Good Morning Friends,
I'd hoped my "busyness" had ended but not yet. LOTS to do today, tomorrow and this next week but m-a-y-b-e after next weekend, I can slow down a bit. So, without much further ado, please welcome our new-to-me guest, Janyre Tromp with her debut novel, Shadow's in the Mind's Eye. W-E-L-C-O-M-E Janyre!
Charlotte Anne Mattas longs to turn back the clock. Before her husband, Sam, went to serve his country in the war, he was the man everyone could rely on—responsible, intelligent, and loving. But the person who’s come back to their family farm is very different from the protector Annie remembers. Sam’s experience in the Pacific theater has left him broken in ways no one can understand—but that everyone is learning to fear.
Tongues start wagging after Sam nearly kills his own brother. Now when he claims to have seen men on the mountain when no one else has seen them, Annie isn’t the only one questioning his sanity and her safety. If there were criminals haunting the hills, there should be evidence beyond his claims. Is he really seeing what he says, or is his war-tortured mind conjuring ghosts?
Annie desperately wants to believe her husband. But between his irrational choices and his nightmares leaking into the daytime, she’s terrified he’s going mad. Can she trust God to heal Sam’s mental wounds--or will sticking by him mean keeping her marriage at the cost of her own life?
Debut novelist Janyre Tromp delivers a deliciously eerie, Hitchcockian story filled with love and suspense. Readers of psychological thrillers and historical fiction by Jaime Jo Wright and Sarah Sundin will add Tromp to their favorite authors list.
"Tromp weaves a complex historical tale incorporating love, suspense, hurt, and healing--all the elements that keep the pages turning." --Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials
Excerpt:
Darkness had long ago swallowed the Greyhound bus moving down the road so slow that it might as well have been going backward. It took every ounce of my control not to elbow the driver out of the way and stomp on the gas pedal. After all, the war was over, and every man here was ready to get home to his kinfolk. I wasn’t no exception.
I scrunched my eyes shut and choked back another cough, the burn crawling down my throat and making me gag. Tugging my wool peacoat tighter over my shoulders, I hoped the major next to me hadn’t noticed my flushed cheeks when we boarded. Last thing I needed was some officer ordering me off the bus and into an infirmary.
“You all right, soldier?”
I bristled, habit forcing my body ramrod straight. “Sailor.”
“What?”
“I was a coxswain for a Higgins boat.”
He stared at me like I was spouting Greek.
“A pilot for amphibious beach landings?”
When he still didn’t show sign of understanding, I shifted the blanket so’s my navy uniform showed. “I’m a sailor,” I said, adding “sir” at the last second. No sense getting court-martialed for disrespecting an officer, even if he was army.
“Right.” The man shifted. “No offense intended, but you don’t look so good . . . sailor.”
“I’m just fine, sir.”
All I wanted was to get home and wrap my arms around Charlotte Anne and my sweet baby girl, then sleep for the next week with nobody pokin’, proddin’, or askin’ me how I felt. The Lord as my witness, I swore I’d never leave our orchard and Hot Springs again.
“There’s a hospital in Malvern. Maybe you oughta—”
“I reckon I’ll take that under advisement, sir.”
Although I’d tried to make my voice respectful, it came out with a shade more lip than I, or my Ma for that matter, would’ve liked.
“Don’t want you bringing home cholera or anything.” He chuckled, then rubbed a hand over his mouth as if he realized how ridiculous he’d sounded and wanted to stuff the words back in.
We’d all been quarantined on the way home long enough that I was sure my backside had grown moss. The U.S. military had seen fit to be sure the only thing I brought home was a mild case of malaria and a smidgen of lead hidden in my shoulder . . . although they didn’t know about the Japanese saber buried under the ratty underwear in my pack. That was my souvenir—a reminder of what happens to somebody who shoots a man in the back.
“Thank you kindly, sir. I’m just anxious to get home to my little girl.”
The man smiled, and I relaxed.
“I got me a son.” He pulled out a stack of photographs—a sturdy toddler, a wife, an older gentleman with grease smudged on his cheek—and I mm-hmmed in all the right places, least as much as was fittin’ for a perfect stranger. It was almost like I’d returned to the person I was before going to war three years back. I traced the image of the little boy with my finger, registering that the major hadn’t likely met his son yet, just like I hadn’t met my little Rosemary.
Lights flashed off in the distance, igniting my memory, and the boy’s picture slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor. My breath came in snatches, my mind desperately telling my heart to slow, that there wasn’t nothing dangerous here.
