Book Spotlight & Giveaway: To Live Forever




Publication Date: March 1, 2014 
Publisher: World Hermit Press 
Formats: eBook, Paperback 
Genre: General Fiction/Paranormal 

 Is remembrance immortality? Nobody wants to be forgotten, least of all the famous. 

 Meriwether Lewis lived a memorable life. He and William Clark were the first white men to reach the Pacific in their failed attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. Much celebrated upon their return, Lewis was appointed governor of the vast Upper Louisiana Territory and began preparing his eagerly-anticipated journals for publication. But his re-entry into society proved as challenging as his journey. Battling financial and psychological demons and faced with mounting pressure from Washington, Lewis set out on a pivotal trip to the nation’s capital in September 1809. His mission: to publish his journals and salvage his political career. He never made it. He died in a roadside inn on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee from one gunshot to the head and another to the abdomen. 

Was it suicide or murder? His mysterious death tainted his legacy and his fame quickly faded. Merry’s own memory of his death is fuzzy at best. All he knows is he’s fallen into Nowhere, where his only shot at redemption lies in the fate of rescuing another. An ill-suited “guardian angel,” Merry comes to in the same New Orleans bar after twelve straight failures. Now, with one drink and a two-dollar bill he is sent on his last assignment, his final shot at escape from the purgatory in which he’s been dwelling for almost 200 years. Merry still believes he can reverse his forgotten fortunes. 

 Nine-year-old Emmaline Cagney is the daughter of French Quarter madam and a Dixieland bass player. When her mother wins custody in a bitter divorce, Emmaline carves out her childhood among the ladies of Bourbon Street. Bounced between innocence and immorality, she struggles to find her safe haven, even while her mother makes her open her dress and serve tea to grown men. 

 It isn’t until Emmaline finds the strange cards hidden in her mother’s desk that she realizes why these men are visiting: her mother has offered to sell her to the highest bidder. To escape a life of prostitution, she slips away during a police raid on her mother’s bordello, desperate to find her father in Nashville. 

Merry’s fateful two-dollar bill leads him to Emmaline as she is being chased by the winner of her mother’s sick card game: The Judge. A dangerous Nowhere Man convinced that Emmaline is the reincarnation of his long dead wife, Judge Wilkinson is determined to possess her, to tease out his wife’s spirit and marry her when she is ready. That Emmaline is now guarded by Meriwether Lewis, his bitter rival in life, further stokes his obsessive rage. 

 To elude the Judge, Em and Merry navigate the Mississippi River to Natchez. They set off on an adventure along the storied Natchez Trace, where they meet Cajun bird watchers, Elvis-crooning Siamese twins, War of 1812 re-enactors, Spanish wild boar hunters and ancient mound dwellers. Are these people their allies? Or pawns of the perverted, powerful Judge? 

 After a bloody confrontation with the Judge at Lewis’s grave, Merry and Em limp into Nashville and discover her father at the Parthenon. Just as Merry wrestles with the specter of success in his mission to deliver Em, The Judge intercedes with renewed determination to win Emmaline, waging a final battle for her soul. Merry vanquishes the Judge and earns his redemption. As his spirit fuses with the body of Em’s living father, Merry discovers that immortality lives within the salvation of another, not the remembrance of the multitude.


About the Author



Hey. I’m Andra Watkins. I’m a native of Tennessee, but I’m lucky to call Charleston, South Carolina, home for 23 years. I’m the author of ‘To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis’, coming March 1, 2014. It’s a mishmash of historical fiction, paranormal fiction and suspense that follows Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) after his mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in 1809. 

 I like: 
 hiking 
eating (A lot; Italian food is my favorite.)
traveling (I never met a destination I didn’t like.) 
reading (My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo.) 
coffee 
performing (theater, singing, public speaking, playing piano) 
time with my friends 
Sirius XM Chill 
yoga (No, I can’t stand on my head.) 
writing in bed candlelight 

 I don’t like: 
 getting up in the morning 
cilantro (It is the devil weed.) 
surprises (For me or for anyone else.) 
house cleaning 
cooking

Author Links


Natchez Trace Walk

The Natchez Trace is a 10,000-year-old road that runs from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. Thousands of years ago, animals used its natural ridge line as a migratory route from points in the Ohio River Valley to the salt licks in Mississippi. It was logical for the first Native Americans to settle along the Trace to follow part of their migrating food supply. When the Kaintucks settled west of the Appalachians, they had to sell their goods at ports in New Orleans or Natchez, but before steam power, they had to walk home. The Trace became one of the busiest roads in North America.


To launch To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis, I am the first living person to walk the 444-mile Natchez Trace as the pioneers did since the rise of steam power in the 1820′s. From March 1, 2014 to April 3, 2014, I walked fifteen miles a day. Six days a week. One rest day per week. I spent each night in the modern-day equivalent of stands, places much like Grinder’s Stand, where Meriwether Lewis died from two gunshot wounds on October 11, 1809.

To Live Forever Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, July 21
Review at Unshelfish

Tuesday, July 22
Excerpt at Making My Mark

Thursday, July 24

Friday, July 25
Review at Mel’s Shelves

Monday, July 28
Review at Ryann Donnelly
Excerpt & Giveaway at Paranormal Book Club

Wednesday, July 30
Review at The Worm Hole

Monday, August 4
Spotlight & Giveaway at Reading Lark

Wednesday, August 6
Spotlight & Giveaway at Mina’s Bookshelf

Thursday, August 7
Review at Mythical Books

Monday, August 11
Guest Post at Lost in Books

Tuesday, August 12

Wednesday, August 13
Review at The Readers Hollow

Monday, August 18
Spotlight & Giveaway at Susan Heim on Writing

Wednesday, August 20

Wednesday, August 21
Interview at Tower of Babel

Monday, August 25
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, August 26
Review & Giveaway at My Tangled Skeins Book Reviews

Monday, September 1
Spotlight at Bibliophilia, Please

Tuesday, September 3

Wednesday, September 4
Review at Brooke Blogs


As part of the blog tour we are able to offer our readers one copy of To Live Forever. This giveaway is only open to US residents who are 18+ years of age.

The giveaway runs from 8/4-11. Winner will be notified via email on 8/12.

Comments

  1. A unique, and intriguing book which interests me greatly.Thanks for this feature and giveaway. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just got back from a vacation to New Orleans and would love to "extend" my vacation with this book!

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  3. It is a great book, and not just saying that because the author is a good friend. A seriously good read.

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