Guest: Matt Chatelain

Did you ever wonder what it was all about? As a kid, it was all I could think of. I was always fascinated by the mysterious, the unexplained. Growing up, my fascination matured. I graduated to serious topics. UFOs went by the wayside, joining Bigfoot, the Oak Island treasure, and the Bermuda triangle. It was time for the big guns, the real issues.

Life, death and everything.

Some authors out there were writing about it. I'll never forget The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, by Michael Baigent, etc. It was one of the first books to rip a veil off my eyes, a veil I had not known was there. Later, I came across the book The second Messiah, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomax. Another shocker, starting with Jesus' brother James. I didn't even know Jesus had a brother.

I was also reading books like 'The strange story of the Quantum' and researching theories like 'The Electric Universe' and ' Quantum electrodynamics'. There were ancient texts from across the world talking strangely similar concepts, events like the Flood and the big bang. All of it pouring into my head, question upon question.

What was it all about?

No matter the book I read, fiction or non-fiction, all of them fell short of the goal. None seemed to do more than tease me then leave me hanging… and we know how we hate that. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown only made things worse. A fiction treatment with everything jumbled together, impossible to make heads or tails of anything.

I wanted to read something with some meat to it. Something with girth to the story. I wanted to expand on the complexity of things. I knew it all tied together. The problem was no one had taken the problem in hand. I decided I was going to do it. I was going to stroke all those small facts into one gigantic explosion of a story.

So I did.

Of course, I was fooling myself. It wasn't as easy as all that. It required some finesse. I wanted to write a single book, something simple to start off my writing career. I ended up taking six years to write a four-book epic story. Most of the readers out there think it's just a normal epic story but, between you and me, it's much more than that.

Don't tell anyone. Keep this as our secret.

As long as we're sharing secrets, allow me to let you in on what happened to me when I wrote this thing. In some ways it was like holding a tiger by the tail. I could never get myself to let go. Weird coincidences happened (You can read about them on my website in the 'writing the series' essay). I had trouble separating fiction from reality, which was strange because the secret topic of the book was that the world was an illusion.

Weirdest of all was that I wasn't the first one mixing fiction with reality. Tons of people had inserted fiction into real life until everyone accepted the fiction as real (such as with 'the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail). In fact, just about all history was fiction. Most ideas we used to formulate our concept of reality were flawed from the beginning. Nothing we knew had substance, not even matter. It too was illusion.

What was going on?

Luckily, my problems are your boon. I was sick and tired of reading books that claimed to go the distance and always fell short. My questions drove me to write the book that answered all the questions. I went there, examined the place and came back with pictures.

Now, of course, I don't blame you for being skeptical. You've been promised before. Sweet-talking just doesn't cut it anymore. You want to see the wedding ring, I understand. Worse yet, I'm self published, so you're worried about the quality of the work. Fear not. I edited those damn books for years. Book One, 'The Caves of Etretat' was edited fifteen times. It was crazy but what can I say? It had to be done to make sure all the storylines fit it properly.

The end result is an Action/Adventure story like no other. The story is a non-stop rollercoaster where nothing is ever as it seems. Don’t go into this book looking for details or unimportant side-stories. Go into it looking for answers, looking for supreme satisfaction, for the answers to your important questions.

Life, death and everything.

Discover the Sirenne Saga, the four book epic series written by Matt Chatelain. It's the ultimate story, challenging and testing you but, best of all, entertaining you. You can find out about it on my website, www.mattchatelain.com . The first book (The Caves of Etretat) is available as Kindle Ebook and on Amazon as hardcopy. The next three books will be published this year, so no waiting forever to get your answers.

Best of all, I've got a free contest on my website with a monthly draw of signed hardcopies of my books. All you need to do is register on my site. Of course, that traps you into getting my news releases so you can know when to buy my other books. There are also some audio excerpts and interviews you can listen to on my website, as well as a pile of freebies. Drop in and say hello.

