POISON, by Jordyn Redwood, a BookBites Special w/giveaway

Whispers in Purple is please to bring you a special book and author today for your enjoyment . . . not to mention a free book. Please, read on.

• Title: Poison
• Author: Jordyn Redwood
• Publisher: Kregel
• Genre: Suspense
• Release Date: January 2013

Brief Book Blurb: Five years ago, Keelyn Blake's armed, mentally ill stepfather took her family hostage in their house in rural Colorado. She and her half-sister Raven made it out alive, but others did not. Authorities blamed the father's frequent hallucinations about a being named Lucent, but in the end, even the best of the FBI's hostage negotiators failed to overcome the man's delusions and end the standoff peacefully.

Now, Lucent is back, and he's no hallucination. In fact, he is a very real person with dangerous motives. He has kidnapped Raven's daughter, and--Keelyn worries--maybe has hurt Raven as well. Though she is estranged from her sister, Keelyn feels the immediate need to find Raven and save what family she has left. But when others who were involved in that fateful day start dying, some by mysterious circumstances, Keelyn wonders if she can emerge unscathed a second time.

In Jordyn’s Words:

The Duality of Poison

I like book titles with double meaning. My first published book was titled, Proof. There were two types of proof the heroine needed. Proof to convict her assailant of his horrific crimes and proof of God in her life.

Poison, the second book in the Bloodline Trilogy, is releasing this month and in this instance—there is an actual nefarious agent (not giving away too much) and a side meaning as well.

What poisons your life? Is it a bad relationship? Is it believing a lie? Is it an actual toxin like dirking too much liquor, using illegal drugs or prescription drugs in ways they weren’t intended?

Writing suspense, particularly with a heavy medical edge, I think requires something unusual to be found. The toxin in my novel Poison was inspired by an actual patient experience.

It was early one morning (like 0500) and it was just me and a fellow nurse manning the department. There were no patients. The physician was sleeping (lucky dog.) A patient checked in with complaint of a migraine and it was my partner’s turn for the next patient. So I nudged him out to the triage area.

Now, it’s just me solo in the department.

Suddenly, there is screaming—I mean horror movie type screaming and I begin to think this patient signing in has begun to flip out and my co-worker needs assistance so I go out into the waiting area.

Sitting in a wheelchair is a teen who is screaming at the top of his lungs—I mean an unnerving type of screaming. He’s writing in a wheelchair and his body (literally) is bathed in sweat. Another odd thing—his mother is unconcerned signing him in. Most parents are beating down the ER door saying, “Do something now!” for a child who clearly is in a lot of pain.

I take him in the wheelchair to a room without the mother mostly so I can get the real story about what has happened. I think two things first—he’s either taken something he shouldn’t have or he’s got meningitis.

The teen denies taking anything.

Yeah, we’ll be checking that just to be sure you’re telling the truth. And we did. And he was telling the truth.

He did not have meningitis.

It was a particular neurotoxin—of which I must keep secret.

Aren’t toxins interesting? How minute substances can make a person ill or end up killing? This is the stuff suspense novels are made from and the lure for every author—finding that one poison—undetectable, fast-acting, easily transmittable or ingested without the victim knowing.

Something like hemlock. Exactly what is hemlock?

Hemlock plants have a little duality themselves. Some plants nourish you. Others can kill you.

Hemlock is a broad term used to refer to several types of plants. Evidently, parsley and carrots fall under the hemlock category—though these don’t kill you (unless you’re perhaps a toddler that doesn’t like vegetables.) The poisonous foliage can look like carrot greens. Humans are often poisoned because they mistake the toxic plants for their non-toxic counterparts.

The Conium genus was once used in executions. Did you know the ancient Greeks used it to execute Socrates? North American Indians used it to poison the tips of their arrows.

But how does hemlock kill you?

I would call it a neurotoxin since it affects certain neuron receptors. Symptoms of poisoning include loss of motor skill, pupil dilation, weakened heart function, coma and death from respiratory failure. The root contains the highest concentration of the poison though all parts of the plant are poisonous.

• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hemlock.htm
• http://sbsc.wr.usgs.gov/research/projects/swepic/factsheets/coma2sf_info.pdf
• http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/821362-overview

Here is an account of the death of Socrates given by Plato.

• http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/socrates/a/062809ExecutionofSocrates.htm

What about you fellow suspense authors? What toxins have you found to be interesting?

About the author: Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. Her first two novels, Proof and Poison, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal and have been endorsed by the likes of Dr. Richard Mabry, Lynette Eason, and Mike Dellosso to name a few. You can connect with Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.net.

Jordyn is giving away one print copy of this book to one of you readers with a US mailing address. To enter, just leave your name and email address (so we can contact you if you win) in the comment section, and—whether you are a writer or not—have some fun answering Jordyn’s question highlighted above.

Giveaway ends next Friday, March 8.

Peg’s Note: Although POISON is the sequel to PROOF, Jordyn assures me that you don’t have to have red PROOF to understand POISON.