Captured Lies by Maggie Thom

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She was kidnapped not once but twice and now someone wants her dead because of it....

Her life was a lie!

Bailey knew her upbringing wasn’t normal but she’s worked hard to stabilize her life. At 29, she finally has a good business, a stable home; her life is miles from that of her childhood. Then suddenly her mother dies, leaving a gaping hole and a discovery that they may not even be related. If Guy, the private investigator is to be believed, her life is a lie. Using the skills she learned on the streets, Bailey travels back through a sketchy and dangerous past, to find answers. Dodging bullets, staying ahead of those who want her dead and convincing Guy she can do it alone, are making it difficult to discover not only the secrets of her mother’s past but that of a family claiming she is theirs.

Everyone seems to have a story... but who’s telling the truth? And who wants her dead? Is Guy part of the solution? Or part of the problem? To discover the facts, she’ll have to untangle a web of deceit, lies, and secrets, dating back over thirty years.

But can she do it in time...

I am so happy that Maggie has agreed to share with us a litte bit about her muse.

My Muse
By Maggie Thom

I think I'm like most writers, I have a ton of ideas and not enough time to get them all down. The ones I think I'll remember I don't. I've learned to write down anything that I think I might want to use later on. My muse likes to bombard me with plots and scenes and people until I put the brakes on and choose one to play with for a while. It's not turning it on that's the problem, it's turning it off.

Here's how it works for me. Inspiration for ideas come from anything and everything. Seriously. I see someone flip a page and I'll start the 'what if' game. What if the person had no fingers. What if the person had suction cups on their fingers. What if in turning that page, they are transported to another world. What if they were on the moon doing that. The fun part is to connect things I normally wouldn't link or think of in my everyday life.

I play this game with different things I see until I find something that really intrigues me. So I take a simple thing I see, hear, smell, taste, sense, feel, and take it out of context, put it in some other situation - real or imagined - and then I play with it like a puzzle. Move this piece here, move that piece there, until I find I have something that is really interesting. Sometimes this will happen right away and other times I just need to leave it ruminate around in my brain for a while and then usually out will pop ideas. I then choose to either keep playing with the stories that are forming or I let them go. Or sometimes it all just gets lost in the abyss of my mind. :)

My muse never really takes a break. Needless to say my brain is pretty active most of the time. Don't get me wrong I've learned to shut it down so that I have quiet time, however it doesn't always play by my rules. And it doesn't always just choose the convenient hours to play this game. Some days I'll be doing something and this brilliant (well it seems like it at the time but sometimes it isn't once I really look at it) idea will come to me. Some nights I'll wake in the middle of the night with a fully formed idea, scene, outline. So then I scramble to get it down on paper so that I won't lose it.

After I have an idea I like, I'll start looking at what the story could be - the back story, who the characters are, where it is happening, why it is happening.... and on and on until my story is built and it is something I like. That's what happened with Captured Lies. The idea started simply enough, from a plane flying rather low over us. The 'what ifs' started coming to me. I ignored it for a while but then the story kept bugging me and soon I was writing scenes in my head. That's when I knew I better start getting it down on paper.

My muse is really demanding, entertaining, and fun - now that I've learned how to harness it. Well at least most of the time. How do you manage your muse?


Excerpt From Captured Lies:

“I don’t know what to say. She’s the only single thing that was constant in my life. We moved a lot. She was paranoid about everything. I assumed for a long time that it was just being a parent but other parents weren’t like her. She’d come and get me in the middle of the day, from school and I’d never see it again. Sometimes, it would be in the middle of the night.” She stood up and went over to her bed, flipping back the covers, she pulled out the tattered Miss Piggy.

“I cried for a month when I thought I’d lost her. My mom told me to get used to it. I’d lose lots in my life. Why? Why did I have to give up everything?” Her voice became thick with emotion. She hugged the doll to her chest. “There were only two things I ever asked for in my life – this,” she held up her doll, “and a home.”

“You know I was such a good kid. I did everything she ever asked of me. I was loyal to a fault. I did every scheme. Everything she wanted. And what the hell did I get in return.” She jumped up and started pacing.

“What do you mean by schemes?”

“Oh my god. My mom was a master at getting what she wanted from people. I’d play nice to old men and they’d give me money.”

His hand fisted around the cup. “What does playing nice mean?”

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Maggie Thom made the hard decision to leave her successful, twenty year career in management, to write full time. The leap was easy, the freefall was adventurous and very enlightening. When she’s not running her children around or spending time with her best friend, her husband, she’s writing - anywhere, anytime. Give her five free minutes and you’ll find her busy scribbling down ideas. She lives in the real world but loves to get lost in the lives of her characters - who live, love and laugh and are all figments of her imagination. She is thrilled to release her first novel - Captured Lies - filled with suspense, murder, mystery and romance - available October 2012. She is busy writing her second novel to be released, spring of 2013.

She can be found at:

www.maggiethom.com

www.facebook.com/authormaggiethom

www.twitter.com/authormaggiethom2

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6549592.Maggie_Thom

Book is currently available through:

Amazon

Kobo