Hey everyone! I’m really excited to be on the blog tour for Medium Wave by Rose Zolock. For my blog tour stop, I have an awesome guest post for you from Rose. First, here’s more about the book!
Becky Moran has built a career claiming to talk to the dead. A successful clairvoyant medium, a Cambridge graduate with her own radio show ‘Medium Wave’ and a team dedicated to crafting the celebrity myth – because Becky Moran is a fake. Until, one night, something supernatural, inexplicable, breaks through live on air as she is broadcasting. Becky Moran discovers the paranormal is real, the dead can indeed speak and she is being pursued relentlessly towards a battle for her very survival.
‘This thing has no defined shape. Whatever energy exists within it, it cannot settle on a shape. The strands of darkness curl out and then wrap back inwards. The bulk of the shadow becomes concave, then bulbous, the height building in on itself but lacking any skeletal structure to wrap itself around. There are no eyes, no clearly defined head shape. It is creating itself from darkness, like a swirl of ebony ink dropped into a vat of putrid water, spreading silently….’
View the Book trailer here. Goodreads | Amazon UK
And now for the guest post! Enjoy!!
White Feathers
by Rose Zolock This is a simple request.
Tell me, when was the last time you saw a white feather?
Some of you will say when you changed the duvet cover or passed a flock of pigeons. I suspect that many of you will say that feather appeared from nowhere, fluttered by your feet and you are one of millions who believe that feather was sent as reassurance from the other side. There is a growing trend to believe white feathers are signals of love and support from the Angels. There are those – perhaps you are one of them – who believe a white feather is a sign from a loved one who has passed over
For me, it’s a ladybird. This red, shiny jewel of a bug always appears when I need reassurance or support. I know it is my friend Patrick who died, from a brain tumour, while he was still only in his fifties. His mother and I held his hand as he died. It was she who told me about the ladybird – how there was one on her skirt the day she found out she was pregnant and then, after Patrick died, how she would see them when she was at her lowest. I remember nodding, hoping she had comfort from it. Until I saw one in November, on my gate post as I left the house one bitterly cold morning heading to an important job. I took it as a sign of encouragement, that it was all going to be fine. It was. I always smile when I see a ladybird.
A third of Britains believe in Angels. Over 70% of Americans say they believe in them, too. These recent statistics also show the belief doesn’t always originate from a conventional religious source, either. It seems as if our desire to take comfort from the idea that we have a Guardian Angel, uniquely our own, there to protect us, is gathering momentum.
In my novel, Medium Wave, I examine the industry of paranormal belief – with a central character, Becky Moran who has built a successful career convincing the public she could hear the dead speak. She was lying. Although, not anymore. Her journey through the supernatural is a chilling one, set against the back drop of the national media and shows how the exploitative circus of superstition and ghosts can persuade even the most rational person there is evidence of life after death, or of greater forces protecting us. You must decide for yourself as to the truth of this.
Browse a book shop or online. Book after book celebrates the Angel culture and the link with the white feather. I have a friend who sends me small, framed pictures of Angels and she believes they are there to protect us. I keep one by my bed.
There are stories of celebrities who are open about the fact they see white feathers as a sign from a loved one who has passed. One father, whose daughter was murdered, told a tabloid newspaper that he saw white feathers in the most impossible of places and knew it was a sign from his child. No one derided this man and his grief – many then had the courage to speak up and tell similar stories. One widow I know said she took down her wedding album after her husband died. She left the pages open and when she returned, a large white feather was lain on the album. This was in their living room with all the windows closed. She knew it was a sign from him.
Black feathers, however, I do not find to be comforting. The thinking there is that they are a warning – to ward off negativity or alert you to trouble. I avoid crows. Black feathers appear in a certain form in Medium Wave. Be very, very careful.
So, I ask you again – when was the last time you saw a white feather?
About the Author
Her Irish grandmother first told Rose about the Banshee when she was just a small child. How the wailing sound of the spirit of the dead and dying could be heard when someone was about to pass.
It was family folklore that the women in the family had ‘the touch’, the ability to see spirits and other dimensions. Rose listened and grew up fascinated by those who claimed to have supernatural or psychic abilities.Rose does not claim to have those powers. Take her to Venice in February when the mist swirls over the canals, walk by her side along the darkened streets of Greenwich Village in New York City in high summer, listening to a ghost walk tour guide tell the stories of death, murder and the unexplained – Rose would say those stories and our belief in them gives her a power to see into the shadows within our imagination.
As a journalist, Rose takes every opportunity to explore and investigate strange stories, myth and folklore. Living in rural Yorkshire, with a rich library of ghost stories and literary tradition, Rose also has a sceptical and forensic insight into those who peddle the stories which feed our imagination but of which we have yet found no proof. She has listened to the debunkers who argue against those believers who are convinced that sand the dark side exist.
Rose’s mind is open. Is yours?
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