I want to thank Heath for allowing Tea Time with Marce this Exclusive post. I am excited to share this with the blogging community.
Heath's book The Manufactured Identity is my favourite over all read so far this year.
My post with a sneak peak of The Grand Delusion
E X C L U S I V E !!!!!
The Human Obsession, releasing end of November, early December
Prologue
Thomas held his breath and wondered if the scattered rain drops and overgrown ferns would be enough to hide his body from the man hunting him ten feet away.
Don’t move.
As the raindrops moved more swiftly from their heavenly courts toward the softening dirt, he clutched his hands tighter around the metal cross now tearing into his palms and closed his eyes, trying to imagine his mother and father and brothers and sisters and all his school friends and all the people he never thought he cared about but now realized he may never see again.
The sound of movement forced his eyes to reopen, and he strained through the blurry darkness to study if the man with the gun was looking his way.
Just don’t move. Please save me, Jesus. Please save me, Father.
The cross burrowed further inward. His eyes shut tightly once again. His mind traveled far away from the grove in which he was currently imprisoned, far away from the foreign surroundings of the mountain, far away from the cabin from which he had just escaped, and far away from the stranger who had stolen him away from his mother’s eyes and father’s lectures, and he prayed that God would save him from this monster he did not know. He held the cross so tightly now that, despite its relative size, he could not feel it anymore; it had become a part of him, one with his body.
Just don’t move.
He opened his eyes. The man with the gun was circling, calling out for him. “Hey. You may as well come out right now. That was a pretty good stunt you pulled there in the cabin, but we both know you couldn’t have gone far. And I’ve got nowhere else to be. This won’t end the way you want it to, but I can make it hurt less, if you come out now. If not, I promise it’ll be slow, painful, your worst fears. And Mommy and Daddy aren’t here to save you, boy!”
Just don’t breath.
The man began moving in measured circles again, stretching the gun away from his body in every direction, somehow even in the darkness looking subtly frantic. He was swearing. Maybe even sweating, despite the rain. Thomas closed his eyes again and prayed harder while images of his mother’s stories and father’s tales flashed unceasingly through his mind. The story of his father’s fish that got away. The story of his mother’s cancer and how she prayed and it was cured. The story of his parents almost going bankrupt, but the faith of his father that Jesus always sends a messenger to save his children from their troubles. That a man of God will always come when it seems all is lost. That a man of faith never loses himself in the terror of sin.
The man with the gun was now moving forward, closer to Thomas. He stopped, lowered slightly the gun while turning his head to the thick patch of foliage covering Thomas.
Oh God, please save me.
He shut his eyes again and held the cross nearer his heart, and spoke quickly without noise for rescue, for peace. He was only eleven. He did not want his life to end this way. He did not want to die here, with this awful stranger. This man with a gun so close it was now towering over him, presiding over him. This man so close Thomas was unsure how he was not standing on his hairless, quivering legs. He began to eject silent tears as his small eyelids embraced with intensity maybe for the last time.
Don’t move. A man of God will come.
Heath Sommer Bio
Doctor Heath Sommer earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Idaho State University, a program recognized and accredited by the American Psychological Association. He has also earned both a Masters and Bachelors degree in psychology, and an additional Bachelors degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. A native of Sacramento, California, Dr. Sommer has enjoyed opportunities to present his research at national conventions including The Association for the Advancement of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy and the American Psychological Association. He has also published in recognized Journals such as The Journal for Child and Adolescent Psychology, and his work has been cited in both Prevention and Best Life magazines.
Dr. Sommer’s fiction writing career formally began in June 2009 with the publication of his first suspense/mystery novel The Manufactured Identity. Surprising critics with its intense plot twists and thoroughly human characters, Sommer was contracted to produce two more books in The Manufactured Identity series. The first of these, The Grand Delusion, will be released in the summer of 2010 with the third novel, The Human Obsession, to be released a few months after. Dr. Sommer is currently working on an independent fiction storyline about a mall shooting, as well as some nonfiction work.
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