Lovely Diane Solomon has appeared here on Linda’s Book Bag a few times and when I heard she had a new book, Eva, I simply had to invite her back. I asked Diane about her experience of writing Eva and she kindly provided a super guest post and an extract from the book that I’m delighted to share today.
Let’s find out about Eva which is available for purchase here:
Eva
Eva possesses a unique and powerful gift. But is it a curse?
She plays down her beauty, to avoid attention. But it doesn’t work. She has a magnetic quality, a calm, a power of which she is unaware.
Never having known her father and having lost her mother when she was young, Eva believes she’s better off alone. She only connects deeply with animals, they are her first love. But another great love is on the horizon, along with other life-changing discoveries.
When they learn of her gift, the media jackals gather, and Eva is forced into the limelight she’s avoided all her life. Facing challenges at every turn, including her own inner demons, she must fight to protect, even embrace, her newfound ability.
But someone wants her dead.
A Guest Post by Diane Solomon
Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag Diane. And congratulations on your new romantic suspense novel, Eva. Has writing this book helped you realize anything about yourself in the same way Eva has a voyage of discovery?
It’s nice to be back, and that’s a great question! I came up with the idea for this novel 20 years ago, but it took me until now to feel ready to write it, to truly understand what I wanted to say.
Here’s a wee bit about the story. Eva, the 26-year-old protagonist, has not committed to love since the day when she was eleven, when she found her mother dead on the kitchen floor. Since then, believing she is better off alone, she has kept a safe distance from people, only connecting deeply with animals.
Then she discovers she possesses a powerful skill. Maybe it is a gift. But it might be a curse. She realizes she can heal an animal simply by holding it and meditating to a deep inner space where she connects with its spirit. Things get even more shocking when she finds she can heal humans as well. When through her healing, her grandfather recovers miraculously from the incapacitation of a stroke, word spreads quickly and her life is no longer her own.
Journalists hound her relentlessly and hand-delivered death threats confirm someone wants to kill her. Forced into the limelight she’s avoided all her life and facing challenges at every turn, Eva must fight to protect her newfound ability while also doing the most difficult thing of all: staying alive.
Eva is a deep love story, full of twists and turns, with the theme of our universal yearning for connection. Plus, it is loaded with heart.
I resonate strongly with the path Eva travels, that of her struggle is to overcome her inner demons in order to own her power and to flourish. To grow. Eva is continually challenged, when all the time, all she wants to do is look after animals. That’s where she feels safe and loved and where she can give love unconditionally without fear.
Some of that is me! This hit home as I wrote the book. What kept me from connecting deeply with other people my whole life was very simply the walls I created to protect myself. The walls Eva created. The walls we all create! We hide behind those walls, protecting ourselves from pain. Yet, ironically, those walls insulate us from the very thing we need to alleviate the pain. Connection to other people. I believe we all yearn for that connection.
Writing this book has been one of the most fascinating and rewarding experiences of my life. And I wrote it from my heart, hoping to grab yours!
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Eva sounds fabulous Diane! And thank you so much for allowing me to share an extract too today:
An Extract from Eva
The anxiety in the room was palpable. The cat’s owners were a young couple, mid-thirties, with a pre-teen daughter chewing her nails. The mother, eager and polite, nodded frequently, birdlike. The husband was taciturn, stern-jawed, as if he knew the bad news even before it was delivered.
Michael told them the diagnosis clearly and as gently as he could. The tumor had invaded the jawbone and now even the sinuses. He explained it wasn’t a good prognosis for their pet. “I’m afraid it’s progressed too far even for that option. Your little cat is in pain. And there’s no guarantee the operation would be successful.” He paused. “I’m sorry to tell you, but the kindest thing to do would be to put her to sleep.”
The young daughter wailed and burst into tears.
“I know you’ll want to say goodbye. I’ll have her brought in.”
When the tech carried in the little calico, the small girl, who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, reached for her pet. She held her close and buried her face in her cat’s fur.
“Come on honey,” her mother said. “Let the doctor look at her.” The mother gently took the cat and placed her on the examination table. She bent over to study the animal’s face. “Wait a minute… Charles, look,” she said to her husband. “Isn’t the tumor on this side? But, hang on… I can’t see it now.”
Michael stared in surprise at the cat’s face. He physically examined it, while it stood quietly on the table. There was no swelling.
“This is your cat?” he inquired.
The couple nodded.
