Yesterday over on the John 3:16 blog, Robin Johns Grant gave a little background about her latest novel, a YA
suspense called Jordan’s Shadow. As promised, here is
an excerpt. But first, a little background:
*~*~*~*
The Crosby family has a frightening problem. Is it
psychological? Supernatural? Or something entirely unexpected?
In 1984, seventeen-year-old Rose and her fiancé discover an
injured girl with no memory. The girl, Jordan, is in Rose’s life for a brief
time but leaves her world shattered.
Twenty-five years later, Rose Crosby’s daughter Ginny can’t
understand why her relationship with her mother has fallen apart. Ginny could
swear that Rose is terrified of her lately.
Then one awful day, Ginny overhears Rose confessing that she
truly is terrified of Ginny—because to her, every day Ginny grows more and more
and more like Jordan, the girl who's been dead many years. In fact, she swears
that somehow, Ginny is turning into Jordan.
Is Ginny’s mom insane? Is there a ghost in their house,
threatening to possess Ginny? Or is the demon in Rose's past, forcing her to
confront what happened on that horrible day in 1984 when Jordan was killed?
As a new girl in a small town, Ginny doesn’t have much of a
support system. Her old girlfriends from Atlanta have drifted away, and the
only friends she’s made are, strangely enough, guys. Alec Matthews is gorgeous,
but is he really interested in Ginny’s well-being? And then there’s Max
Ferguson, the recently-born-again science nerd. He’s definitely on Ginny’s side,
but is he a little too strange?
Strengthened by a deepening relationship with one of these
two, Ginny undertakes a mind-bending journey of discovery—discovery about
faith, eternity, and love beyond the boundaries of space and time. She will put
to rest a mystery that has haunted her family for two generations—if she can
survive.
*~*~*~*
Ms. Shaw cooed,
“Ben, why don’t we just let Rose talk right now? Rose, can you tell me what
exactly you do think is happening?”
A long, long
silence. When Mom started to speak, she sounded out of breath, gasping for air
every few words. “I started noticing it a couple of years ago—or I don’t know,
maybe even sooner. You know how girls change when they hit puberty. Overnight,
she started looking so different. Not like the little girl I’d had. But that’s
not what disturbed me. At first, I just had this nagging feeling that not only
did she not look like Ginny anymore, but she did look like someone
else.”
“Jordan?”
“Yes. The bone
structure in her face, her height…she was so tall. The way her hair lifted away
from her forehead—in fact, Ginny complained to me one day that she wished she
could get it to lie down sleek and straight and I looked at her and saw that
the fullness, the way it fanned back was just like Jordan’s. I mean…so many
physical things. Her golden eyes—”
“Okay, but there’s
probably a good explanation for her gold eyes, right?” said Ms. Shaw.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know you
all said that Jordan’s eyes were very much like Livvy’s. Your sister would be
Ginny’s aunt, so it would be natural for her eyes to be that color.”
“But Ginny’s
weren’t always so gold like that.”
“Of course they
were,” Daddy scoffed. “Or anyway…they were a kind of gold-brown, and I think
she’s just using some make-up or something that makes them look a little
different now.”
“Anyway, there were
other things. The way her voice got so husky and deep, exactly like Jordan’s.
The way she walks. The way she twists her hair around her fingers when she gets
nervous.”
“Rose, that’s all
complete garbage! Little stuff, that you could notice about anybody if you
started looking,” Daddy said.
“I tried to tell
myself that for a long time, Ben. And then one day I took Ginny with me to
visit Mamma in the nursing home. When I had been visiting Mamma, she hardly
even reacted. Never moved or spoke. But when I took Ginny, she knew her, too.”
Ms. Shaw’s voice
sounded sharp for the first time. “How can you possibly know that? Your mother
can’t talk.”
“She did when she
saw Ginny. She called her Jordan. She hummed the song that Jordan used to hum.
Mamma saw it, too.”
“That’s when all
this started, I guarantee you,” Daddy declared. “Carla Remington’s brain was
completely fried by that stroke. She’s said maybe five words since she had it,
and they never make sense when she does.
But all because she spit out the name ‘Jordan’ when Ginny came in the
room—”
“It wasn’t only
because of that. That was just confirmation.”
“Look, Rose…why
doesn’t anyone else see what you see? Why doesn’t Anna recognize her? You don’t,
right, Anna?”
“I…I can see a
small resemblance…maybe. To tell you the truth, I can hardly remember what the
girl looked like. But I don’t think my memories are all that relevant. I just
want to know what Rose thinks. What do you believe is going on with Ginny? Are
you saying you think Ginny is possessed?”
Ginny felt dizzy.
She pressed her hand against her forehead and fought the urge to get up and
flee the room.
“I don’t just want
to know what Rose believes,” Daddy said. “I want to know what she plans to do
about it.”
“What?”
“I’m scared to
death about all this, and not just because it sounds so bizarre. I’m almost
sure she’s been trying to poison Ginny.”
Mom’s voice sounded
strangled. “Ben, you’re not…surely you don’t think I made Ginny sick? That I would
ever make her sick on purpose?”
“Not the Rose that
I’ve known all these years, no. But this one, the one that’s filled with all
these delusions…yes, I do.”
Ginny started to
shake her head. She wanted to shout at him to be quiet, he didn’t know what he
was talking about. She pulled herself to her feet and jerked open the door of
Max’s room.
*~*~*~*
Robin Johns Grant published her first novel, Summer’s Winter, in 2014, and her second suspense novel, Jordan’s Shadow, has just been released. Summer's
Winter won a bronze medal in the Romance - Suspense category of the
International Readers' Favorite Book Awards, and Robin was named 2014 Author of
the Year by the Georgia Association of College Stores.
Family and friends are happy that Robin’s imagination is
finally paying off. She’s always had way too much of it. She started making up
stories before she could write them down (dictating them to her mother) and
always had her head in the clouds. She was obsessed with books and movies like
Harry Potter and Star Wars and
did a lot of crazy fan stuff, which helped her dream up Jeanine and
Jamie’s story for Summer's Winter. It’s a romantic suspense novel,
but as John Granger (author of The
Deathly Hallows Lectures) said, it’s also “a romance-thriller about
fandoms…and explores the important intersection of literature,
spirituality, and imagination.”
As a Christian, Robin can’t help but explore spirituality in
her writing, but wants to do so in a way that reflects the awe and wonder of God
and eternity.
With a degree in English, several non-fulfilling jobs under
her belt, and a mid-life crisis coming on, Robin returned to school and earned
a master's degree in library and information science. She now has her best day
job ever as a college librarian, which keeps her young by allowing her to hang
out with students.
With her wonderful husband Dave and formerly feral felines
Mini Pearl and Luna, Robin lives in Georgia. She is also surprised
to find herself part owner of a pit bull named Pete, who showed up as a starving
stray puppy at her mother's house.
Keep up with Robin at these sites:
Amazon (read about and purchase her books): http://amazon.com/author/robinjohnsgrant
Website and blog: http://robinjohnsgrant.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinjohnsgrant
