Rememberers
Book
1
C.
Edward Baldwin
Genre:
Urban Fantasy
Publisher:
Ink & Stone Pubishing
Date
of Publication: June 2015
ISBN:
978-0692356760
Number
of pages: 350
Word
Count: 99k
Cover
Artist: Clarissa Yeo
Book
Description:
In
Rememberers, time is not a straight line. It circles back onto
itself. Eternal Return is real. But only a small handful of humans
know this. And of that handful, an even smaller number of people,
known as Rememberers are capable of remembering events from previous
life cycles.
Kallie
Hunt, a nineteen year old college student, after suffering from a
sustained bout of déjà vu, discovers that she’s not only a
Rememberer, but also the reincarnation of the goddess Kali and the
first woman Eve, and perhaps more importantly, a demon-slayer.
Deal
Sharing Aunt would like to thank author C. Edwin Baldwin for sharing thought with us.
Interview
Tell
us your latest news? My sophomore novel, Rememberers is slated for
release in June. I’m very excited about the book. It’s an Urban
Fantasy story and one that I’d been itching to write for a number
of years.
When
and why did you begin writing? Believe it or not, there are a couple
of different answers to that question. I first began writing Fathers
House,
my debut novel, in 2009. But I actually first attempted to write in
1987 after one of my college professors remarked that she thought I
had a gift for writing. I found out soon enough that having a gift
for writing and knowing how to write can sometimes be two different
animals. I spent a lot of years learning the craft of writing and
trying to find my voice, or even a story to tell, neither of which
came easily. In fact, I’d given up on even being a writer. It
wasn’t until after I’d gone back to school to earn my Masters in
English and after the death of my mom that I decided to really write,
to stop with the excuses, and finally put pen to paper. The result of
that determination was my first book Fathers
House.
When
did you first consider yourself a writer? It was after I completed my
first book. It was then that I understood that writers are those
people who actually write. When I finally wrote something I
considered myself a writer.
What
inspired you to write your first book? Getting older actually. I saw
the years of my life ticking by and I thought, if not now, when. And
then my mother died, and her death inspired me to finish what I’d
started. I’d started stories before; but would never complete any
of them. When I started Fathers
House,
it was the last week of my mom’s life. Of course I didn’t know
that would be the last week of her life. I started the story while
visiting her in the hospital. She’d been ill but I very much
expected her to pull through. Unfortunately, she died a week later,
shortly after coming home. I considered my story Fathers
House
as some sort of connection with her and decided good or bad, the
story was going to get finished. So, I finished it.
Do
you have a specific writing style? That’s a good question. I hadn’t
really thought about my style before. But what I like to do is hone
in on a particular voice to tell the story as if I’m actually
sitting down somewhere and listening to someone tell me something
fascinating. I believe it helps me stay consistent with the flow and
nuances of the writing.
How
did you come up with the title? I don’t know if I’m the best with
titles. But with Rememberers,
I
really wanted a title that was simple, yet captured what the book was
about. In the story, some people are able to remember past life
cycles, thus the title, Rememberers.
However, the original working title of the story was When
Beginning Meets End.
That’s now actually the name of Book 3 in the series.
Is
there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? Yes, in
Rememberers,
one
message is simply don’t be ignorant. I mean in the classic sense.
There is a lot of knowledge out here in the world and the onus is on
each individual to find it and understand it. There’s much
information that a privileged few have and they’re sometimes stingy
with it for whatever reasons, some noble, some not. In any event,
individuals have to get the information for themselves by any means
necessary. A secondary message is to be proud of who you are, no
matter what society may say or think about you. Each character in my
story is confident and comfortable in their skin. Some of the
characters are what are generally cast as outsiders in a lot of
fiction today, mostly in stereotypical ways in the movies and
television. But in Rememberers,
these same types of characters are confident and comfortable with
themselves.
How
much of the book is realistic? Seriously, I believe all of it. Yes,
there are demons and angels in the book. But I believe in demons and
angels. Also, most of the history, organizations, and facts in the
book, outside of the demons and angels, are based on real events and
entities.
Are
experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Some of the minor subplots have some kernels of real life truth in
them. But for the most part, the story is made up.
What
books have most influenced your life most? I would say Invisible
Man
by Ralph Ellison and In
Cold Blood
by Truman Capote. Although Salem’s
Lot
and The
Stand
by Stephen King are also personal favorites.
If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Honestly, I would say Harlan Corben. I heard him speak at a Writer’s
Conference last year and I was really impressed with his honesty,
openness, and knowledge. And he’s obviously an incredible writer.
What
book are you reading now? Orson Scott Card’s Pathfinder.
Are
there any new authors that have grasped your interest? I’m
impressed with two Indie authors actually, K.L. Cottrell (What
Hides in the Darkness)
and Arie Farnam (The
Soul and the Seed)
I think these are two very talented up and comers.
What
are your current projects? I’m currently working on Book 2 in the
Rememberers series, Killing
God
as well as another crime fiction thriller, In
A Wooded Area.
What
would you like my readers to know? I very much enjoy what I do.
Creating is freeing to me and I truly want readers to enjoy the
worlds I’ve created. I love to hear from people who’ve read my
books, even if it’s a critical statement. Yes, sometimes I can be a
sensitive artist; but I get over it. I believe every comment whether
good or bad, helps make me a better writer. So, drop me a line
anytime @ info@cedwardbaldwin.com.
Excerpt:
Monday,
August 24
Detective Jeremy
Stint looked absently at the clock on the wall of his office. He was
vaguely aware that it was 7:30 p.m. But his mind wasn't on the time.
He was thinking about Phillip Beamer's murder. The murder, which had
been committed in the first week of August, had been the first murder
in Buckleton in nearly a decade. Murders in Buckleton were as rare as
a truth-telling politician. The town was located in a sweet spot in
South Carolina about halfway between Charlotte and Columbia. It was
off the beaten path for drug runners, therefore drug traffickers and
the peripheral trouble usually accompanying them tended to avoid it.
It was a town made up mostly of the elderly and middle agers with
small children. Young people, considering it the boondocks,
high-tailed it out of town as soon as their parents and the law
allowed, never looking back, which was just fine by Stint. He'd spent
twenty years working homicides in Richmond, Virginia, where murders
had seemed to occur as often as hands got dirty. The cities could
have their mass population's largess of crime. He'd take the slow
pace of Buckleton any day of the week.
The rarity of
murders in Buckleton made the occurrence of one more horrifying for
the town's citizenry, especially since with Buckleton being a small
town, the victim was usually known by all. Strangers were as rare as
murders in Buckleton, which made Phillip Beamer's death doubly
concerning. No one in town had known the man. It was as if he'd
dropped into the town out of the clear blue sky.
Stint reread his
notes on the Beamer case. The victim's landlord, Mabel Jones, had
nearly tripped over the victim's body on the morning of August 6. It
was five o'clock in the morning and Mabel was leaving the house on
her way to her second business. She was the proprietress of Belle's
Cafe. Beamer had been left on her front porch, stabbed to death.
Mabel had been up since four and hadn't heard Beamer leave the house.
She thought he was in his room, which was on the house's second floor
along with the rooms of her three other borders, all of whom had been
sound asleep, hearing nothing.
"I tell you
that man was as quiet as a church mouse," she'd said to Stint
during her first interview at the station. "He'd barely make a
sound. I hardly knew he was there. Unlike those other three who clunk
around like show horses."
She'd rented a
room to Beamer just two weeks earlier. He'd passed her background
check and had excellent credit. He'd told her he was a freelance
writer and was working on his first novel.
Mabel sipped
from the cup Stint had brought her. Drops of coffee trembled down the
cup's sides, lightly dotting the table around it. "He said he
needed a quiet place to work. And you know there's no quieter place
than Buckleton. Even the wind tiptoes around here. I had no reason to
doubt him. Everything had checked out. He was so nice and he paid me
six months in advance." When she finished, she looked weakly at
Stint as if seeking his forgiveness.
Stint remained
stone-faced, but he didn't begrudge the woman's making of a buck, nor
did he fault her for harboring a bad apple. Background and credit
checks were the staples of the industry and were often a landlord's
best and only defense against weirdoes and deadbeats. But they
weren't foolproof. Heck, even reference-checking didn't always expose
poisonous fruit. There was simply no surefire way for landlords or
employers to keep a potential Ted Bundy or Jonathan the Bum from
entering their places of business or humble abodes. It was impossible
to know everything about everyone. Sometimes personal baggage moved
in silent lockstep with applicants. "Did he have any visitors?"
Stint had asked her.
"Nary a
one," Mabel said. "Like I said, I hardly knew he was there.
He was as quiet as a church mouse."
Church mouse,
Stint thought somberly. It had been a morbidly fitting analogy.
Beamer's head had been nearly decapitated, as if his neck had been
snapped off by a human-sized mouse trap. Crime of passion perhaps, he
thought.
There was a
light rap on the doorframe to his office.
Stint looked up
and saw the ICE agent standing in his doorway, holding a briefcase.
After the Beamer murder, the agent had shown up at his office
unexpectedly. Stint had no idea what Beamer's death had to do with
national security. But then again, he didn’t know what the death
had to do with anything. "Agent Bennett, come on in."
Bennett stepped
into the office and closed the door behind him. Stint offered him the
client seat in front of his desk. After an exchange of pleasantries,
Bennett sat down in the offered seat and laid his briefcase across
his lap. He opened it, pulling out the plastic bags containing the
business card and crime scene photos. He handed the items to Stint.
"I appreciate you letting me borrow these."
Stint laid them
on his desk. "No problem, just professional courtesy. I'll put
them in our storage safe. Would you like to share with me why you
needed them?"
"Let's just
say I wanted to gauge the reaction of a little birdie."
"A
suspect?"
Bennett bit his
lip. "It's hard to say."
Stint waited a
moment to see if the agent was going to add to the short statement.
When it was clear that he wasn't, he said, "We don't get much
violent crime here. You can imagine the stir this one has caused. If
there's anything you could share to help me solve this thing..."
"You're not
going to solve it," Bennett said.
"How's
that?" Stint asked, his dandruff rising. "I know we're a
smalltime outfit, but there's no cause to..."
"That's not
what I mean," Bennett interjected. "You're not going to
solve it because the murder had nothing to do with Buckleton."
"Well,
even a random act of violence happening in my jurisdiction is still
my responsibility," Stint said.
"This
wasn't a random act of violence."
Stint snatched
up the plastic bags and stood up. He walked over to a floor safe
tucked into the back corner of his office. He turned the combination
lock and popped open the door. He paused and turned to face Bennett,
holding the plastic bags up in the air. "Don't you think one
professional courtesy deserves another?"
There was a
brief pause, and then Bennett said, "Is this place secure?"
Stint just
looked at him. Buckleton had a two man police force. Stint was the
police chief and lead detective—well, only detective. The other
member of the force, Raymond Johns, was home, probably just about
ready to tuck his five-year-old son into bed.
"Okay,"
Bennett said, obviously catching the detective's drift. He nodded for
Stint to return to his chair. The police chief placed the plastic
bags inside the safe, closed the door, and readjusted the combination
lock. After he returned to his chair, Bennett said, "Phillip
Beamer was also known as Abu Dawood. He was an American citizen with
ties to Al Qaeda."
"He was a
terrorist?" Stint asked.
"He was a
sleeper cell, planning a terrorist attack against America. He and a
group of his cohorts were going to blow up the Strom Thurmond Federal
Building in Columbia. We'd been tracking his email communications for
a number of years. We'd known about Beamer or Dawood since 2001."
"Who took
him out? Was it us?"
"By us, you
mean the US government?"
Stint nodded.
"No,"
Bennett said. "There were no plans to take Dawood/Beamer out. We
would have prevented the attack, but he was worth more to us alive
than dead."
"Then
who?"
Bennett's face
drew in as he slowly shook his head. "We don't know."
"But you
have a theory," Stint said.
Bennett looked
at him curiously for a moment as if trying to gauge his aptitude for
hearing the absurd. "Yeah, I do. It's a wild one, maybe even too
wild to mention."
"I've been
in law enforcement over twenty years. I've just about heard them
all."
"A
psychic," Bennett said in a matter of fact tone.
"A
psychic?" Stint repeated.
"I think
someone knew what Dawood/Beamer was planning to do, and then either
they or someone they directed killed him before he could carry it
out."
"Huh,"
Stint said. He was skeptical, but not dismissive. He'd known stranger
things, like the man who'd thought his dog had commanded him to kill.
"What about his cohorts?"
"What about
them?" Bennett asked.
"Were any
of them killed, too?"
"No,"
Bennett said. "We have a couple of the ones Dawood/Beamer
communicated with via email in custody. But they, too, were sleeper
cells and hadn't actually met him."
"Why would
someone kill only this Dawood/Beamer character?"
"Because he
was the leader. Killing him ended the planned terrorist threat.
Dawood had been the lead domino. The other cells were to follow his
instructions like trained seals. They knew none of the particulars of
the assignment, only their specific roles in it."
"Okay,"
Stint said. "Let's say a psychic was involved. You have a
vigilante on your hands that killed a known terrorist who was
planning a horrific act of terrorism against the US. End justifies
the means, right?"
"You don't
really believe that, do you?" Bennett asked.
He didn't.
Vigilantism was just another form of law breaking. To allow it would
jeopardize the rule of law in society, ultimately leading to chaos.
Not to mention the very real possibility that a vigilante could kill
the wrong person. Stint didn't say any of this, but he didn't need
to. He could tell Bennett recognized a slip of the tongue when he
heard one. "So why do you think he was killed here in
Buckleton?"
"Because he
was here. His death wasn't connected to the town in any other way."
I guess that's
good to know, Stint thought. The last thing Buckleton needed or
wanted was someone targeting its citizens. "What's your next
step?"
Bennett poked
the inside of his jaw with his tongue and looked away. "There
isn't a next step. Right now, we wait."
"What
should I do about my investigation?"
"Unless
you're a glutton for the punishment of an unsolved murder, I'd table
it. Beamer's killer is most likely a world away from Buckleton."
About
the Author:
C.
Edward Baldwin’s debut novel, Fathers House was released in
December, 2013 to wide critical acclaim. Kirkus Reviews called his
2014 Reader’s Favorite Award winning crime fiction book, “A
resounding story of fatherhood packaged as a tense thriller.”
Rememberers is Baldwin’s sophomore effort. Baldwin graduated from
North Carolina A&T State University with a BA in Communications
and he holds a MA in English from East Carolina. He and his wife
Natasha, and their two boys, currently reside in Raleigh, NC.
twitter:
@WinCurt
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