Hi friends,
Keeping this a secret was so hard, but I have some super exciting news for you!
I had the pleasure of interviewing Cathy Cash Spellman who is releasing her newest book Lark’s Labyrinth which is set to hit digital shelves November 29th! I also have 5 copies of this eBook for 5 lucky subscribers, so be sure to enter the giveaway linked below! This giveaway will run from NOVEMBER 24TH – NOVEMBER 26TH!
Also huge thank you to Diana from Trident Media Group for helping set up this interview and giveaway!
Lark’s Labyrinth Giveaway Entry
About the Book:
Synopsis:
The Spear that pierced Christ’s side on the Cross has played a secret, but major role in history. Charlemagne, Constantine, Otto the Barbarian, The Knights Templar and Adolf Hitler all owned it… and believed it gave them the power to rule the world. What if they were right? The first time Dr. Cait Monahan ever heard of the Spear of Longinus was the night her husband was murdered because of it. That was when the terror began. …right before the U.S. Government, the CIA, Neo Nazis, the Vatican and a secret cabal of 13 powerful global manipulators sent their assassins after her and her 9-year-old. …just before a lethal secret propelled her across Europe following a riddle that hadn’t been solved since the Holocaust. …just before Cait Monahan became entrapped in an interdimensional labyrinth that her own husband may have helped design. Now she’s a player in a game that has led to mystery, magic, mayhem and murder for over 2000 years, and only the help of a tribunal of long dead men may be able to save her. Vibrant and cerebral, filled with intrigue, Conspiracy Theory and more ancient secrets than the Dead Sea Scrolls, Lark’s Labyrinth pits characters you’ll care about against a mystery you’ll want to solve. Inside Lark’s Labyrinth is a secret men have killed for …now a woman, her sister, her child and their small band of friends are all that stand between us and the dark, insidious power that’s a airsbreadth away from ruling the world.
Interview with the Author:
Thank you again to Cathy for taking the time out to answer these interview questions!
1. Can you tell me more about your inspiration for this book?
I discovered that the Spear used by the Centurian Longinus to kill Jesus as he hung on the cross still existed, and that it had been sought by kings and potentates through 2000 years of history because they believed it gave them the power to rule the world!
When I started to research this, I found that Hitler was so obsessed by the Spear’s power, he stole it and hid it in a bunker beneath St. Katherine’s Cathedral in Nuremburg during WWII.
General George Patton found it there, and refused to return the Spear to Washington as a spoil of war. It appears he believed he himself might have been Longinus in a previous lifetime! All this magical thinking, plus the amazing list of Rulers (Constantine, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, even a Pope or two and the Knights Templar had owned it) who had battled over the Spear, seemed like fertile ground for a story about murder, conspiracy, magic and the battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil that takes place all around us. The result of all this is Lark’s Labyrinth!
When Dr. Cait Monahan’s husband is murdered in Greenwich, Connecticut, and she finds that her 9-year-old daughter is on somebody’s hit list, she gets thrust into a treacherous labyrinth that puts her at odds with the CIA, Nazis, the Vatican, AlQuaeda and a cabal of world leaders who dabble in Black Magic. And it’s all because of the Spear of Longinus…she just doesn’t know it yet.
2. Who would you recommend this book to? What kind of reader?
My tale is definitely for anyone who loves intrigue and adventure with a mystical twist that’s both contemporary and historical. My characters are very human in their love for each other and for the truth…there’s a love story that wends it’s way throughout and a bunch of quirky characters who have each others’ back against staggering odds.
Lark’s Labyrinth is just the beginning, I’m happy to say… because the major players in my story and the mystic Hunting Lodge that helps protect Cait and Lark against the Dark Force will continue on to the next volumes of what I’m calling the Sacred Secrets Mysteries.
3. What is your favorite genre of book to write and why?
I love history, so my favorite genre is to write adventures and love stories that are either historical or take place in current time but have a link to history.
4. Who has been your favorite character to write and why?
I love Cait and Lark and Cait’s sister Meg in this book, to say nothing of the men who love Cait and the two remarkable old Grandfathers who have unusual arcane knowledge. I always feel as if my main characters become family members, and I feel very responsible for them and worry when they’re in danger!
But if we are looking beyond this current tale, I’d have to say of all my stories, my favorite character was Hart McAllister in Paint the Wind... he was an artist who longed to paint the world of the great Apache nation before it disappeared forever…he was also an honorable man who loved his brother’s wife and was hung on the cross of that triangle throughout a remarkable lifetime that parallels the winning of the west.
