lard to make ointments and salves.
The freshest herbs she saved for her oils.
Once her potions were ready, she would take them into the
village to sell. Coughs or colds,
rheumatism, cuts and bruises, burns—it didn’t matter. She knew what remedy was necessary to relieve
pain, create lustrous hair, revive the impotent, whiten teeth, cure
constipation, or simply heal the broken spirit.
Unlike others who only pretended, she had the gift.
As she scraped pieces of root and bark, and gently picked
the seeds from the plants she revered, she suddenly paused, aware of something
different in the air around her—an unseen potent force. She stood up and,
closing her eyes, listened quietly as she sniffed the air. There was an
unfamiliar strangeness surrounding her. She felt the slight tremor of the earth
and somewhere very far away, she heard the low-pitched hum.
It was a sound she knew well for it had been given to every
civilization from the beginning of time. Used in all of the major
religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and
Christianity—it was the sacred universal sound.
A single sustained note, a mantra, it was the melody of the angel that
acted as the means of communication between the gods in the heavens and the
humans on earth. It was the seraphim’s song.
But something was wrong; the single note was slightly
off-key. The pitch wasn’t quite right. Then, because she was a choovihni and
had the knowledge of the universe coursing through her veins, a cosmic
consciousness that had been passed down to her from her mother, her
grandmother, and her great grandmothers through all time, she sensed darkness
and evil.
AUTHOR Bio and Links
Originally from
Carrollton, Illinois, author/agent/publisher Barbara Casey attended the
University of North Carolina, N.C. State University, and N.C. Wesleyan College
where she received a BA degree, summa cum laude, with a double major in English
and history. In 1978 she left her
position as Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at
North Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own
manuscript evaluation and editorial service.
In 1995 she established the Barbara Casey Agency and since that time has
represented authors from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.
In 2014, she became a partner with Strategic Media Books, an independent
nonfiction publisher of true crime, where she oversees acquisitions, day-to-day
operations, and book production.
Barbara has
written over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction for both young
adults and adults. The awards include the National Association of University
Women Literary Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award, the Independent
Publisher Book Award, the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel, the IP Best Book
for Regional Fiction, among others. Several of her books have been optioned for
major films and television.
Her
award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in
both national and international publications including the North Carolina
Christian Advocate Magazine, The New East Magazine, the Raleigh (N.C.) News and
Observer, the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Sunday Telegram, Dog Fancy, ByLine, The
Christian Record, Skirt! Magazine, and True Story. A thirty-minute television special which
Barbara wrote and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh,
North Carolina. She also received
special recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of
Albanian children’s stories. Her award-winning science fiction short stories
for adults are featured in The Cosmic Unicorn and CrossTime science fiction
anthologies. Barbara’s essays and other
works appear in The Chrysalis Reader, the international literary journal of the
Swedenborg Foundation, 221 One-Minute Monologues from Literature (Smith and
Kraus Publishers), and A Cup of Comfort (Adams Media Corporation).
Barbara is a
former director of BookFest of the Palm Beaches, Florida, where she served as
guest author and panelist. She has
served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Palm Beach and Martin
Counties, Florida, and was the Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of
Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators from 1991 through 2003. In 2018 Barbara received the prestigious
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for
her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing
and other areas. She makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest
Georgia with three cats who adopted her, Homer – a Southern coon cat, Reese – a
black cat, and Earl Gray – a gray cat and Reese’s best friend.