What on earth was going on? The file described a large squamous cell carcinoma on the left side of the animal’s face and neck, invading the teeth, the jaw, the sinuses. But there was no tumor. He felt carefully. Nothing. With effort, he kept his face still, without expression. How to explain this? He looked again at the file, again scanned the x-ray.
The owners confirmed again it was indeed their pet.
Speechless, Michael excused himself and turned for the door, with the image of the little girl’s full eyes seared into his mind.
Two hours later, after several vets and techs had examined the little calico cat, they were all stunned, but no one had any answers. Kurt, the vet who had first examined her, was adamant that yesterday there was a large growth, an SCC. And he kept referring to the x-ray. “The x-ray doesn’t lie,” he repeated for about the third time, clearly feeling defensive.
“No one’s claiming you’re lying, my friend,” replied Jerry, the clinic’s founding vet. An older man with a full head of silver hair, he had the respect of everyone at the vet clinic for his knowledge and lengthy experience.
“But what the hell? How is it possible?” Kurt asked.
Jerry patted his colleague on the shoulder. “There must be an explanation…”
But no one had one.
Most of the staff headed home, but Michael just couldn’t leave. At this rate, he knew he was not going to be able to give a rational explanation to the owners of the cat. He had simply told them he’d like to keep her another night, because of the painkillers, and said he’d call them in the morning. They were fine with a reprieve from euthanasia but Michael knew he was just buying time.
Bottom line, there was no tumor anywhere on that cat.
Like Kurt had asked, how was that possible?
The only thing Michael could think of to do, because he needed to do something, was to watch the closed-circuit TV camera footage from the back room, to see what had happened since the cat was brought to them yesterday morning. What, if anything, anything at all, might explain this “miracle?” Damn it, he hated to even use that word. It didn’t mesh with the practice of science.
The veterinary practice had recently installed three cameras in the back room, two over the operation tables, and one for the line of cages housing the animals in their care. They ran 24/7 for insurance reasons, liability, and security. He didn’t think anyone had yet needed to view them, but now he logged into the app which controlled the cameras and hunted for yesterday’s date. He chose to view the camera focused on the line of cages. Fortunately, there was a fast-forward selection in the digital app, and he systematically plowed through many hours, sped up. He watched the assistants, vets, and vet techs as they moved in and out of the cage area, taking animals out and returning them, cleaning the cages, adding food to bowls. He saw an assistant lift the little calico from the cage and return her half an hour later, and glancing at the file, he confirmed this was the logged time of the X-ray. Scanning through a few more hours of normal behavior, he was beginning to think he should just bag it and go home.
Wait a minute, isn’t that…? He slowed the images to normal speed. Yes. It was Eva. Why was she there? Four in the afternoon of the previous day. He watched as she slowly moved past the cages, touching a Rottweiler through the bars, then opening the cage door of another dog, a little terrier mix, and stroking its ears. When she reached the last cage housing the Calico cat, she stood and stared, her head slightly to one side. She reached into the cage and gently scooped the cat into her arms. Sinking down onto a small metal stool at the end of the line of cages, she closed her eyes. As she held the cat close, Michael could see her lips moving, although he heard nothing. There was no sound, just this image of a young blond woman holding a small multi-colored cat. The look on her face was the same as the day he saw her holding the orange cat, Pumpkin. It was an intense, all-consuming tenderness and focus.
An idea struck him. “No.” Michael spoke the word aloud. “No,” he repeated. “That’s ridiculous.” He shook his head.
But he continued to stare at the screen.
****
I think we could all benefit from a touch of Eva in our lives!
About Diane Solomon
Diane Solomon began her career in the UK as a singer and songwriter on BBC TV. Then, after 15 years of traveling the world as an entertainer, the dreaded Chronic Fatigue Syndrome destroyed her career. She struggled for almost eight years, years of wading through half a life, finally regaining her health with the help of a homeopathic remedy. This launched Diane into new studies and a second career: homeopath and nutritionist which she practiced for twenty years, using a combination of nutrients, herbs, homeopathic remedies, and diet and lifestyle recommendations.
Now retired from practice and focused on writing, Diane lives in beautiful Hillsborough County, New Hampshire with her husband, Mark. Sometimes called a “Renaissance Woman,” she writes, edits, researches, designs and builds gardens, always seeking more knowledge, more understanding, and more creative flow.
For further information, visit Diane’s website, find her on Facebook and Instagram or follow Diane on Twitter @dianesolomon.
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