About
My family moved to the U.S. from Canada when I was ten. After that I lived mostly in Maine and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono. My first two novels ("The Meantime" and "Song For A Shadow," both young-adult) were published with Houghton Mifflin but the current one, "Lucifer's Drum," is self-published and a historical thriller, set in the American Civil War. These days I live and work in Memphis, Tennessee.
Influences: "Flowers For Algernon" by Daniel Keyes; "Winesburg Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson; Orwell's essays, the stories of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Chekhov and Tim Gautreaux; Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"; Austen's "Emma"; Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto"; the memoirs "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang, "Another Life" by Michael Korda and "Black Boy" by Richard Wright; McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove"; "The God Of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy; the novels of Alan Furst and James Ellroy; Howard Bahr's "The Black Flower."
Description
<p>FBI agent Alexis Toles is dispatched to New Rochelle, New York, to investigate threatening letters sent to Congressman Christopher O’Brien, and to protect his ex-wife, Cassidy, and six-year-old son, Dylan. But when she gets to New Rochelle, Alex discovers that there is more to the situation than simple stalking or political agendas; she finds that she has growing romantic feelings for Cassidy—and that the feelings are mutual.</p><p>As Alex and Cassidy explore their budding romance, they must surmount many obstacles in explaining their relationship to those around them, including Dylan. All the while, the investigation continues, and the disturbing, convoluted, and complicated web surrounding the threats begins to unravel, placing the characters’ lives in grave danger.</p><p><i>Intersection</i> is a taut political thriller that combines the action and suspense found in hit television shows like <i>24</i> with the insight and drama found in the widely popular fiction of LGBT authors such as R. E. Bradshaw and Stacey D’Erasmo. It is sure to appeal to fans of intrigue, mystery, and romance, and to provide positive role models for marginalized groups and relationships.</p>
Story Behind The Book
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO, A LARGE CONFEDERATE FORCE MARCHED DOWN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND THEN HEADED FOR THE UNION CAPITAL. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT REMAINS ONE OF THE GREAT WHAT-IFS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. OUT OF IT COMES AN EPIC STORY OF BLOOD AND SUSPENSE.
June 1864: On a lonely road in the Shenandoah, federal agent Nathaniel Truly intercepts a horse-drawn carriage. What he discovers inside it sends him and his young partner Bartholomew Forbes on a quest to solve a string of ghastly murders. Meanwhile, ominous bits of intelligence point to a disaster-in-the-making: General Jubal Early’s Confederate host is set to invade Maryland and strike at Washington, D.C. Even as Truly and Forbes connect the murders to a scheme that will ensure the capital’s downfall, skeptical superiors leave the pair to struggle alone. The darkness and depravity of the case threaten to consume the widower Truly, along with those he holds dearest–his son Ben, a lieutenant leading a company of black troops; his de facto adoptive daughter Sapphira, plucked from an auction block years before, now frustrated with the limits of her existence; his radiant daughter Anna, enthralled with a suitor who Truly can scarcely tolerate. All their fates–and that of an entire nation–will soon be swept into the merciless vortex of "Lucifer’s Drum."
Reviews
<div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial, sans-serif;line-height:normal;">"Invigorating...MacKinnon keeps the plot moving...An epic novel in which the historical and thriller elements enrich each other." --<span class="il">Kirkus</span> Reviews</div>
