Gravedigger
The
Rayburn Mysteries Book 1
by
Ceeree Fields
Genre:
Romantic Suspense
There's
no time for love as the Gravedigger's taken his next
victim.
Josephine
'Jo' Rayburn has no luck with love. Between the demands of her job as
a homicide detective, finding the perfect yarn for her knitting
projects, and her nosy family, she doesn't have time to find her
happily ever after, nor does she really believe it exists. Until
she's assigned to the Gravedigger task force where she meets Rhysian
'Rhys' Harrison, the sexy coroner's assistant.
Rhys
Harrison thought he'd found love with the perfect woman. But when his
parents' deaths forced him to choose between his fiancée and caring
for his brother, he chose his brother. His only regret: the medical
degree he's abandoned to work in the coroner's office.
When
the Gravedigger leaves his latest victim at the gates of a cemetery,
Rhys and Jo are thrown together. Her prickly personality interests
him, but it's her deeply hidden romantic side that captivates
him.
After
one of the task force members is shot, Rhys's fear of losing Jo
threatens to rip them apart. Can she convince him that love is worth
having no matter the risk? Or will he play it safe, leaving before
his heart becomes too attached?
CeeRee
Fields currently lives in Groningen, the Netherlands with her husband
and cat. Since she was born in Alabama and moved to the Netherlands,
Dutch is not
her first language which gets her into mischief in various stores
around town when she tries to speak it.
She
loves writing, building worlds that her characters can explore and
break if they feel the need.
Action, adventure and
love are her
favorite things. And when stuff gets blown up who says the guy is
the
only one who gets to do it?
GUEST POST
What is something unique/quirky
about you?
Oh, Lord we'll need a whole month of
blogs for this. Let's see. I don't consider myself unique, just
average, but gosh do I have a lot of quirks. =D But so do others so
again... average.
Let's start with my love of gaming. I
love games and am willing to try any of them at least once. Card
games, board games (though I hate Monopoly because I played it daily
at my grandmother's house as that was the only board game she had),
gaming station games, games that use your imagination like Snake and
I-Spy, and computer games.
I even met my husband on a game we've
been playing for almost fourteen years.
I'm also addicted to books. I LOVE a
good story, heck I LOVE a bad story if the world building or
characters are fun. I've been reading by myself since I was
eight/nine when my grandmother gave me Kabumpo in Oz. It was the best
story ever with moving countries and gnomes turned into giants
wearing the Emerald City as a hat. That in turn led me to the entire
Mrs. Pollifax series which led to David Eddings and moved along from
there. If I'm on vacation, I can read a book a day. I don't get
tired, don't get bored unless the world building or the characters
throw me off then I might swap out books and come back. Otherwise,
leave me in a corner with my ebook and I'm golden.
Tell us something really interesting
that's happened to you.
Probably the biggest thing people find
interesting is I moved from a small town in Alabama to the
Netherlands to marry and live with my husband. I've also, taken the
equivalency test for Dutch (Staatsexamen I) series in order to become
a dual citizen of the Netherlands and America. And that test is not
easy, especially, the speaking portion as you're in a room with
20 other people, everyone has headsets on with built in microphones.
And your neighbor is probably taking a TOTALLY different
Staatsexam/test than you are. So you listen and have to respond to
either what is said or what you see on the computer while your
neighbor and 20 others are doing the same and you have to do it
within a set time frame in almost perfect Dutch. Almost perfect as
you need a score of at least 400 out of 500 to pass. I passed that
section with a 401, while the writing, reading comprehension and
listening were all well above 400.
I will share a secret... Dutch grammar
is NOTHING like American English grammar which I'm sure drives my
editor nuts. Probably drives my critique partners nuts too, now that
I think about it.
What are some of your pet peeves?
My biggest pet peeve is when I'm gaming
with a group and one of them needs a bathroom break.
