09 | December | 2013

About the book, Secrets and Lies

Cassie Scot,still stinging from her parents’ betrayal, wants out of the magical world. But it isn’t letting her go. Her family is falling apart and despite everything, it looks like she may be the only one who can save them.

To complicate matters, Cassie owes Evan her life, making it difficult for her to deny him anything he really wants. And he wants her. Sparks fly when they team up to find two girls missing from summer camp, but long-buried secrets may ruin their hopes for happiness. Book 2 in the Cassie Scot Mystery series.

Buy a copy here:

Amazon

About the author, Christine Amsden

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that effects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.

In addition to writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing at Savvy Authors. She also does some freelance editing work.

Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children.

Connect with Christine

Website: Into the Dreaming
Facebook: Christine Amsden, Author
Twitter: @ChristineAmsden

My Thoughts:

I want Cassie Scot to be my best friend. She’s funny, feisty and, as the only non-magical person in a family of practitioners, deliciously flawed.

Having just read both book one and book two of this series, back to back, the details are a bit muddled in my head (This, and my tendency to give spoilers, are why I never write summaries. If you want to know the story – read the book yourself), but I know that as much as I respect Cassie’s determination to make it on her own (or at least without the help of her parents), I also wish she was better at confronting them.

That said, I know all too well the way our parents continue to affect our lives, long after we’ve reached adulthood. I’m 43, have been married for almost 19 years, run a business, and own my home, and my mother still has the power to shatter my world.

Still Cassie Scot, as a character, rocks my world.

But I also like Evan Blackwood, who loves her enough to wait for her to love him back. And I thought the his-and-hers cousins were also well-written, as were both Cassie and Evan’s fathers.

As in the first book, author Christine Amsden has given us a rich world full of great characters, both magical and mundane. In some ways her work reminds me of Laurell K. Hamilton’s early Anita Blake novels (you know, before they became mostly monster porn) and that’s due to the world she’s created. There’s enough detail to make it feel real, but not so much that you start picking at the fabric of her fictional town.

Bottom line: No paranormal novel, whether it’s a romance, detective story, or even a musical, is ever going to be considered high art, but that’s okay, because literature doesn’t have to be high art to be entertaining. And the Cassie Scot stories are just that: smart, sexy, and fabulously entertaining. Can’t wait for book three.