BLURB:

In 2007, Canadian bookstore owner Paul Sirenne is suddenly thrust into a quest for answers, when his parents are found brutally murdered, their bodies cut up and shaped into the letters H.N. Finding a note inside his father's copy of 'The Hollow Needle', by Maurice Leblanc, Sirenne is determined to uncover the roots of his long-forgotten family secret.

He heads to the town of Etretat, France, on the trail of a hundred year old mystery hidden in the pages of the 'Hollow Needle'. Falling in love with Leblanc's great-granddaughter, he deals with puzzles, theories, codes and historical mysteries, leading him to believe that Leblanc held a secret war against Adolf Hitler, fighting for the control of an incredible complex of caves hidden in Etretat's chalk cliffs.

'THE CAVES OF ETRETAT' is the first in a four-book epic adventure following Paul Sirenne, an average man unknowingly manipulated into becoming the key in the final phase of a complex conspiracy spanning millennia. Inextricably woven into history, the series re-writes everything we know in a non-stop rollercoaster of a ride where nothing is ever as it seems.

EXCERPT:

While I drove toward my father's place, my rear view mirror allowed me the occasional glimpse of a familiar vehicle and its driver, Norton. His companions were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was intent on protecting me but I doubted it. His comments had seemed disjointed to me, despite the circumstances. Everything he said had come across insincere, as if he were following another agenda. I resolved to ignore him for the time being. Let him do his watching.

To some, police protection might seem comforting. To me, it felt like an irritant. I preferred to mind my own business and for others to do the same, even in dire circumstances. That way I hurt no one and no one got hurt. I almost changed my opinion when I arrived at my father’s house. Even Norton's company would have been preferable to that of my own thoughts. I hurried up the entrance staircase and stopped in front of the door, taking a deep breath. I felt frozen in place, unable to open it.

Breaking the spell and forcing myself to move, I removed the police tape with a trembling hand and entered, closing the door behind me. I looked around the entrance hallway. Everything looked normal but it felt wrong, empty, too quiet. I walked into the living room and there it was: the bloody outline of the H and the N. I was horrified by the bloodstained dots after each gruesome letter, knowing what had left those imprints.

Seized by a sudden, irresistible impulse, I ran to the kitchen, filled a large bucket with hot water and picked up a heavy bristle brush.

Those stains had to go!

I returned to the living room, trying to stay calm, to think nothing about what the stains represented. I knelt down, splashed some water on the floor, and began scrubbing the dark stains. I didn’t care if I scratched the wood. At some point, I started crying in great, wracking sobs, the tears streaming down my cheeks, dripping onto the bloodstains on the floor.

By the time I was done, my tears had dried, evaporated by a burning resolve unlike any I had before. I did not know how, I did not know when, but I would catch that monstrous killer. He would pay for what he had done.

Aboutt the Author:

Born in Ottawa, fifty-two years ago, I have been the owner of a used bookstore I opened in Ontario, since 1990. I have been writing since I was ten. Beginning with poetry, I quickly moved on to short stories and non-fiction pieces. I stayed in that format for many years, eventually self-publishing a franchise manual (How to Open Your Own Used Bookstore), as well as a variety of booklets, such as 'How to Save Money at Home', 'Build a Greenhouse with Style' and the ten booklet series of Eddy Brock, Brockville Detective.

Having semi-retired from the bookstore, I embarked on the project of writing my first serious novel, which I expanded to a four book series after discovering an incredible mystery hidden within Maurice Leblanc's books.

My interests are eclectic. I like Quantum Physics, Cosmology, history, archaeology, science in general, mechanics, free power, recycling and re-use. I'm a good handyman and can usually fix just about anything. I'm good with computers. I love movies, both good and bad, preferring action and war movies. I can draw and paint fairly well but am so obsessed with perspective and light that I cannot think of much else. I am too detail oriented. Takes too long to finish anything.

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PRIZE INFORMATION

Matt will be awarding a $20 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour as well as to the host whose post receives the most comments (excluding his or the host's) during the tour.