Tuesday ebook spotlight: 'Trails in the Sand'

In 2010, author P.C. Zick worked public relations for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, handling the media for the sea turtle nest relocation project. That summer, the Deep Water Horizon blew.

“At the same time, I was exploring some issues from my family's past, which left me increasingly frustrated,” the authors writes in her Amazon bio. “Two weeks prior to the oil spill, 29 miners were killed in a coal mine explosion in West Virginia, just a few hours from where I was moving. It all fell into place to write about the oil spill, the coal mine disaster, and a family facing disaster.”

The result was her ebook “Trails in the Sand,” part of the Florida Fiction Series.

Here’s the book’s description:

Oil gushing from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico’s floor. Petroleum-covered wildlife gasping for air. Tar balls pushing into the grassy habitat of marine life. Beaches suffocating with the smell of fossil fuel instead of salt air.

All the while, sea turtles, in an ancient ritual, march from the sea, unaware of the dangers lurking for their precious cargo once hatched. The eggs laid—sometimes more than one hundred per nest—hatch in seventy days and begin their treacherous march to the sea if their natural predators don’t get to them first.

But in 2010, another more deadly predator—this one not natural—lurked in the waving underwater grasses where the hatchlings go to grow large enough to join the marine life in the larger bathtub of the sea.

This real-life drama serves as the backdrop to the fictional story of Caroline Carlisle, an environmental reporter covering BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill as wildlife officials race to save the threatened and endangered sea turtles of Florida’s Panhandle.

Caroline’s own life parallels the manmade disasters of April 2010 as her family is nearly destroyed by the secrets kept for generations.

The love story begins when Carline first laid eyes on Simon when she was nine years old. Unfortunately, he married her older sister, and thus set a southern family on a collision course with the past. After the death of her sister, which makes Simon a widow, the two finally marry and attempt to make a family. Simon’s daughter Jodi is less than welcoming to her new stepmother who also happens to be her aunt.

As Caroline reports on the oil spill threatening the sea turtle hatchlings, she begins a journey to uncover her own mother’s past, which includes the suicide of a sibling and a teenage pregnancy.

With her sharpened reporter skills, she digs until she brings all the secrets to light, and she can report that the sea turtle hatchlings are safe on the Atlantic beaches of Florida.

Louisiana Book News is written by journalist Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. The first two books in her award-winning series are FREE as ebooks! For more information and to sign up for her newsletter visit www.cherieclaire.net.

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