About the Author:
Originally from Carrollton,
Illinois, Barbara Casey attended the University of North Carolina, North
Carolina State University, and North Carolina Wesleyan College where she
received a BA degree, summa cum laude,
with a double major in English and history. In 1978 she left her position as
Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at North
Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own manuscript
evaluation and editorial service. Since that time her award-winning articles,
short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in several publications
including the AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY, the SPARROWGRASS POETRY
FORUM, THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF POETRY (Editor’s Choice Award),
the NORTH CAROLINA CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE MAGAZINE, THE NEW EAST MAGAZINE,
the RALEIGH (NC) NEWS AND OBSERVER, the ROCKY MOUNT (NC) SUNDAY
TELEGRAM, DOG FANCY, BYLINE, TRUE STORY and THE
CHRISTIAN RECORD. A thirty-minute television special which Ms. Casey wrote
and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh, North
Carolina. Ms. Casey's award-winning science fiction short stories for adults
are featured in THE COSMIC UNICORN and CROSS TIME short story
anthologies. Her essays, also written for adults, appear in THE CHRYSALIS
READER, the international literary journal of the Swedenborg Foundation,
and A CUP OF COMFORT ANTHOLOGY by the Adams Media Corporation.
Her two middle-grade/young adult
novels, LEILANI ZAN and GRANDMA JOCK AND CHRISTABELLE (James
C. Winston Publishing Co.) were nominated for awards of excellence by the SCBWI
Golden Kite Award, the National Association of University Women Literary
Award and the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award. SHYLA'S INITIATIVE (Crossquarter
Publishing Group, 2002), a contemporary adult novel of fiction, received
the 2003 Independent Publisher Book Award and received special
recognition for literary merit by the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.
Ms. Casey’s novel THE COACH’S WIFE (ArcheBooks Publishing), a
contemporary mystery, was listed as a Publisher’s Best Seller and was
semifinalist of the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel. In 2007 her novel,
THE HOUSE OF KANE (ArcheBooks Publishing), also a contemporary
mystery, was considered for a Pulitzer nomination, and in December 2009
her novel, JUST LIKE FAMILY (Wandering Sage Publications), was
launched by the 7-Eleven stores in St. Louis, Missouri. Her young adult novel, THE CADENCE
OF GYPSIES (Gauthier Publications), was released in March 2011 and
considered for the Smithsonian’s Most Notable 2011 Books. It has also been selected by Amazon for its
2013 List of Best Books. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PRISSY (Strategic Media Books), a novel for
adults, was released in March 2013 and received an IPPY Award for Best Regional
Fiction. It has also been listed as a
“2013 Best Summer Read” by Conversations Live Radio and has been placed in
nomination for a Pulitzer Award.
Ms. Casey is a frequent guest
speaker at writers’ conferences and universities throughout the United States.
She is former director, guest author, and panelist of BookFest of the Palm
Beaches, Florida; and for thirteen years she served as judge for the Pathfinder
Literary Awards in Florida. She held
the position of Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book
Writers and Illustrators from 1991 to 2003.
Ms. Casey is president of the Barbara
Casey Agency. She represents clients nationally and internationally in
fiction and nonfiction for adults. Her past and present professional
associations are numerous and include being editorial consultant for The
Jamaican Writers Circle in affiliation with the University of West Indies
and Mico Teachers College in Kingston. She also received special recognition
for her editorial work on the English translations of Albanian children’s
stories.
Blurb:
Three high-spirited 17 year olds, with intelligent
quotients in the genius range, accompany their teacher and mentor, Carolina
Lovel, to Frascati, Italy, a few weeks before they are to graduate from Wood
Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women. Carolina's purpose in planning the
trip is to remove her gifted, creative students from the Wood Rose campus
located in Raleigh, North Carolina, so they can't cause any more problems
("expressions of creativity") for the headmaster, faculty, and other
students – which they do with regularity. Carolina also wants to visit the
Villa Mondragone where the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious document in
the world, was first discovered and search how it is related to a paper written
in the same script she received on her 18th birthday when she was told that she
was adopted – a search that will take them into the mystical world of gypsy
tradition and magic, more exciting and dangerous than any of them could have imagined.
Excerpt:
"Ouch!
You're standing on my fingers!"
This from the petite girl with a long, blond ponytail, wearing a
nightgown, most of which was pulled up between her legs and tied into a knot at
her waist to keep it from getting tangled on the limb where she was
perched. Somewhere above her the sound
of a saw and splintering wood filled the darkness followed by a stream of profanity
repeated in several foreign languages for emphasis.
"It doesn't look right. It's supposed to have a rim and a
dent." Clinging to a 12-foot ladder
as she pointed the flashlight first this way and then that, the heavy-set girl
wearing a nightshirt buttoned at the neck offered this with a slight lisp.
The girl with the blond ponytail giggled.
"What do you mean--dent?! Let me see that
picture." The tall black girl
completely hidden aimed her flashlight toward the magazine that was being
thrust upwards through the thick branches in her direction.
"And the top is supposed to be rounded--like
a button mushroom," the girl in the nightshirt added, the word
"mushroom" sounding more like "muthroom."
"That's because it's circumcised,"
supplied the girl with the ponytail, from which she removed a small twig and a
handful of leaves.
"Shekoo,
baboo!” More profanity. “Okay.
I know what to do." The tall
black girl disappeared back into the upper-most branches of the tall plant that
was more tree than bush. After several
additional minutes, the sawing, crunching, and clipping sounds finally gave way
to the more gentle sounds of tiny snips.
And then, silence.
"That's it; everybody down."
The petite girl, with the magazine that had been
overlooked in the last confiscation and now wedged firmly under her armpit,
started the perilous descent first since she was nearest to the ground,
followed by the tall girl. The girl in
the nightshirt eased her way down the ladder juggling pruning shears, a hand
saw, and scissors. Once on the ground,
the three girls stood back to admire their work.
"That is one honkin' Peni erecti," said the tall girl causing a fresh explosion of
giggles. "Let's get out of
here." After quickly rolling down
the legs of her pajama bottoms, the tall girl grabbed one end of the ladder
and, along with her two friends, lugged it and the other tools back to the shed
that housed lawn maintenance equipment.
Task accomplished, they returned to their rooms, and to their individual
beds, careful not to disturb the other dorm residents, the floor monitors,
their suitemates and, most importantly, their slumbering dorm mother, Ms.
Larkins. Within minutes, they fell into
a deep, peaceful sleep--the sleep of innocent angels.
It would soon be light; and Wood Rose Orphanage
and Academy for Young Women would start another day.
Buy Links:
Holly Bush was born in western Pennsylvania to two avid readers.
There was not a room in her home that did not hold a full bookcase. She worked
in the hospitality industry, owning a restaurant for twenty years and recently
worked as the sales and marketing director in the hospitality/tourism industry
and is credited with building traffic to capacity for a local farm tour,
bringing guests from twenty-two states, booked two years out. Holly has
been a marketing consultant to start-up businesses and has done public speaking
on the subject.