“Just lightning.” The major was studying me. “Makes me a mite nervous too.” I clenched my fingers around the dress gloves in my lap. Even with the thunder, a body would think the hum of tires on the road and no threat of Japanese Zeroes strafing us would help me settle, maybe even fall asleep in two hops of a grasshopper. But I was pretty sure I’d left behind whatever hop I used to have on some island in the Pacific—squashed by the military regimen and then ground down by the Japanese for good measure.
The major leaned over and retrieved his photo. I noticed his perfectly manicured hand as he brushed off a bit of dust before slipping his boy’s smiling face into a pocket of his immaculate uniform, no frayed edges in sight. Wasn’t no way this man had been anywhere near the front. I rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder. Some folks have all the luck.
I could near feel Ma reach out and swat my head for such disrespect.
Samuel Robert Mattas, I taught you better than this.
Sorry, Ma. Maybe you could intervene with the Almighty upstairs and—
“So where you headed?” The major watched me like a body might watch a dog foaming and growling. More than a little annoyance skimmed over a healthy dose of fear. Lord Almighty, I’d turned into a mangy cur.
“I know you mean well, sir. But I’m trying to sleep. It’s been a long time since . . .” Since what, I wasn’t sure. Since I’d been safe enough to sleep without waking to panic coursing through me? Since I’d been home? Since I’d had a normal conversation with a stranger without near biting his head off?
At least he’d served. It was all those 4-Fers who got themselves out of the war, lyin’ back and takin’ it easy that deserved my wrath. Well, maybe not all of them. Certainly not Doc. He’d paid mighty with the polio. Wouldn’t wish that on nobody, least of all my best friend.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I closed my mind against the devil clawing at me. I was home, in Arkansas. My Annie and Rosie were waiting for me on the farm. Ma too. No landing run, no artillery, no Japs waiting to light up anything that moved in the waves.
Just a storm.
“I’m headed over to Crows.” The man was still chattering while sweat tickled my spine. Somebody somewhere must’ve told him talking set a man at ease. Must never have met a mountain man.
Just a storm.
I held my breath, the growls creeping closer, seeking a target . . . the world pulsing, vibrating with the sound . . . the smell of fire crawling across the Arkansas plains . . . the green of the seat in front of me surging like the algae-crusted lakes we’d drunk from in the Pacific . . . the sickness roiling in my belly . . .
“My folks live up there.” The major’s voice echoed from deep under the water. “Pop says he held a job for me in the factory over in Little Rock. Don’t know if I’ll be able to take being on the floor, but . . .”
Up front someone flicked on a light, and a face jumped up to my window—hooded eyes, searching, hunting. I lurched to my feet, cracking my head against the ceiling of the bus as I tried to push the major to safety. He latched onto my arm, dragging me under, and I yanked away, panting. Didn’t he know we needed to run?
“There’s somebody out there.” I pulled on his elbow, desperately searching for an escape route through the sea of seats.
What were they thinking letting a bus full of unarmed men meander down a highway with the headlights un-blacked? It was suicide to sit in a target all lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Ain’t no one out there.” The major held his hands out in front of him like he was surrendering to me, pleading like I was about to shoot him dead.
I glanced behind me to prove him wrong and saw my reflection ghosted on the glass. Ears sticking out of dark, messy curls. Eye sockets bruised by exhaustion. More lines than a twenty-seven-year-old man should’ve earned. Other than the whir of its tires on the road, the bus was silent, and everybody watched me. When the whispers started, I leaned over the major and said sorry before yanking the cord to alert the driver someone needed to get off the bus. I grabbed my blanket along with my peacoat, cap, and gloves before stumbling down the aisle, staggering between the seats.
Wasn’t no way I would let them all stare at me the rest of the way to the Hot Springs transportation depot. Maybe a hike would bring me to my senses. A body could hope.
Janyre Tromp (pronounced Jan-ear) is a historical suspense novelist who loves spinning tales that, at their core, hunt for beauty, even when it isn’t pretty. She’s the author of Shadows in the Mind’s Eye and coauthor of It’s a Wonderful Christmas.
A firm believer in the power of an entertaining story, Tromp is also a book editor and published children’s book author. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her husband, two kids, two crazy cats, and a slightly eccentric Shetland Sheepdog.
Published by Kregel and brought to us by Audra Jennings PR,
Shadow's in the Mind's Eye can be purchased at
Amazon,
ChristianBook(dot)com and other places great Christian fiction can be found!
THANK you, Jaynre for sharing your book with us. We certainly wish you the best of luck and God's blessings with it and THANK YOU, Friends for supporting my blog guests!
Until next time, take care and God bless.
PamT
