Journal: A New Way to Experience a Scrapbooking Mystery
Who was Amy Zoe Mason?
How did she die, and why?
"That's what we found ourselves asking when we 'discovered' her journal in the secretcompartment of an old desk that we bought at a thrift store," said Kristine Atkinson and Joyce Atkinson, sisters who share a passion for art, mystery, and intrigue. The artists joined forces to create their stunning debut novel, JOURNAL: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason, (Simon & Schuster; September 2006; $23.00) which Publishers Weekly calls "tantalizing."
The result is an innovative, genre-bending work that the Atkinsons call a "Discovery Novel." In these pages, visual and verbal clues invite readers to do their own detecting into the shadowy fate of a young artist, wife, and mother. Leads are interspersed among images, text, and live weblinks, all pointing, with the suspense of a well-crafted mystery, toward potential solutions to Amy's fate. Unlike conventional mysteries in which the reader is a passive observer JOURNAL allows the reader to become an active participant by exploring and interacting with the pages to discover the mystery.
JOURNAL begins on January 1, with Amy's resolution to keep a journal. Rather than face a blank page, she chose a ready-made canvas for self-expression in the form of the 1860 novel, Lucile, by Owen Meredith. Onto the pages, Amy layered a pastiche of words and images, collage and found objects, that combine to offer a scrapbooked record of her life.
Amy hopes the creative exercise will help her deal with two stressful life events: her mother's sudden death, just two months before, and her family's impending move from Houston to Boston. Her husband, Bob, is leaving in three days to start work as Director of the Wentworth Heart Institute, funded by the well-connected, widowed Julia Wentworth. Amy is left with the job of selling their house and preparing for her future as a social asset to her husband. Happily, she has the welcome distraction of two children, Susan and Alex, and her volunteer work with the elementary school art program. Still, she misses Bob, who seems to miss her back-at least for a while.
Amy finds unexpected relief from her loneliness-and fast friendship-when she chooses Vanessa Garamond as a real estate agent. Recommended by a colleague of Bob, Vanessa not only exceeds her professional reputation, but goes out of her way to make Amy feel special and less anxious about her future in Boston. Before long, however, Vanessa's personal touches take a turn for the ominous. Readers who peer between the lines, and behind and beyond them, will come to suspect that Vanessa has ulterior motives-aimed at Bob. Does Bob harbor malicious intent of his own? A telescope, a sudden illness, a prescription for sleeping pills, the gift of a spa massage, plus myriad clues and uncanny coincidences, will raise the haunting specter: Was Amy driven to suicide - or was she murdered?
Using the love triangle featured in Lucile as the textual backdrop for JOURNAL, the Atkinsons allow some of that tragedy of a bygone era to peek through and add a chilling edge to Amy's story. Of course, it's all very intriguing and pure fiction. Or is it?
About the Authors
Sisters KRISTINE ATKINSON and JOYCE ATKINSON are mild-mannered artists who have a mind for murder. They live two miles apart in a suburb of Houston, Texas.
technorati tags: journal, murder-mystery, novel, Joyce+Atkinson, Kristine+Atkinson, altered+journal
