Book Blitz: Guest Post + #Giveaway: The Stolen Twin by Michele Pariza Wacek

The Stolen Twin
Michele Pariza Wacek

Publication date: November 16th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Psychological Thriller

On the surface, Kit Caldwell has it all. A senior in college with her future ahead of her, lots of friends, lots of parties…not to mention also having the eye of Tommy, the star quarterback of the football team.
But underneath, Kit’s life is a charade, built on a foundation of secrets and lies, including one so dark it threatens to tear her world apart: her twin sister, Cat, was kidnapped when they were both seven, never to be heard from again.
That is, until one dark Halloween night.
But is it really Cat? Or is it someone else, someone playing a sinister and deadly game?
To save herself from imminent danger, Kit, with the help of Tommy and her friends, is forced to go back in time and confront her own personal demons, as she finally discovers what really happened to Cat, all those years ago.

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Guest Post by Michele Pariza Wacek

 

Why it Took Me 10 Years To Publish “The Stolen Twin”

 

Back in 1998, I quit my job to become a fulltime freelance writer/copywriter.

At the time, there were no coaching, masterminding or mentoring programs that taught you how to set up and run a successful business (or, if there were, I didn’t know about them as the Internet was still in its infancy) so I went to the Small Business Association (SBA) and got myself a counselor.
When the counselor learned what my business plans were, he invited a retired freelance writer to come in and give me some tips.
Well, her “tips” turned out to be her trying to talk me out of becoming a freelance writer. For about 45 minutes, the conversation went something like this:
“Being a freelance writer is a really difficult way to earn a living.”
“Okay, what should I do?”
“Can you get your job back?”
“No, I can’t get my job back.”
“Are you sure? It’s really difficult to earn a living as a freelance writer.”
“Yes, I’m sure I can’t get my job back.”
“You could work full time at your job and on nights and weekends do freelance work until you have enough work to quit.”
“I really can’t get my job back.”
You get the idea. Finally at the end she said “Okay, I guess I can’t talk you out of this so here are a few tips.” And she finally gave me those “tips,” which I dutifully wrote down.
We were getting read to leave when I decided to chime in and tell her “you know, one of the reasons why I’m so excited to become a freelance writer is because then I’ll have time to finally work on my novels.”
She got a look of complete horror on her face and said “Oh my God, NEVER tell anyone you’re working on fiction. You’ll NEVER get any work.”
Now, basically this woman was pretty much dead wrong on everything she told me that day. Even her “tips” were basically worthless. But, for some reason, what she told me about the novels stuck. So, I didn’t talk about my fiction very much, I especially didn’t share about the novel I had written 2002/2003.
If you do have a dream or a creative project that in your heart you know you really want to be working on (what Stephen Covey calls the “important but not urgent”) I’d love for you to take a moment and just breathe into what’s stopping you. You don’t necessarily need to do anything — just take a moment to see what’s keeping you from working on this project.
In my case, I had completely forgotten about this whole exchange until I was getting ready to publish my novel and one of my clients exclaimed “why isn’t it we’ve never heard until now that you’re publishing a novel?”
In other words, something I didn’t even remember kept me stuck.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

When Michele was 3 years old, she taught herself to read because she wanted to write stories so badly.

As you can imagine, writing has been a driving passion throughout her life. She became a professional copywriter (which is writing promotional materials for businesses), which led to her founding a copywriting and marketing company that serves clients all over the world.
Along with being a copywriter, she also writes novels (in fact, she just published her first novel, a psychological thriller/suspense/mystery called "The Stolen Twin" and her second novel "Mirror Image'" is set to be published in May 2016) plus, she is also the author of the "Love-Based Copy" books, which are a part of the "Love-Based Business" series and cover both business and personal development.
She holds a double major in English and Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently she lives in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona with her husband Paul and her border collie Nick and southern squirrel hunter Cassie. 

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Book Blitz: Excerpt + #Giveaway: Mirror Image by Michele Pariza Wacek

Mirror Image
Michele Pariza Wacek

Publication date: May 27th 2016
Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller, Suspense

Which would be worse, knowing that your dead sister has come back to life and is now a serial killer or that someone else is the killer….and that person is you?
Six months after Linda’s sister Elizabeth killed herself, Linda has finally gotten her life back to some semblance of normalcy. Until a killer appears who is stalking men … a killer who resembles Elizabeth … a killer who seems somehow familiar to Linda.
And, to make matters worse, Steve, her old high school crush and now a detective, is assigned to this case. He’s asking Linda all sorts of questions, questions Linda couldn’t possibly have an answer to.
There’s no reason for him to be investigating Linda. She couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this.
Could she?

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EXCERPT

 

hen Elizabeth was born, her mother knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hospital had made a mistake.

