My Most Cherished Words (3)

This is Book 3 of the Legends of the Winged Scarab, my Work in Progress, with my cover design again having received Diana Wilder’s valuable input.

In keeping with the evil winds theme of the first two books, I had originally come up with a working title of “Southern Trades” as most of the action plays out on an island off Venezuela (caressed by the Southern Tradewinds). Likely too esoteric. Then, according to the Pitch below, I thought the new title might be more fitting.

The eruption of a North American supervolcano and a ton of ancient gold throw together opposing protagonists from Sirocco, Storm over Land and Sea (Book 2) as unwilling passengers on a real abandoned ghost ship believed still to be plying the Atlantic Ocean.

Book 3 of the Legends of the Winged Scarab series plunges straight into this desperate post-apocalyptic world. Egyptologist Naunet Wilkins and her scientist husband Jonathan flee the lawless land following an uneasy offer orchestrated by Egyptian archaeologist Jabari El-Masri, a fugitive from his own country, now living on Venezuela’s Isla Margarita, owned by the fanatic art collector Lorenzo Dominguez. Did El-Masri trade the Golden Tablets and the Americans’ expertise for his own survival?

Once again, Naunet is torn between preserving an ancient treasure and sparing the world from its dire predictions just as a new ill-wind rears up and threatens the Wilkins’s escape from their hellish puppet-master.

Publication is planned for early spring.

* **

Prologue from After the Cataclysm

(Book 3 – Legends of the Winged Scarab – 2012-2016 AD)

At first, it feels as if the world simply needs to relieve itself of an irksome burden. As the ground’s shivers grow more insistent, however, people stop their holiday revelries and listen to the distant rumbles emanating from far below their feet. All of a sudden—long foretold by scientists but unheeded by politicians—the earth goes mad. With a roar felt around the globe, the North American Yellowstone Super-Volcano explodes.

Those living close to the huge caldera are quickly incinerated. Others, lucky enough to escape the pyroclastic flow, soon suffocate from inhaling airborne ash particles. For a thousand miles east of Wyoming, the fertile plains are laid bare. Much of the land to the west becomes uninhabitable. The United States of America—the world’s megalomaniac Super-Power—ceases to exist.

World dominance, for what it was worth, shifts dramatically to South America, with Venezuela at the fore and Brazil a close second. A stream of half-starved northern refugees arrives daily at Venezuela’s shores, having drifted on the tradewinds on anything that still floats. But armed patrols prevent these desperados from setting foot on land so that the shoreline soon becomes choked with their bloated bodies.

To be admitted, if not entirely welcomed, to this New World Order, one has to have connections and possess something of great value. 

* * *