Now, I don't mind if they need the
break, however, my issue comes in when they take the dang headset
into the toilet and chatter while they're doing their business. Do
NOT do this when I'm on the headset. I hang up immediately. I don't
care if we've paused the game halfway into a dungeon. I won't get
back on the chat at all. I just won't. I'll do the same thing when
someone calls me and are on the phone in the bathroom, because ew...
just ew.
Where were you born/grew up at?
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama in
the Roebuck/Woodlawn/East Lake area. The hospital isn't there
anymore, but I still hear stories.
I grew up in Birmingham until I was
about seven/eight. My family and I used to go to Cascade Plunge which
is also not active anymore, but OMG the pool was HUGE olympic size
with these three diving boards, a baby pool attached to the big pool
and around the entire thing were lounge chairs, refreshment stands.
It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it since.
https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Cascade_Plunge
After eight my mom remarried and we
moved out to Cropwell, Alabama and lived on Logan Martin Lake where
my parents still live for those who know the area they live near
Harmon's Island. It's gorgeous as they live in a sort of inlet so
where their pier is located, not many boats can drive past as there's
a sandbar before you hit our pier. It was hilarious when we'd get
boaters who didn't know the area stuck on the sandbar because they'd
drive like mad through the inlet and swing around our way. Our dad
would have to wade out and help free them.
If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how
would you spend your last day?
I live like I'm always going to die
since we never know when that will happen. So everyday is a fun
adventure from chattering with shop owners to teasing the nieces and
nephews and checking in with my online friends. I make sure to tell
my hubby I love him even when I'm angry, it might come out in a
snarl, but I said it so it counts. And I tell my mom to 'Have a cow'
because in Dutch to say 'I love you' is 'Ik hou van jouw/je' and my
mom heard 'Have a cow' from it, so we roll with it.
As you can see I try to always find the
positives, there's enough negatives floating around.
Who is your hero and why?
I have no idea how to respond to this
as I don't really have a 'hero' per se. I have a husband who's
amazing and rescues me from online trolls along with our group of
online friends.
But if I had to choose someone I look
up to... that would probably be the cast of Star Trek and Star
Trek:TNG as both of these groups had strong female leads, pushed the
boundaries of acceptance and always tried to handle things peacefully
until the gloves needed to come off.
Otherwise, it'd be my family. They're
quirky, loud and total rebels and I learn a heck of a lot from them.
What kind of world ruler would you
be?
I'd totally kick rear as my group, from
mine and my husband's online gaming friends, would say. We've led a
social group within the game for going almost thirteen years now. I
think what makes a strong leader is loyalty, consistency, and knowing
when someone is just having an absolute horrible day and acting out.
Then confronting them about it in a separate conversation. We've had
explosions within the clan chat, we've had other clans attack us, or
our members, verbally and we've been trolled on forums for some of
our thoughts.
However, even in the thickest fight the
four hundred members of our group constantly pop on to help, if one
of us is being bullied. Whether we have what's called a froob-busting
event. This is when high level players are doing the bullying, the
members of our group, that can, will go to the place it's happening
at and intervene. Sometimes it's not pretty. Sometimes the bully is
having a bad day and is taking it out on our member. Usually between
our core members we can calm the waters and get the other guy to
apologize, or if it turns out it's one of our members... get him/her
to apologize. There have been one or two instances where the bully is
just that... someone who just has to make everyone miserable because
he thinks it's funny.
Those we handle much differently and
usually with a lot of force in that, again depending on the resource
or area our clan member is in we might need 20-30 people. Then we
spread out and literally take all the resources the bully's trying to
get until he either changes to a different server/world or leaves the
game altogether.
I'm not sure if I answered the
question, but that's how I'd rule the world. And yes, we do have
alliances with other clans in the game the same as each country in
the world have alliances/agreements with other countries. It's just
beneficial in my opinion.
What are you passionate about these
days?
Writing and gaming.
Mostly writing. I love writing. I love
creating worlds and then thinking... huh, how can my character break
this and which character would do it with some attitude?
