The Kathleen McGuire Trilogy

trilogy1The Secret of The Box
Book One

Sedona, Arizona is the setting for this story of magic, the kind a man and a woman create after meeting in Boynton Canyon, a story that shows the difference between a romance and a love story, a love story that goes beyond the grave. Told against a backdrop of incredible beauty and a Sedona full moon, it is rich with “other world” mystery, a story about starting over, about never giving up. Kathleen McGuire, a writer who has never had the courage to allow anyone to see her “scribblings”, meets Tom Benda, who is searching for love, something he has never experienced. To her annoyance, Jake, her crusty and opinionated spirit guide, accompanies them, doling out words of wisdom and guidance.

It is the beginning of a twelve-hour period that unwinds like the slow opening of a present, each scene drawing the reader closer to the gift inside, the contents of a box Kathleen’s mother bequeathed to her thirty years earlier, a box she has never opened. A shadow story weaves in and out about the parents of the two main characters, one that presents another dimension to the journey they are both on. She is also haunted by painful flashbacks from her childhood, coupled with memories of the final hours of her husband, Richard’s life. Tom becomes the instrument that not only helps Kathleen face the anguish of Richard’s death, but also unlocks her unremembered childhood trauma. After a night filled with magical experiences and dangerous adventures, Kathleen finds her courage. Tom urges her to go home and open the box. After a sensual several hours in Tom’s condo he tells her he loves her. Kathleen flees without telling him where she lives. Once home, Kathleen realizes she loves Tom and must find him again.

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The Secret of The Stone
Book Two

Book Two traces the relationship between Kathleen and her childhood friend, Sam Higashi. Through the years, as they bond, facing trauma’s together, Sam always expects that one day he and Kathleen will be married. Kathleen, on the other hand, flits from one painful relationship to another, never dreaming that Sam loves her deeply. Before Kathleen leaves for UK to trace her beloved Scottish grandmother’s roots, she has lunch with Sam. She wants to find out what meaning a stone has that her grandmother left along with other mementoes. Sam tells her he is going to read a book while she’s gone that his father wrote about the years he and Sam’s mother spent in a Japanese relocation camp during World War II. They quarrel when Sam finds out that Kathleen will be staying at the home of an Internet friend named Edward MacKinnon, someone she has never met. Kathleen knows that her spirit guide, Jake, will be darting in and out as he keeps a close watch on her. He is fully aware of her tendency to get herself in trouble.

Our story traces Sam’s roots as well as Kathleen’s. She spends time with a cousin in northern England where she has flashbacks to a life there in the early part of the 16th century. It leaves her badly shaken. Sam is concerned that Kathleen’s relationship with Eddie is more than a friendship and realizes he has to stop Kathleen, who has been divorced once and widowed once, before she ventures into a third marriage. He is determined to fly to Scotland to tell her he loves her. He is tired of trying to catch her between husbands. Finding Kathleen causes a deep sorrow in Sam even as Kathleen is reeling from the shock of her grandmother’s life and secrets her grandmother and Jake share with her in a cave near the village of Luss.

 

The Secret of the Photo
Book Three

Once his wife confesses to many years of infidelity along with her desire for a divorce, Wayne MacDonald spends a year in a cabin in the woods hoping to heal. Afterwards, having arrived at the decision that he never again wants anything to do with a woman, he buys a home in Colorado and starts researching the MacDonald clan on the Internet. He begins having visions of another era, another woman. The visions entice him with their intensity. In the grips of despair, he finds himself falling in love with the woman in the vision. The Eagle Squadrons of the Royal Air force, during World War II intrigue him. He doesn’t understand this as airplanes have never interested him. While looking through a website about the Eagle Squadrons he sees a photo of a group of pilots standing in front of a plane. It jolts him. He realizes that he knows all the men in the photo, a picture taken before he was born, and he is one of them.

Wayne meets Kathleen McGuire, now grandmother of 8, on a Scottish Clan site on the Internet. They make plans to go to Scotland together to visit the site of the MacDonald Massacre and try to find out why they are both experiencing flashbacks to that terrible day. Prior to that, they decide to meet at the airport in Denver where Kathleen has a layover as she flies to visit friends in Omaha. Both feel this will give them an opportunity to get acquainted. Wayne’s hostility towards women doesn’t include grandmothers so he assumes Kathleen is not a threat. Upon meeting her, he is angry to find out that not only does she hardly look like a grandmother, she is one of the most attractive women he’s ever met. Kathleen is disconcerted with his surly attitude. It is not a good way to start a trip together.

But start one they do as we sweep through two different lifetimes with Kathleen and Wayne battling in one and Aimee and Brad in love in another.

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