Book Review of Open Door
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Open Door
By Christine Locke
Blurb
:
ENTRANCING
OPPORTUNITIES BECKON A YOUNG GIRL...
It's 1987, and 16-year-old Carin White desperately needs her first job. An elegant woman she's never met appears at her door offering employment. "Aunt" Helen asks Carin to work for her on the family's rambling, enigmatic estate in the tiny resort town of Eureka Springs.
IN A WORLD WHERE NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS...
Carin takes little notice of Rafe Allen, Helen's other hired help. But a brutal assault forces Carin to confront her own capacity for violence. Carin learns her mother concealed her identity from her, and the mansion hides horrific secrets of its own.
AND ONLY LOVE CAN SAVE HER.
Carin exposes the truth about her presence on the estate. Will she be strong enough to recognize love and redeem her family legacy? Or will the temptations of power and control lure her to the same dark places where others lost themselves?
Notes to Readers:
This novel is NOT about werewolves, vampires, or fallen angels. It is a story about magic. The gothic Mallace Mansion lives and breathes as a character, and only one woman controls its Legacy. Is Carin the one? Read OPEN DOOR to find out.
This novel does NOT have a cliffhanger ending. The author does not believe in them. The story is complete in itself, and the ending points the way to a new storyline for IN TIME, the second novel in the Legacy Trilogy due out this Halloween.
OPEN DOOR is a full length novel at over 46,000 words.
About the
Author:
Christine Locke was born in
California and grew up in various locations around the United States as a Navy
brat. She was the oldest of six children and today is mother and step-mother to
seven. She attended Texas A&M University, receiving her Master of Arts
degree in Comparative Literature in 1995.Christine has worked as a writing instructor, a salesperson, and an award-winning retail manager and management trainer, among other things. Today, she co-ordinates makeovers for a local magazine. She and her husband, Mike, live with their children, two dogs, and two cats in Arkansas.
For years, Christine has been writing novels around her work and family life. Open Door is her first published novel. Several other manuscripts are almost ready to follow Open Door onto Amazon KDP, including the Open Door sequel, In Time.
Contacts:
Twitter: @wrtrdoll and @CarinsGriffin
christinelockebooks.blogspot.com
christinelockebooks.blogspot.com
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Excerpt:
Open Door
The Legacy Series, Volume One
for my husband, Mike
Chapter One
December 1987
Matthew
Thomas did not know the reason for today’s invitation. His briefcase contained little more than
paper and pens for note taking. The
lines around his eyes deepened as he recalled the quiet strain in Miss Anne’s
voice when she called. “Come to the
Estate at seven o’clock this evening, Matthew, or whenever suits you best, of
course.”
Matthew
knew when Anne Mallace said, “come at such-and-such a time or whenever suits
you,” it meant, “come at such-and-such a time.”
However, he understood her care with words. Each exercised caution with the other in
the years since Matthew took over the small legal practice from his father.
Their firm served
the legal needs of the largest local estate and its family, among other
clients. In fact, his family had taken
care of the Mallace family for as long as anyone knew, for as long as there had
been a town with a courthouse and a need for attorneys. They worked quietly, never engaging in
politics or local intrigue as colorful characters came and went in the small
resort town since before the Civil War.
The lawyers of Thomas and Son wrote the wills and handled the more quiet
divorces, adoptions and minor legal troubles of many of the town’s less
flamboyant, permanent citizens.
Now,
on the veranda, Matthew faced an unprecedented puzzle. He shook himself again, warding off an odd
but familiar sensation, stronger now than he had ever known it to be. He breathed the uncharacteristically cold
December air. The still freeze had
already begun; icy air crept right through his jacket and up the hems of his
trousers. Yet he hesitated, not lifting a hand to the knocker. Matthew stood before an open door.
Miss
Anne never left the door ajar. Given
tonight’s weather, it was an unsettling find.
The towering oaks at the front of Mallace Estate’s grounds cracked with
the plummeting temperature, groaning with the change. Matthew lowered his chin, fighting the urge
to look up. He resisted his desire for
the driver’s seat of his large black sedan and the quick drive to his own
comfortable home. He was here. He was invited. He must go in and find Anne; she was nearly
ninety and could have come to harm.
This
thought--and all the courage he could summon—enabled Matthew to cross the
threshold of Mallace Mansion. He grasped
the great door handle in his firm grip and swung the door, expecting the squeak
of old hinges to announce his presence.
The hard sole of his shoe trod the stone floor of the arched entry
sending soft echoes throughout. He
scanned the darkness within. The hall
was very cold, as cold as the veranda.
Matthew, worried now, closed the door and turned up his collar. He had little light by which to
investigate. His misgivings increased as
he found the light came from one small lamp in the front living room, just
around the corner to his right.
Perhaps
she is asleep, he thought. He cleared
his throat. “Miss Anne,” he announced,
“It’s Matthew. I’ve come, just as you
asked.” No one answered. His throat closed a little and a chill other
than the winter’s air rushed up his spine.
It tingled the back of his neck where his hair grew gray. He stepped into the living room.
Anne
might have slept in the chair where she sat, but he knew this was not the
case. The fire dwindled under the
andirons, yet her lamp still burned beside her.
Her left hand, frail and thin, rested on the arm of her chair, stretched
gently toward the little table.
Crouching
down so that his head was lower than Anne’s quiet face, Matthew lifted the page
of her stationary from the table just beyond her fingers. His name was etched on the outer fold in her
old-fashioned handwriting.
“Matthew,”
it said inside, “You are welcome to invite all you will find necessary to take
care of things.”
This
did not surprise him. His father taught
him, years ago, to expect something like it.
“We all do this once, my son,” Mr. Thomas explained at the time, “Pray
it is no more than that in your lifetime.”
Yet the second part of Miss Anne’s note gave Matthew unanticipated
concern, considering his responsibility and his peculiar situation.
“As
for the other matter,” she wrote, “you will not find her. Henry will, but you must not ask him. There is too much danger. Watch for her. Watch for her mother. Come to them when they are together in this
house. I invite you. Anne Mallace”
Matthew
called the doctor and closed up the mansion.
He filed papers and made certain inquiries. Always, in the months that followed, Matthew
Thomas kept the final words of Anne Mallace in the breast pocket of his
suit. Through all that would happen, he
pondered her requests, and he watched.
Book Review:
I loved this book. The magic of the house was charming. The Mallace family may or may not have
multiple members. No-one is exactly
certain… but you’ll have to read the book to find out why that is. Anne Mallace leaves her attorney Matthew a cryptic
note on the night she dies.
I give this book 4.5 out of 5
clouds.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
