Tallowed Ground: A Magic Candle Shop Mystery
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Georgia
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Muddle House Publishing (September 10, 2024)
Digital Print length ‏ : ‎ 269 pages

Synopsis

When a killer props his third and latest victim against the double tombstone of Tabby and Sage Winslow’s grandparents’ grave in Savannah, Georgia, the psychic twins are stunned. Even worse, the victim is the very man they filed a restraining order against a few months ago for trashing their book and candle shop. Coincidence…or a connection? Then a clue about the murders points to Tabby’s career as a candlemaker. Now, she is the number one suspect in the killing spree.

The twins investigate all three victims, finding little that might tie the cases together besides where the bodies were found—in or near Bonaventure Cemetery, a beautiful 100-acre historic graveyard with a storied past. Then Tabby’s Medical Examiner boyfriend is mysteriously pulled from the case, with his dream job in jeopardy. The situation reaches a flashpoint when new evidence points to Tabby. With her freedom and the family business in jeopardy, Tabby and Sage match their wits and psychic abilities against the wily killer.

That is, until Tabby’s spirited inquiry lands her in the worst kind of trouble. Can Tabby clear her name before the fiend snuffs her flame…for good?

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Guest Post

Keeping Secrets
By Tabby Winslow, amateur sleuth of Tallowed Ground

There are secrets and then there are secrets. I don’t mind so much when the secret is one I’m keeping. Particularly when it comes to family secrets.

Ever since I can remember, my mom and aunt stressed that my twin sister and I couldn’t tell anyone about the paranormal abilities in our family. I didn’t see what the fuss was all about because those abilities were as natural to us breathing.

Mom explained to us that our family are energetics. That means we know how to move energy from one person to another. We are always careful how much of our energy we give to others because our natural recharge of sleeping in our home on Bristol Street in Savannah, GA, has limits.

One thing I never understood was that I could expend the same energy as my twin and I’d be fine in the morning. Not true for my sister. So she often asked telepathically for me to “top her off.” Because she couldn’t recharge fully as I did, she was terrified of running out of energy. That’s how we lost Mom, but that’s a story for another day.

I never minded sharing energy with Sage or anyone in our small family. We all helped each other. That’s what family does.

Sage has a talent for growing plants. It’s more than a green thumb. She can breathe life into something I’ve accidentally neglected and thought was a goner for sure.

I discovered quite by accident that I can bend light and make myself invisible. Whatever is in my hands at the time, or on my body, becomes invisible too. I can stay invisible longer in the shadows. It takes more energy to fade from sight in pure white light. Anyway, I keep a mental time clock in my head and make it a rule never to hide that way for more than five minutes. Otherwise, I might not have enough energy to get home.

If someone saw me passed out from burning too much energy, the natural thing for them to do is to call an ambulance and get me to the hospital. That would never do because the hospital would give me medication, and energetics don’t respond well to meds. No way, no how. Best to circumvent all of that by avoiding the hospital. Besides, neither my twin nor I have ever been sick a day of our lives.

The last secret is a cool one. Early on, Sage and I learned how to talk to each other without words. We call it our twin-link, though I have since come to know that it is called telepathy by most people. It’s been nice to have that silent communication at home and school so that we are there for each other. Because we are each other’s best friend, we never reached out to other girls our age for a best friend.

In fact, it mystified us twins when one classmate could be best friends with another for a period of time, then after an argument, she’d proclaim someone else was her best friend. It’s like they got bored with each other. In all thirty years of my life, I’ve never gotten bored with my twin.

However, as I grew up, I realized that no one I knew outside of our family had the same kind of abilities that we did. I came to understand that we could be persecuted or shunned due to our extra talents. So I kept my secrets close to my heart.

Sage and I became islands within the mass of adolescents going through high school. We had acquaintances, and every now and then we’d be drawn into conversations with others. It’s not that we were unfriendly. We didn’t go out of our way to be sociable, but we never snubbed anyone either. Mostly we kept to ourselves. Mom applauded us for doing that. I never considered that it was weird until recently.

So here I am at thirty years old, and I’ve got a fiancé for the first time ever. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him everything about myself, but my abilities are part of our family secret, so I can’t share. I hate that I’m keeping something from him. My guy is Dr. Quig Quigsly, and he’s the coroner and medical examiner for all of Savannah. He’s got looks and brains, and he thinks the world of me.

If I shared my secrets and he walked away from me in disgust, a big part of me would die. I don’t think I could survive without him. We met when we were kids and stayed friends through the years, though he attended different schools. As an adult, he’d developed a reputation as a playboy, dating women for a few times and then moving on.

One night when we were watching TV together as friends, we kissed. I was so surprised at the passion between us. I never thought we’d be a couple, but suddenly we were friends with benefits. Once that happened, I realized my feelings for him ran deep. Turned out his ran deep too. He never looked at another woman after we started seeing each other.

I often marvel, “How did I get so lucky?” about him. The more I saw Quig “socially”, the more I wanted to be with him. I couldn’t get enough of him. And wonder of wonders, he couldn’t get enough of me either.

So, you see what I have to lose by telling him my secrets?

Everything.

About the Author

Valona Jones, also known as Maggie Toussaint, writes paranormal cozy mysteries set in coastal Georgia. A former scientist, she’s drawn to the study of personal energy. She sharpened her people-watching skills as a lifelong introvert and had a bank vault of personal observations when she began to write fiction. Her newest release is In The Wick of Time, book 2 in the A Magic Candle Shop Mystery, preceded by Snuffed Out, which released Jan. 2023. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime with more than twenty-five published works of fiction. She lives in coastal Georgia, where she’s seen time and tide wait for no one.

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