Lockdown

Lockdown is being released this month (April 2014) by Great Plains Publishing. Please order it either directly from the publisher or ask for it at your neighbourhood bookshop. 

If you prefer to borrow rather than buy, please ask for it at your local library branch.

Synopsis: When a great earthquake rocks the Pacific Northwest, fifteen-year-old Rowan Morgan is hiking in a suburban forest. Tremors rip the coast from Oregon to Alaska and turn Rowan’s world upside down. After her father is wounded and taken to the hospital, Rowan and her brother shelter inside his earthquake-proof, survivalist home. While the electrified fences offer some protection, it isn’t long before mobs gather, desperate for some of the food and water rumoured to be held inside.

Rowan knows that if the hungry neighbours had any true idea of the riches in her father’s cellar and water tanks, they wouldn’t be sent away so easily. Early one morning, Rowan leaves the compound and sets off in search of her father. She is turned away from the hospital and so goes to check on nearby friends where she finds a local gang has moved in. She escapes from them only to run into a stranger she met in the forest the day before. Why is he following her and what does he want?

In the beginning

I'm terrified of earthquakes. I grew up in Victoria BC where we experienced an occasional temblor or two, frequently enough to remind us how vulnerable we were.

When I moved to Australia, I put that worry behind me. Instead I learned to respect the terrible might of bushfires. Our house was built on a ridge, looking down over 10,000 acres of national park. I became a volunteer firefighter (CFU) and learned to sleep with one ear open during bushfire season.

Then I moved back to Canada and my husband and I bought a house on the side of Mount Fromme. We now live perched on top of the Pacific Ring of Fire. It's not a matter of if a major quake will ever shake the Pacific Northwest, it's a question of when. Geological time is vast, though, and it may not happen for another thousand years.

Or it could happen today, as I sit here typing. I started thinking that way a couple of years ago and that's when the idea for my novel Lockdown was born. I wanted to go some place that really frightened me and in writing this book, I found it.

My novel will be released by Great Plains Publishing early in 2014 and until then, I'm going to explore my fascination with earthquakes on this blog.

Welcome to my nightmare.

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Photo: Christchurch, March 2011 by BluesandViews