5. What are some attributes you like your characters have to help make them stand out?
I want my characters to be flesh and blood…passionate and vulnerable to all the lusts and temptations we all are. I admire courage and fortitude in the face of the odds, and as I come from a long line of mystic Irish women, I like to weave in the unknown and unseen Universe whenever I can I want my characters to evoke the spirit of the times in which they live because I believe we are all a product not only of our own souls, but of the soul of whatever world epoch we inhabit.
I’ve done a great deal of healing work with shamans and medicine men and women worldwide… I’ve studied with great thinkers, iconoclasts, metaphysicians and martial artists, so my thinking tends to be outside the box and I love to share what I’ve been privileged to learn, through my characters’ stories.
6. What inspired you to start writing?
I never wanted to do anything but write, although I was also trained as an artist. My parents were book lovers and when I was five or six my mother marched me to the local library and said in reverent tones “Inside that building is all the collective knowledge of mankind” I was awestruck and hooked on book for life! It also helped that my local library was a castle brought to this country brick by brick by a local modul who gifted it to the town. I had a round tower of my own in which to read the classics! An amazing sanctuary for the heart and mind.
7. What was your favorite part of writing this book?
I adored the research as well as the writing… from magic, mysticism, and religion to the political factions in our current world that lead directly back to Project Paperclip by which some of the worst criminals of the Nazi regime were given new identities and slipped into the US, into aerospace, rocketry, genetic engineering and pharmaceuticals by our own government. It was quite mind boggling to realize how much we’ve been lied to about history.
I was enamored of the idea of there being two battling secret societies – one that serves Good and one that serves Evil – vying for the soul of the world.
8. What is your favorite part of writing in general?
There’s no more gratifying way to earn your keep! I go to my desk in the wee small hours and spend my day in the company of my characters and the worlds they inhabit. I love the endless research that unearths secrets, the freedom to live in many time slots, the opportunity to explore the biggest themes, life, death, love, redemption…and the opportunity for happy endings.
Beyond all that joy, I love the interplay with readers who write me from their hearts…who tell me their own stories and let me know how very engaged they have become with my characters and their tales…That’s precisely how Lark’s Labyrinth has become the beginning of a series…so many people have asked me to continue my characters’ adventures that The Sacred Secrets Mysteries have been born!
9. What is one piece of advice you would give to new authors?
Never, ever give up your dream! Don’t listen to naysayers (it’s far easier to criticize than to create). Use every morsel of your own life and emotions as grist for your mill. If you cry, write about it…if you love, write about that. If you suffer a loss or a tragedy, don’t let it shut you down, rather incorporate the truth of your pain in what you write. Authenticity always comes through to the reader..they will feel with you in extraordinary depth. I know in my heart and from the letters I’ve received for decades that when I write a scene that makes me laugh, others laugh with me. If I cry as I write others will cry others cry, too. There’s a powerful exchange of energy engendered by the written word and it reaches out to those with ears to hear and hearts to feel…
10. What’s one question that you’ve always wanted to answer in an interview?
Q: How do you continue to be inspired…aren’t you afraid another story will never appear?
My Native American friends say a story stalks a writer. It watches and waits to see if you’ll do the legwork to be worthy of the story. If not, if you’re lazy or inauthentic, the story will abandon you and you’ll never know the true ending. They say that’s why so many books disappoint at the ending even if the rest of the book was good!
Maybe because of my psychic genes, I’ve always felt that my stories were gifts…as if a magical doorway opens and the story begins to break through. Then it’s up to me to be worthy of it by doing research, learning all there is to know about the time, the setting, what my characters had for breakfast, why they love and why they falter.
But I think what attracts a story to us is an open mind and heart. I think you must be a dreamer and allow free rein to your visions…you must pray or meditate or just call a story in by exploring some subject that speaks to you and makes you want to know more and more. I have a sense that the stories want us to tell them, just as much as we want to be the conduit for giving them life.
Maybe the bottom line is this: follow your heart and write about whatever it is you know best. If you do this, I’m certain a story will stalk you…I’d love to hear from you if that happens!
I can’t wait to pick up my copy of Lark’s Labyrinth. This book sounds like the perfect read to hold me over until The Librarians (one of my fave shows, tbh) returns!
Interested in getting your own copy? You can get Lark’s Labyrinth at any of the shops listed below!
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