It had been a difficult pregnancy. Marie spent most of it in bed, nauseated, uncomfortable, exhausted. She barely kept anything down, subsisting mostly on tea and saltine crackers. When the time came to deliver, the doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section, so she wasn’t able to actually watch the birth.
She couldn’t explain it, but the first time the nurses presented her with Elizabeth, she refused to even hold the baby. “There must be some mistake,” she insisted.
“There’s no mistake,” the nurses said, their approach firm and no-nonsense.
Blond and pale, Elizabeth looked nothing like the other dark haired members of the family. But it was more than that. Elizabeth felt wrong. Marie sensed it every single time she looked at Elizabeth, touched Elizabeth, smelled Elizabeth. The baby was alien to her. Elizabeth was not her baby.
But she could do nothing about it. Her husband hadn’t seen the birth. He had refused to attend any of his children’s births. The nurses kept assuring her that no one had made, could possibly have made, a mistake. So Marie had little choice but to bring her home.
Elizabeth was different, always — strange. Marie hated to use that word about any of her children, especially her youngest, but she could find no other word to describe her. Elizabeth was strange. Period.
From birth, the baby kept quiet. Rarely fussed. Hardly cried. She started talking at six months, much earlier than the rest of her children, and started forming full sentences at just over a year old.
She spent most of her time alone or, once she learned how, reading. In fact, Elizabeth remained such a quiet child, Marie could easily forget about her. It made her nervous. Elizabeth was too quiet.
Even her scent was all wrong. Babies smelled warm and sweet, of milk and talcum powder. Elizabeth’s scent reminded her of meat just beginning to
spoil: thick and rotten.
But there was something else wrong with Elizabeth, something more serious than her near silence, her behavior, her scent. Even more serious than that alien feeling, which Marie had tried to dismiss as simple post-partum depression, although it never did go away entirely.
When Marie was really being honest with herself, which didn’t happen often, she could admit what really disturbed her most about her daughter.
Her eyes. Elizabeth had silver eyes.
Not always. Most of the time they looked gray. But sometimes, they changed to silver. Occasionally, Marie even thought she could see them glowing, like a cat’s. Especially at night. There Elizabeth would be, lying on her back, perfectly quiet in her crib, her eyes strangely open, shining faintly in the darkness. Marie would tell herself that Elizabeth’s eyes merely reflected the nightlight in a bizarre fashion. After all, none of her other children’s eyes ever glowed. But it still didn’t make her any easier to face, late at night, as silver eyes stared at her from the darkness. They seemed so old, so ancient. Eyes that had seen thousands of years and hundreds of lifetimes. Those eyes peered out from her newborn’s face, watching her every move, strangely calculating, full of adult understanding and knowledge. She felt afraid, if she were being honest … all alone in the room with those peculiar silver eyes watching, watching, always watching.
Nonsense, she reassured herself. Surely, she could not be afraid of her own infant daughter! What would her husband say? Plenty probably, and most of it with his fists.
Still, she found herself checking on Elizabeth less and less. She argued with herself: Elizabeth didn’t fuss much anyway. Marie didn’t need to check on her so often — not like she did with her other, noisy, “normal” babies.
Her other children. Such a joy they were, her four boys and other girl — Peter, Mark, Mike, Chad and Linda. All healthy, regular children, with coarse dark hair, brown eyes and a little bit of baby fat on their bones. They looked the way children should look, the way her children should look, like their parents. But more importantly, they acted the way children should act — loud, boisterous, rough, needy. Marie loved them for it, loved how she couldn’t get a moment’s peace when they played together. Even when their play turned to fighting, she still preferred it to Elizabeth’s silent, eerie presence.
But Marie loved Elizabeth, too. Loved her fiercely, with the same passion she felt for her other children. Marie knew she did. She told herself she did, time and time again. The fact that she felt relief when Elizabeth wasn’t around meant nothing. She just needed time away from her children, after all. Almost all mothers welcomed the time they had away from their constant, children-related responsibilities. It didn’t mean she loved them any less. It didn’t mean anything at all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

When Michele was 3 years old, she taught herself to read because she wanted to write stories so badly.

As you can imagine, writing has been a driving passion throughout her life. She became a professional copywriter (which is writing promotional materials for businesses), which led to her founding a copywriting and marketing company that serves clients all over the world.
Along with being a copywriter, she also writes novels (in fact, she just published her first novel, a psychological thriller/suspense/mystery called "The Stolen Twin" and her second novel "Mirror Image'" is set to be published in May 2016) plus, she is also the author of the "Love-Based Copy" books, which are a part of the "Love-Based Business" series and cover both business and personal development.
She holds a double major in English and Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently she lives in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona with her husband Paul and her border collie Nick and southern squirrel hunter Cassie. 

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

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