Wake Robin Ridge – Joan Hall

Hey everyone! I’m over the moon excited to welcome Marcia Meara as my guest today. She recently released The Light, the fourth in her Wake Robin Ridge Series. Marcia is a very talented author, and if you haven’t read any of her books, I highly recommend you doing so.

Today she’s going to talk about her new book and a mysterious phenomenon called the Brown Mountain Lights. You may recall some time ago I wrote about the Marfa Lights which are found in far west Texas, so I’m very intrigued.

Take it away, Marcia!

Thank you so much for having me here today, Joan! I’m pretty excited to be sharing the release of my latest book, The Light: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 4, with your readers, and I hope they’ll enjoy checking it out, along with the first three books in the series:

Wake-Robin Ridge

A Boy Named Rabbit

Harbinger

Happy New Year to All!

I can’t remember when I first heard about the infamous Brown Mountain Lights, but the writer in me instantly fell in love with the very idea of such an unexplained phenomenon in this day and age. A Blue Ridge Mountain ridge with mysterious lights that hover above it on random nights, then disappear with no explanation? Oh, the endless possibilities for use in a shivery story—especially one already set in those mountains, involving a little boy with a special gift and all sorts of Appalachian legends and ghosts! All I could think was, “Let the research begin!”

And so, it did.

Days later I finally reached a definite conclusion about the Brown Mountain Lights. Nobody knows for sure what they are. Period.

Theories have run amok for a very, very long time, ranging from swamp gas to ball lightning to alien life forms, and most have been easily shot down. But over the decades, not one person has proved conclusively what causes these strange lights or why they only appear on random, seemingly unrelated occasions.

A few serious studies were carried out, but the results are less than satisfying. Recent ones suggest the lights are the result of distant trains and automobiles. Really? That would surely surprise the Cherokee people since—long before trains or automobiles existed in this country—they’ve believed them to be the spirits of warriors lost in battle.

As for myself, I have no idea what causes these strange, entrancing lights, but oddly enough, Rabbit’s thoughts on the matter echo mine. 😊 I believe we’ll solve the mystery someday, and it will likely turn out to be a natural occurrence of one sort or another. After all, we are learning new things about nature every day, so that wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to have Rabbit ask to see the lights for himself, so I sent the Cole family off on a Halloween night expedition. Suffice it to say, Rabbit got more than he bargained for, and the experience was the beginning of a brand-new mystery I hope you’ll find intriguing.

Blurb:

The Magic is Back!

For Robert MacKenzie Cole—or Rabbit, as he’s known to all—the chance to accompany his family to see North Carolina’s infamous Brown Mountain Lights has him nearly dizzy with excitement. And what better night to watch this unexplained phenomenon unfold than Halloween?

But when the entrancing, unpredictable lights show up, Rabbit gets far more than he bargained for. He’s gifted with what folks in the Appalachians call “the Sight,” and it’s this extrasensory perception that enables him to spot the one light different from all the rest.

In his biggest challenge to date, Rabbit—aided by his daddy and his newest friend, Austin Dupree— begins a quest to learn more about the mysterious light. Their investigation unveils a web of cons and corruption none of them expected and exposes a brutal murder along the way.

Throughout all, Rabbit is unfaltering in his commitment to do whatever it takes to understand the truth behind the glowing orb and to determine how he can help it. After all, it followed him home.

Bio:

Marcia Meara lives in central Florida, just north of Orlando, with her husband of over thirty years, four big cats, and one small dachshund.

When not writing or blogging, she spends her time gardening and enjoying the surprising amount of wildlife that manages to make a home in her suburban yard. She enjoys nature. Really, really enjoys it. All of it! Well, almost all of it, anyway. From birds to furry critters, to her very favorites, snakes. The exception would be spiders, which she truly loathes, convinced that anything with eight hairy legs is surely up to no good. She does not, however, kill spiders anymore, since she knows they have their place in the world. Besides, her husband now handles her Arachnid Catch and Release Program, and she’s good with that.

Spiders aside, the one thing Marcia would like to tell each of her readers is that it’s never too late to make your dreams come true. If, at the age of 69, she could write and publish a book (and thus fulfill 64 years of longing to do that very thing), you can make your own dreams a reality, too. Go for it! What have you got to lose?

Marcia has published seven novels, two novellas, and one book of poetry to date, all of which are available on Amazon: