Book Giveaway! and Spotlight on Marie Drake's "Three Rules:" A Suspense Thriller With all the Right Ingredients

"Three Rules" cover
Copyright Marie Drake 2013

Animal lover, hiker, home cook, mother and crochet aficionado Marie Drake has somehow managed to pen her freshman suspense thriller amid her busy life of caring for children, many of whom are foster children, volunteering and keeping house. While she may lead her own personal dream life with her beloved family, her protagonist Hope Wellman in "Three Rules" does anything but. Read ahead for an excerpt from the up-and-comer Marie Drake's new novel "Three Rules."

" I want to spit on his grave, but I won't. That would cause the surrounding people to be offended and confused, all these people who didn't truly know him but honor him at this service. I hold my frame as stiff as a board beneath the dark, rumbling sky full of churning clouds – the perfect weather to send him off. I twist my buttons trying to make sure they all point in the same direction. It's a trivial thing to be focused on at a grave site, but my obsessiveness won't allow me to stop until I fix them all.

I guess most people would be sad attending two family members' funerals so close together. I'm not. We buried Grandfather Leonard not long ago. I didn't cry. I didn't know him. I didn't know what I was missing by not knowing him. I don't have any grandparents on my mother's side either. I wasn't his real grandchild anyway – and he never fussed over his own children – so why would he fuss over their children? I'm wearing the same black dress. My black hat covers my long blonde hair, fashioned into a bun. A veil conceals my face. I'm not crying for the loss of this man either, but no one can tell. Another rumble of thunder sounds and lightning crackles through the clouds. It seems appropriate that the sky swell up and spit on him for me. The pearly gates will not open to welcome him. No, he will not spend a single moment of eternity in a peaceful state.

There is no open casket, no public viewing. The authorities recovered his boat with evidence of some blood, a few strands of hair, and empty alcohol bottles. It was a logical conclusion that he fell, bumped his head, and went into the water. They did not recover his body. Too bad, I may find some morbid sense of satisfaction seeing him laying there in a coffin dead.

This ceremony over an empty grave seems very strange. Among all these tearful people mourning and sharing embraces, I separate myself. I look at them. I can see the fear in some of their faces. He died very young. They're afraid of death.

I scan the cemetery. So many headstones, so many graves, they all contain secrets – even the empty ones. I stand alone, twisting these buttons, counting the reasons I'm glad he's dead."

This excerpt coupled with the following quote from Hope Wellman, “I have learned three rules in my life: 1.) The most dangerous people in the world are not always strangers. 2.) The scariest things imaginable are not those that can kill you, but those you can live through. And probably the most prominent: 3.) The most horrible possibility is not what could happen to you, but what you could become – I became a killer.” have sucked me in. I just could not wait to find out what happened to Hope and what is going to happen to her as the pages turn. 

Enter to win a signed copy of "Three Rules" here!

Learn more about the author at www.mariedrake.com

"Three Rules" is already available for purchase at Amazon!

Shelly Barclay