BLURB:
THE
F.I.G. MYSTERIES
Dara Roux, abandoned
when she was 7 years old by her mother.
Exceptionally gifted in foreign languages. Orphan.
Mackenzie Yarborough,
no record of her parents or where she was born. Exceptionally gifted in math
and problem-solving. Orphan.
Jennifer Torres, both
parents killed in an automobile accident when she was 16. Exceptionally gifted
in music and art. Orphan.
THE CADENCE OF
GYPSIES: Book 1
Known as the F.I.G.s
(Females of Intellectual Genius), three high-spirited 17 year olds with
intelligent quotients in the genius range, accompany their teacher and mentor,
Carolina Lovel, to Frascati, Italy, a few weeks before they are to graduate
from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women. Carolina's purpose in planning the trip is to
remove her unusually gifted, creative students from the Wood Rose campus
located in Raleigh, North Carolina, so they can't cause any more problems
("expressions of creativity") for the headmaster, faculty, and other
students – which they do with regularity. Carolina also wants to visit the
Villa Mondragone where the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious document in
the world, was first discovered and attempt to find out how it is related to a
paper written in the same script she received on her 18th birthday when she was
told that she was adopted.
THE WISH RIDER: Book
2
When Carolina and the
F.I.G.s return to Wood Rose, Dara decides that she wants to try to locate her
birth mother when she learns that she might be living in New York City.
Carolina, Mackenzie, and Jennifer accompany her and their search leads them to
a secret dangerous shadow world hidden deep beneath Grand Central, constructed
in what Mackinzie identifies as chevroned magic squares—N X N matrixes in which
every row, column, and diagonal add up to the same number—and cloaked in the
discordant B flat minor key music that only Jennifer can hear.
THE CLOCK FLOWER:
Book 3
The three FIGs—Females
of Intellectual Genius—graduate from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young
Women after returning from New York City where Dara learned why her mother
abandoned her all those years ago, and they are now attending universities
where they can further their special talents. This means they will be separated
from each other and from Carolina, their much-loved mentor and teacher who is
“one of them,” for the first time in their young lives. They vow to try living
apart for one semester, in the so-called real world that doesn’t include the
orphanage; but if things don’t work out, they will come up with another plan—a
plan where they can be together once again. Dara is invited through Yale
University to take part in an exciting archeological project in China.
Jennifer, once again visualizing black and white images and the unusual sounds
of another cadence that seem to be connected to Mackenzie, is engrossed in
creating her next symphony at Juilliard. Mackenzie, because of her genius at
problem-solving, is personally chosen by a US Senator to get involved in a
mysterious, secret research project involving immortality that is being
conducted in a small village in China—not too far from where Dara is involved
with the archeological site. Once there, however, she finds herself facing a
terrifying death from the blood-dripping teeth of an ancient evil dragon. Her
best friends, the FIGs and Carolina, rely on their own unique genius and
special talents to save her as she discovers the truth of her birth parents.
THE NIGHTJAR’S
PROMISE: Book 4
Jennifer Torres, one
of the three FIGs (Females of Intellectual Genius) who is a genius in both
music and art, is the last to leave the closed rehearsal for her upcoming
performance over Thanksgiving break at Carnegie Hall when she hears something
in the darkened Hall. Recognizing the tilt of the woman’s head and the slight
limp of the man as they hurry out an exit door, she realizes it is her parents
who were supposedly killed in a terrible car accident when she was 15 years old.
Devastated and feeling betrayed, she sends a text to Carolina and the other two
FIGs—THURGOOD. It is the code word they all agreed to use if ever one of them
got into trouble or something happened that was too difficult to handle. They
would all meet back at Carolina’s bungalow at Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy
for Young Women to figure it out. As soon as they receive the text, because of
their genius, Dara starts thinking of words in ancient Hebrew, German, and
Yiddish, while Mackenzie’s visions of unique math formulae keep bringing up the
date October 11, 1943. And as Carolina waits for the FIGs to return to Wood
Rose, she hears warnings from Lyuba, her gypsy mother, to watch for the
nightjar, the ancient name for the whip-poor-will.
In their search for
“The Nightjar’s Promise” and the truth surrounding it, Carolina and the FIGs
come face to face with evil that threatens to destroy not only their genius,
but their very lives.
Excerpt One:
Excerpt from The Cadence of Gypsies
"Ouch! You're standing on my fingers!" This from the petite girl with a long, blond
ponytail, wearing a nightgown, most of which was pulled up between her legs and
tied into a knot at her waist to keep it from getting tangled on the limb where
she was perched. Somewhere above her
the sound of a saw and splintering wood filled the darkness followed by a
stream of profanity repeated in several foreign languages for emphasis.
"It
doesn't look right. It's supposed to
have a rim and a dent." Clinging to
a 12-foot ladder as she pointed the flashlight first this way and then that,
the heavy-set girl wearing a nightshirt buttoned at the neck offered this with
a slight lisp.
The girl with
the blond ponytail giggled.
"What do
you mean—dent?! Let me see that
picture." The tall black girl
completely hidden aimed her flashlight toward the magazine that was being
thrust upwards through the thick branches in her direction.
"And the
top is supposed to be rounded—like a button mushroom," the girl in the
nightshirt added, the word "mushroom" sounding more like
"muthroom."
"That's
because it's circumcised," supplied the girl with the ponytail, from which
she removed a small twig and a handful of leaves.
"Shekoo,
baboo!” More profanity. “Okay.
I know what to do." The tall
black girl disappeared back into the upper-most branches of the tall plant that
was more tree than bush. After several
additional minutes, the sawing, crunching, and clipping sounds finally gave way
to the more gentle sounds of tiny snips.
And then, silence.
"That's
it; everybody down."
The petite
girl, with the magazine that had been overlooked in the last confiscation and
now wedged firmly under her armpit, started the perilous descent first since
she was nearest to the ground, followed by the tall girl. The girl in the nightshirt eased her way down
the ladder juggling pruning shears, a hand saw, and scissors. Once on the ground, the three girls stood
back to admire their work.
"That is
one honkin' Peni erecti," said the tall girl causing a fresh explosion of
giggles. "Let's get out of
here." After quickly rolling down
the legs of her pajama bottoms, the tall girl grabbed one end of the ladder
and, along with her two friends, lugged it and the other tools back to the shed
that housed lawn maintenance equipment.
Task accomplished, they returned to their rooms, and to their individual
beds, careful not to disturb the other dorm residents, the floor monitors,
their suitemates and, most importantly, their slumbering dorm mother, Ms.
Larkins. Within minutes, they fell into
a deep, peaceful sleep—the sleep of innocent angels.
It would soon
be light; and Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women would start
another day.
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.
Ms. Casey 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. Two of her nonfiction books have
been optioned for major films, one of which is under contract.
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 Ms.
Casey 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. Ms. Casey'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).
Ms. Casey 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 Ms. Casey 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, Reese and Earl Gray - Reese’s
best friend.
www.barbaracaseyauthor.com
www.barbaracaseyagency.com
Amazon Author
Page with Buy Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Casey/e/B001K7S4IW/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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