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That was Marshall McLuhan's advice anyway. I invite readers to submit their own or other works (pg. 69 only of course!) via the Contact Form here.

That was Marshall McLuhan’s advice anyway. I invite readers to submit their own or other works (pg. 69 only of course!) via the Contact Form here.

Welcome back, Claire Fullerton!

Today I’m excited to turn the blog over to guest Claire Fullerton. You may remember her visit last month when she talked about her latest book, Dancing to an Irish Reel. Not only is she taking the Page 69 Challenge with her excerpt below, but she’s generously agreed to host my blog today, freeing me up for a big weekend with family and friends. My youngest daughter (and occasional co-author) is graduating from University, and we’re celebrating her achievements as well as our emancipation from tuition bills for four children. (We’re already giddy with anticipation of vast disposable wealth!)

Here's to making that last tuition payment!

Here’s to making that last tuition payment!

So just before the bubbly starts to flow, please join me in welcoming Claire!

Guest Blogger Claire Fullerton: Déjà vu as literary inspiration?

Claire Fullerton is the author of “Dancing to an Irish Reel” (Literary Fiction) and “A Portal in Time,” (Paranormal Mystery), both from Vinspire Publishing. She is an award winning essayist, a contributor to magazines, a five time contributor to the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series, and a former newspaper columnist. Claire grew up in Memphis, and now lives in Malibu, CA with her husband, two German shepherds and one black cat. Currently, she is writing her third novel.

Claire Fullerton is the author of “Dancing to an Irish Reel” (Literary Fiction) and “A Portal in Time,” (Paranormal Mystery), both from Vinspire Publishing. She is an award winning essayist, a contributor to magazines, a five time contributor to the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series, and a former newspaper columnist. Claire grew up in Memphis, and now lives in Malibu, CA with her husband, two German shepherds and one black cat. Currently, she is writing her third novel.

The idea for A Portal in Time came from a trip my husband and I took up the California coast to Carmel-by-the-Sea, which lays on the Monterey Peninsula. It was our one year anniversary, and we’d made reservations at an historic hotel. Everything about the lobby of the hotel piqued my interest, and as my husband checked us in, I let my imagination roam, taking in every inch of the opulent lobby, with its travertine floors, sand-stone fireplace, and sweeping Mediterranean tiled staircase.

As I walked through the lobby, I unleashed my imagination and pretended I was in my own house. I left my husband behind and followed a particular hallway from the lobby, where sepia tinted photographs dated from 1902 depicted people in period clothing beside horse drawn carriages. At the realization that everyone in the photographs ahd long since left this earth, an eerie feeling settled upon me. Beside the pictures were architectural plans of somebody’s home, and as I looked closely, I realized the hotel I was standing in began as someone’s private residence.

Walking up the staircase, a wooden cathedral door loomed ominously at the end of the hall. “Surely,” I thought, “this was once a master bedroom.” I considered the position of the room and decided there must be a window that looked out over the gardens below and travelled in clear view of the sea. Visualizing myself in period clothing, I imagined standing before the window, scanning the grounds below intently and purposefully.

I believe energy lingers in historic sites, that memory is retained within walls like an indelible record of history. So firm am I in this belief, that on our first night at the hotel, I tapped my husband on the shoulder at two in the morning. “It’s so haunted around here that I can’t sleep,” I reported. I ruminated for the following hour, while the story of “A Portal in Time” unfolded in my mind’s eye.

“A Portal in Time” is the imagined life that brought me to that window at the top of the stairs in Carmel-by-the-Sea’s historic hotel. I knew the story could only be told in alternating time periods with an uncanny bridge to a specific destination. I wanted to give my readers a paranormal experience, to take them on the journey just as I imagined it while visiting California’s Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Pg. 69 Challenge: A Portal in Time by Claire Fullerton

APortalinTime 448x336Genre: Paranormal Mystery

When we are inexplicably drawn to love and a particular place, is it coincidence, or have we loved before?

Enigmatic and spirited Anna Lucera is gifted with an uncanny sixth-sense and is intrigued by all things mystical. When her green, cat-eyes and long, black hair capture the attention of a young lawyer named Kevin Townsend, a romance ensues which leads them to the hauntingly beautiful region of California’s Carmel-By-The-Sea where Anna is intuitively drawn to the Madiera Hotel. Everything about the hotel and Carmel-By-The-Sea heightens her senses and speaks to Anna as if she had been there before. As Anna’s memory unravels the puzzle, she is drawn into a past that’s eerily familiar and a life she just may have lived before.

PG. 69 Excerpt

“Interesting.” Kevin swung his legs back onto the table and lay down.

ca_carmel_by01“It is extremely interesting. Again, I work with my hands. There are only three other people in the class I’m taking. Two of them work visually to obtain the same information I look for, and by that I mean they can stand across the room from someone and be able to ‘see’ what’s going on.”

“In the auric field,” Kevin added.

“Yes. Keep in mind that it’s an intuitive art.”

“Then you ought to be good at this.” Kevin thought of the numerous times Anna had called him the second he was thinking of her, how often she finished his sentences when they were half-way out of his mouth, how she could verbalize a suggestion he had not yet fully formed, and more often than not how she effortlessly read his mind.

“Okay,” he threw in the proverbial towel, “let’s get started.”

Anna stepped to the massage table and hovered over Kevin, her hands stretched out over his body, her eyes closed, with an intent look upon her face as if she were listening for something. She drew her hands up into the air above him and slowly began to ease them downward. They stopped a foot above him. She drew them up again and brought them back down to the same point. It was as if an invisible wall precluded her from going beyond that particular spot, so she stepped to the top of the table and made a sweep of the air with her graceful hands from his head to his toes. She repeated the movement twice, then stopped and placed her hands directly above his solar plexus.

“What are you finding?” Kevin asked.

“I’m looking at your third chakra.”

“Why?”

“Because there seems to be some stagnation there.”

“Meaning what?”

“The third chakra relates to one’s sense of self. I’m…”

  • Title: A Portal in Time
  • Author: Claire Fullerton
  • Genre: Paranormal Mystery
  • Publisher: Vinspire Publishing
  • Date of Publication: November 22, 2013
  • Number of pages: 172

Sounds good? Get more information or your copy of A Portal In Time from: 

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Blog | Facebook

Déjà vu, from French, literally “already seen”, is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced, has already been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not.–Wikipedia

Is it Groundhog Day? The Matrix? Or just another senior moment? Has déjà vu ever stopped you in your tracks? What happened next?