It’s A Jungle – Mayan Moon Blog Stop for Paty Jager

I am so pleased to welcome PATY JAGER to my little corner of the world. Paty is on blog tour for her latest book, Secrets of a Mayan Moon…an awesome and intriguing title! So without further ado, take it away, Paty. (p.s. Leave a comment! There’s a prize!)

Cynthia, Thank you for having me here today!  I hope everyone who reads this blog takes the time to leave a comment, because I love to give! I’m giving a $5 egift card to one commenter at each blog stop and will give a bag full of goodies to the person who follows me to the most blogs and a gift to the host who gets the most commenters. You can find the blog tour hosts at my blog: http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com or my website: http://www.patyjager.net

It’s a Jungle-

When I started out with the idea for this book I knew I wanted to set it in a locale other than the U.S. I’d determined that my heroine would be an anthropologist who specialized in Native American studies, so the setting had to either be North, Central, or South America.

Knowing the hero was in the DEA(Drug Enforcement Agency) I needed to do some research on drug trafficking. That was the worst part of the research. Learning all about the seedy side of people, and in some instances, countries.

While digging through information on the Central and South American Natives, I came across the Maya people who we’d studied ever so slightly in school. I dug a little deeper and the more books I accumulated on them and the more things I read, I began to piece together a way to use their hieroglyphs and my imagination to spin a false tale. I came up with a botched human sacrifice that instead of bringing the Maya prosperity started their decline.

With all this information, the story had to be set at an archeological dig—another thing I had to research. And I placed the fake dig in the Petén rainforest of Guatemala along the Mexico border to fit in with the drug trafficking. So the setting almost becomes another character in this book as they battle the jungle, the caves, and in a way even the sacrificial altar chamber.

There were many new things I learned and even more that I stashed away to use in possible books down the road. I enjoyed bringing the jungle to life and the Mayan catastrophe that I conjured up and had my heroine decipher.

Blurb for Secrets of a Mayan Moon:

Child prodigy and now Doctor of Anthropology, Isabella Mumphrey, is about to lose her job at the university. In the world of publish or perish, her mentor’s request for her assistance on a dig is just the opportunity she’s been seeking. If she can decipher an ancient stone table—and she can—she’ll keep her department. She heads to Guatemala, but drug trafficking bad guys, artifact thieves, and her infatuation for her handsome guide wreak havoc on her scholarly intentions.

DEA agent Tino Kosta, is out to avenge the deaths of his family. He’s deep undercover as a jaguar tracker and sometimes jungle guide, but the appearance of a beautiful, brainy anthropologist heats his Latin blood taking him on a dangerous detour that could leave them both casualties of the jungle.

Excerpt

There they were. The symbols she’d tried to figure out the other day. They represented the name of a woman. She stared across the compound, unseeing. The woman who was sacrificed. Isabella’s stomach churned. The sacrifice of the virgin made the moon god cry. What about this particular woman left sorrow rather than hope? For the sacrifices were gifts to the gods to bring good weather and crops.

Sadness for this woman wrapped around her heart. Clutching the book to her chest, Isabella returned to her tent and lay down. She needed to sleep. That had to be why this information caused her so much grief. She was tired.

But sleep eluded her. Her mind spun with the drawings, the sadness, and restlessness. Finally, unable to shake the images and unease, Isabella rose, crossed the compound, and entered the dig site. Something compelled her to read the glyphs and look at the carvings in the altar chamber once more.

Secrets of a Mayan Moon is available at Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

Bio:

Wife, mother, grandmother, and the one who cleans pens and delivers the hay; award winning author Paty Jager and her husband currently ranch 350 acres when not dashing around visiting their children and grandchildren. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Her contemporary Western, Perfectly Good Nanny won the 2008 Eppie for Best Contemporary Romance, Spirit of the Mountain, a historical paranormal set among the Nez Perce, garnered 1^st place in the paranormal category of the Lories Best Published Book Contest,and Spirit of the Lake, the second book of the spirit trilogy, was a finalist in the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence.

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager and twitter;  @patyjag.

Hi! It’s Cyndi again. Sound like a great book, doesn’t it? and a 350 acre ranch! Wow, Paty. Sound like a great place for the grandkids to come play.

Remember to LEAVE a comment for a chance to win a $5 e-card.