The Summer We Lost Alice

Book excerpt: The defining moments of young Ethan Opochensky's life occurred during the summer he spent with his cousin Alice in the small, rural town of Meddersville. Three children disappeared that summer, his cousin among them. Nine-year-old Ethan believes he knows the killer, but his story is so fanciful, it is dismissed out of hand. Twenty-five years later, children are once again disappearing in Meddersville. Ethan returns to Meddersville to separate fact from childish fantasy, to discover the truth behind Alice's disappearance, and to bring her killer to justice. The Summer We Lost Alice is a story of loss and grief, of courage, of family, and ultimately, of healing and the triumph of an enduring spirit. Full length novel. Contains paranormal elements, a trace of mild language, no explicit sex. No child violence. Keywords: witch, reincarnation, dog, psychic, skeptic, murder, evil, love, family, mystery, death, afterlife. * * * From the author: My mother's name was "Alice." She grew up dirt poor on a small Kansas farm. We don't have too many photos from that time, but we do have two that stand out. The first is a snapshot of my mother as a little girl, with her older sister and a dog. My mother wears a cereal box on her head like a crown. This photo inspired the scene in the book where Alice crowns herself Queen of Bohemia. My family on my father's side came from Bohemia, so there's another family connection (and the explanation for my strangely vowel-impoverished last name). The second photo shows my mother, probably about age five, with her two older sisters. The sisters stand behind her in their black dresses, looking very dour, while my mother in her light-colored dress plays with her fingers and smiles winsomely at the camera. That's the spirit I wanted to capture in my fictional Alice. My first book, Risen, is a supernatural thriller about people coming back from the dead, not as zombies, but perfectly healthy. The idea was to explore the question: What is the value of life without death? The Summer We Lost Alice (a more mainstream book, not a horror novel) is also about rebirth. I was able to play with differing viewpoints about the afterlife, from the skeptic's point of view (Ethan, in the story) to the spiritual believer's (Heather) with a touch of traditional faith (Flo). It's a story of loss and how it destroys a family, and how that family manages to come together to heal itself. All wrapped in the guise of a paranormal mystery/thriller. And there's a dog, of course. Old Boo. Got to have a dog.