Gravedigger, that's my current release,
is set in Birmingham, Alabama and even though it's a Romantic
Suspense set in present day, I still have the characters break
things. Totally my imagination at work, but I like action.
What do you do to unwind and relax?
Read and game and sometimes watch a
movie.
How to find time to write as a
parent?
Describe yourself in 5 words or
less!
Quiet. In person I'm quiet. I like to
sit and watch people interact, it fascinates me. What the different
cultures do compared to how I was raised, I like seeing the
differences and finding the similarities that connect us. My husband
on the other hand is a talker. He loves to interact and chat, so we
balance each other well in that respect. There are times when I'll
talk quite a bit, but for the most part I love to sit in a corner and
take notes on body language, idioms and so on.
Fun. I'm willing to try anything once.
I've bungee jumped and I'm terrified of heights. I've parasailed even
though the theme music to jaws played in my head the entire time. I
love playing with the kids, we'll do various versions of Let's Dance
and when we hear the songs in public we end up doing the dance steps
from the video game. Which is hilarious.
I'm friendly. When I'm in town, while
my husband teaches, I do the shopping. In the Netherlands, they have
shops you buy different things at so for instance to find the
specific vitamins I need to take I have to go to a vitamin shop
(that's not what it's called, but essentially that's what it is), for
a larger selection on bath products I go to shop that reminds me of
the old Big 'B's not sure if anyone will remember those stores...
lol. And for groceries we go to anywhere between 2-4 shops depending
on what we're buying. So for a lot of it, I walk with a backpack and
get the small things. As I do this I talk to people, my Dutch is
decent. I studied for two years, so I can communicate, however when I
get flustered I'll literally translate English into Dutch. So instead
of saying schoonmoeder for mother-in-law I've said moeder in de wet
several times which literally means mother-in-law as wet means law.
Dependable. I try to always do what I
say I'm going to, sometimes life interferes but for the most part I'm
there.
Imaginative. When I'm doing chores
around the house I can get lost in my head easily. It's why I don't
cook, there've been many a times when I'll get a story in my head and
forget to flip the hamburgers or set the dishtowel too close to the
gas burner. Luckily, my husband's a chef so I do the cutting,
cleaning and fetching and he does the heavy lifting.
When did you first consider yourself
a writer?
I first considered myself a writer when
I wrote my first story. I finished it at seventeen and then spent the
next year trying to get it published. It didn't work out back then,
this was the early nineties and none of the publishers wanted a
strong female character.
Do you have a favorite movie?
I have movies I gravitate towards, the
Lethal Weapons series are among my favorites. Demolition Man I broke
three VHS tapes re-watching it. And A Christmas Story, I'll watch it
over and over without blinking an eye, my little sister loves this
one as well.
Which of your novels can you imagine
made into a movie?
Any of them. I write them as a movie
that plays in my head. I can see the characters move and interact, I
can see them spring into action or their facial expressions when
they're snarky. The majority of mine are action/adventure with
romance so there's shooting, fights, death, more fights and drama as
the villain is unmasked.
What literary pilgrimages have you
gone on?
I'm not sure I understand this question
as life is my journey. I take bits and pieces that I've experienced
and sprinkle them throughout the story. It's why Gravedigger, my
latest release, is set in Birmingham, Alabama. I know that are, I
know the hole in the wall Chinese restaurant with the absolute best
food. I know the Harbert Center, I used to meet my mom there for
lunch.
It's also why I set my futuristic
series in America. It's a VERY different America, but I left some
landmarks scattered through it so readers can imagine where the
Mutant Free Zone city of Icaria is, near Norfolk where the Lonely
Sailor statue is. There are a few other 'Easter Eggs' to be found in
the books as well.
As a writer, what would you choose as
your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I've no idea, but it'd be purple and
maybe have some bright pink polka dots as a warning. Aren't things
you warn kids about brightly colored? =D
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