Spectral Revelations: A Karina Cardinal Mystery
by Ellen Butler
About Spectral Revelations
Spectral Revelations: A Karina Cardinal Mystery
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting – Williamsburg, Virginia
Power to the Pen (October 5, 2023)
Print length : 285 pages
ASIN : B0C7WQVTNH
Is Karina’s missing aunt on vacation…or on the lam?
Karina is trying to keep her mind on getting a cosponsor for a bill, but it’s tough with her Mom blowing up her phone. By the time Karina finally stops hitting “ignore”, Mom is frantic. It appears Karina’s Aunt Vera has disappeared, fibbed to her employer about the reason for her absence, even abandoned her beloved cat, Nightshade—which is completely out of character. Karina would bet her favorite pair of designer shoes that Vera is in some kind of trouble.
However, when Karina hauls her cookies from D.C. to historic Williamsburg to search Vera’s house, she finds nothing suspicious. Except for a mischievous Civil War ghost who scares the bejesus out of her and keeps trashing Vera’s office. Until Karina realizes his seemingly random ectoplasmic tantrums have a purpose—revealing key evidence.
Something is definitely fishy, but the clues aren’t adding up. And as the spirit’s visitations become more urgent, Karina calls on reinforcements for help—her latest squeeze Rick Donovan and her sister Jillian. Because the cops are following faulty leads, which could put Vera on the wrong end of an arrest warrant … if she’s found alive.
International bestselling and award-winning author Ellen Butler presents book six in the Karina Cardinal mystery series! Fans of Elizabeth Peters and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum will adore this gripping mystery adventure.
Ellen’s Guest Post
When I began the sixth installment of the Karina Cardinal mysteries, it looked very different from the book I ended up writing. A third of the way into the original novel, I realized the book simply was not coming together the way I’d envisioned it. Some might call this writer’s block and plow through with a “never give up” attitude. I was finding it too depressing to sit down at my computer every day. When I realized, I wasn’t enjoying my own story, I threw in the towel on the failing book.
After three months of banging away at a failing idea, I remember staring at the blank screen nonplussed. Without an idea for the next installment for Karina, what on earth was I going to write? All of Karina’s previous stories came to me organically, with some sort of kernel of fact that bloomed into a novel. Now I was trying to pull a storyline out of thin air. It’s not as though I didn’t have any ideas. I had too many, and I became immobilized trying to make the decision on which direction to follow.
Griping to my husband about my roadblock, he asked me, as a Halloween Queen, why I’d never written a ghost story.
Yeah, why hadn’t I?
We’d just moved to Williamsburg, VA where ghost stories abound. There must be half a dozen different operators of ghost tours in the area, and plenty of books on the subject. From there, my scrappy little research brain went wild. In two weeks, I had an outline, and Spectral Revelations was born.
I knew I was on the right path when I realized writing was fun again. And Karina’s antics were making me laugh. The story begins when Karina’s Aunt Vera supposedly goes on a trip, and even though her leaving initially appears above board, Karina soon realizes things are not what they seem. In the usual form, Karina must solve the mystery of her missing Aunt Vera, who lives and works in Colonial Williamsburg (CW). With the help of her sister, the intrepid Silverthorne Security fellows, and a mischievous Civil War ghost, Karina delves into the investigation. For those who haven’t been to CW, it was the capital of the Virginia Colony from 1699 to 1780 and played a significant role in the American Revolution. The heart of CW is a historic district and living history museum where actors in period costumes depict daily colonial life in the streets, stores, and workshops.
Aunt Vera’s ghost was inspired by Lieutenant Disosway, a ghost who is said to haunt the Palmer House, near the Capitol Building at the end of Duke of Gloucester Street. I read about Lieutenant Disosway in The Hauntings of Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown, by Jackie Eileen Behrend.
In her book, Behrend recounts a haunting tale told by the Tuckers, a family who once lived in the Palmer House during the late 1800s. The Tuckers recounted a gentle soldier in Union garb who would turn up sitting in their parlor smoking a pipe. Further research led the Tuckers to identify the ghost as Lieutenant Disosway, who was appointed as a federal provost marshal to oversee the city of Williamsburg at the ripe age of twenty-four. He was billeted to Palmer House. However, one night, inebriated Union soldiers began harassing some of the local ladies. Disosway ran to Market Square to put a stop to the threats. Unfortunately, this angered one of the drunk soldiers. He pulled a pistol and shot Disosway on sight. The lieutenant was carried back to Palmer House, where he died two hours later.
In addition, Behrend’s book discusses accounts of various ghosts she calls “walk-throughs,” of starving Confederate soldiers fleeing through Williamsburg on their way to Richmond. One such story describes a family staying at a cottage in Williamsburg who experienced a ghostly visit. The ghost opened their freezer door multiple times, and the family’s three cats spent the day watching an invisible spirit tromp through the house. The cats’ reaction to the “walk-through” ghost inspired the scenes of Aunt Vera’s cat who watches the invisible Lieutenant Cabway.
About Ellen Butler
Ellen Butler is the internationally bestselling author of the Karina Cardinal mystery series. Her experiences working on Capitol Hill and at a medical association in Washington, D.C. inspired the mystery-action series. Book critics call the Karina Cardinal mysteries, “intelligent escapism” and “unputdownable adventures that will take readers on an electrifying yet light-hearted and humorous journey.” Butler also writes historical spy fiction. Her WWII spy novel, The Brass Compass, recently won a 2022 Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award for historical fiction. The second book in the duology, Operation Blackbird: A Cold War Spy Novel, is Butler’s latest historical fiction. The novel is inspired by true events, and won a Next Generation Indie Book Award gold medal for historical fiction. Reviewers are calling it “riveting,” and, “a thrilling adventure.”
You can find Ellen at:
Website ~ www.EllenButler.net
Facebook ~ www.facebook.com/EllenButlerBooks
Instagram~@ebutlerbooks
Goodreads ~ www.goodreads.com/EllenButlerBooks
Bookbub ~ www.bookbub.com/authors/ellen-butler
Amazon ~ www.amazon.com/Ellen-Butler/e/B00HS3Q48E
Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Kobo
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