Thirteen Miracles Now Available

Thirteen Miracles is now available at Amazon in both digital and print formats.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JDTNSML

It is also available at Barnes and Nobel in paperback and hard cover.   

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thirteen-miracles-dl-kennedy/1137716871

Once again, here are the blurbs and an excerpt, as well as the trailer. 

Short blurb: A woman's search for God ends in a miraculous rescue mission in the marijuana fields of the Devil's Backbone.

Here is the longer back-cover blurb:

Legend says it was the landing spot for Lucifer when he was cast out of heaven. That's not the only thing it's known for. It is also a land of marijuana fields, opium poppies, kidnappings, and drug-related killings. It's the last place you would expect to find God, but Abby Welles is looking for Him there. Her search will lead her on a miraculous rescue mission inside the heart of The Devil's Backbone. But she is running out of time, and she may have already run out of luck.

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Here is an excerpt:

The black bird was back, or whatever it was,
and it was in Scarface’s gunsight.

     It was perched on a dead tree overhanging the mountainside, watching the activity below. Something in the bird’s gaze and mechanical head movements troubled her. Was it watching the activity or controlling it? She silently ridiculed the thought. She was being paranoid. This place did that to her.

     The rifle fired, and she jumped. An unexpected explosion ripped through the early morning quiet.

     Scarface gave a sudden shriek of pain and fell to the ground, clutching his face with blackened and bloodied hands. Unearthly sounds accompanied his cries and repeated off the wall of rocks. Bebo joined in the chorus, barking furiously, teeth barred. Abby wanted to silence him but knew it was pointless. His barks were lost in the sea of strange sounds.

     She tugged on him, pulling him back. He had strayed too close to the edge. Once he was on safer ground, she strained to see where the other noises were coming from. Had the weapon backfired? Was shrapnel pinging off rocks? Not that it would explain what she was hearing. These were more like animal yips and howls, but not quite.

     Whatever was producing these noises wasn’t apparent from her vantage point. Fear gripped her every muscle and nerve as the sounds continued and grew more bizarre. Surely these weren’t the natural sounds of nature. They didn’t even seem to originate from anything she could see—or ever would see—in this world. 

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Here is the trailer: 

 

 

Interview Questions: This interview is a combination of questions from the Smashwords Interview feature and a Q&A with my niece.

Describe your desk

I'll paraphrase Zola Levitt. For evidence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one need only look at my desk. Everything on it is moving from a state of order to disorder.

When did you first start writing?

In eighth grade. I had an amazing teacher, Mr. McIntyre. He gave us contracts at the start of the year. We decided what grade we wanted to earn. I wanted an "A", but that meant I had to write three short stories. He read those stories out loud to the class. Fortunately, he was an actor, and he did a really good job reading them. The class laughed like crazy and everyone enjoyed my stories. I've been writing ever since.

What do you want readers to know about your Christian book, "Thirteen Miracles"?

There are a lot of layers to "Thirteen Miracles" and a lot of archetypes. For example, I think of Abby's husband, Charles, as a "type" of Christ. He goes into Satan's territory hoping to save his wife. I also want readers to know in advance that this is mostly a story about a woman and a dog in a wilderness survival story. So there is not a lot of dialogue. I think that no matter how many people are with us in this life, we are ultimately alone with God in the wilderness. I want readers to feel they have been inside Abby's head, heart, and soul by the end of this story. But my goal is to tell a good story. I hope I've done that in "Thirteen Miracles."

What is "Thirteen Miracles" about?

It's about a woman's search for God. Abby has gone to Mexico to write a book about miracles and to meet a Christian mystic who has the gift of prophecy. After some family struggles, Abby is reeling. She has lost her faith and feels that she must connect with God again if she is ever going to recover from her depression. She feels that she must get away from the "screaming commitments" in her life in order to do that.

On her journey, she is separated from her guide and must survive on her own with the help of an albino boxer named Bebo. As she attempts to find her way home, she discovers that two sixteen-year-old boys have been kidnapped by drug runners. She decides she must try to free them from their captors, and the book follows her journey inside The Devil's Backbone as she attempts to survive the wilderness and free the hostages, but she has some supernatural resistance to her goal as well as some natural ones.

You have called this a supernatural adventure, is that the best description of your story?

Yes. It is a Christian, supernatural adventure. I also think of "Thirteen Miracles" as a missionary story. As human beings, we have been separated from God and must find our way home. If we do, our goal is then to attempt to rescue others who are being held captive. But, it is an allegorical story in many different ways. It is the reader who will decipher the symbols and decide if they succeed or not. I don't want things to be taken too far, however. It is just a story, after all, with symbolic undertones. Above everything, I want the reader to experience a good story and be impacted by it.

Will this appeal to non-Christians?

Maybe. I'm not sure. I can't see this appealing to people who don't believe God exists. I think it would be offensive to them. In fact, I think there are many Christians who would be offended by "Thirteen Miracles" as well. Christians who don't believe in miracles will have a problem with this book. Christians who don't believe in an unseen, demonic world will have a problem with this book. I have a disclaimer at the end of the book. It states that my goal was not to teach doctrine or theology. It was to tell an entertaining story. I hope I succeeded, but that is up to the reader.