Desert Chimera, the first book in the Metaphysical Suspense/ Mystery Stone Quest Series, introduces the reader to recluse, tracker, and reluctant twenty-eight year old psychic visionary Luke Stone and to his paranormal universe. Since his escape from the black magician Armand Jacobi seven years before, Luke Stone has been sequestered in the serene woods of Northern Michigan under the tutelage of Cherokee guide Shadow Wolf. When the shaman suddenly dies, Luke flees on a desperate cross-country quest. In the heart of Death Valley, Luke is assaulted by terrifying visions of the apocalypse. While praying in agony for release, a shimmering specter arises from the sands to stand beside him, but this is not the one Luke has so desperately sought. Torrential rains flood; rivers of mud flow. Luke is forsaken. But deep within the cacophony of the storm, Luke hears a voice calling. Following the call, Luke stumbles out of the wilderness and into Eppie Falco’s Desert Inn and Café. Gathered here also seeking shelter from the storm are an array of fellow travelers. However, upon a clap of thunder and a burst of lightning, the café door swings open and Armand Jacobi, the charismatic black magician Luke had seen as the vision in the desert and the man from whom he had run in stark terror now stands before him in the flesh. Among the travelers whom Armand eventually takes hostage in his struggle for dominion over Luke is Consuelo Arroyo, a woman with whom Luke is falling in love—something Luke never thought possible. As Luke’s battle with Armand heightens, as the lives of his fellow travelers lie more and more in the balance, Luke is confronted with the full horrors of his past. Will the battle that rages culminate in Luke’s final destruction or his ultimate redemption?

What genre is it?
Metaphysical Mystery/Suspense.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Those who cut their teeth on Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King; who enjoyed watching The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits; who enjoy a brief ride into the metaphysical and who like to explore what lies beneath and beyond the physical; finally, those who contemplate the bigger questions and for whom good versus evil is not necessarily an easy, forthright answer.

Complete this sentence for us: if you like _________________, you’ll love Desert Chimera.
If you like spiritual adventure, you’ll love this book.

Are there any other books in the series?
GALLOWS ASCENDING, Book Two of the STONE QUEST series.

And after that?
The next book in the STONE QUEST series: NEURI SHAPE SHIFTER– is due out in the Fall of 2013

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am amazed by the diversity of the Earth, by the ingenuity of the people of the Earth to create these gorgeous cultures and mythologies, these symbols and fetishes that spring so incessantly from that stream, as Joseph Campbell writes, that incessantly bubble up from the deepest reaches of our collective unconscious to influence and inform and ultimately that unify the universes that flow within and without us.

Is that where your inspiration comes from?
In 1985, I had the distinct privilege of interviewing Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross for my one-act play Windstorm. Here was a celebrated doctor who had penetrated the fourth wall, who saw visions, who communicated with the dead, and who, through her visions, taught us more about, as she said, not how to die, but how to live.  While producing the play festival CelebrateWomen, I interviewed another great woman, Cahuilla elder Katherine Siva Saubel. Dr. Saubel, like Dr Ross, was a great healer, and a great visionary. She could call   the wind by whistling for it to blow down from the mountains to cool the steaming valley below. From her oral history, I wrote first the play We Are Still Here; then, as a recipient of a California Council for the Humanities grant, I adapted the play for a documentary of the same title.

I have been writing in all kinds of genres for half a century. Human history is the history of stories. It is these stories I like to tell.

Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work?
www.violethillsproductions.com.

How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
@leighpod52
www.facebook.com/leighpod.