Forbidden Ground (29 page)
Authors: Karen Harper
Author Note
Kate’s story is book two in the Cold Creek trilogy. Tess, the youngest sister, was featured in the first book; Kate, the eldest, in this novel; and Charlene, the middle sister, will appear in the third book. (You have heard all the things about middle children acting out, haven’t you?) The three women have very different personalities, yet they share the excitement of finding their lifelong mates—and the curse of danger until a happy ending.
I’m not certain, after writing more than fifty novels since 1982, why I didn’t use the fascinating Adena people before this book, because signs of their lives are all around where I live in Columbus, Ohio, and points south to the Ohio River. Some five thousand mounds and earthworks attributed to them are in these dramatic sites, some quite small on private land, some long ago pillaged or excavated, some untouched.
Highbanks Park, a short distance north of Columbus where my husband and I sometimes go for picnics, has several Adena mounds. Like some others, they have been worn away and rebuilt. The Adena pipe—which became Ohio’s official state artifact in May 2013—is in the Ohio Historical Museum in Columbus, and the Adena Mansion, a historic site, is just a short drive away near Chillicothe.
Thanks again to our friends Dr. Roy and Mary Ann Manning for their tour of the Chillicothe area and for answering questions. I did, however, create the village of Cold Creek, based on places in southeastern Ohio on the edge of Appalachia. I did my undergraduate work in a college in that area with its dramatic foothills, mountain, quarries and creeks.
The Beastmaster Cauldron actually exists with its depiction of the antlered Beastmaster surrounded by animals over whom he holds sway. He is depicted on the so-called Gundestrup Cauldron, a photo of which can be found online. A lot of information about the Adena and their cult of death can be found at www.adena.com and numerous other sites. Where they came from and where they went after being such an advanced society for that time is the subject of much argument and conjecture, as in this story. Beastmaster masks, like the one from Mason Mound, have not been found in the New World, but it is surmised to be a Celtic shaman mask.
Most of us have beasts of some sort lurking in our lives or minds. I’m reminded of William Golding’s line from his novel of inherent evil,
Lord of the Flies:
“Maybe there is a beast...maybe it’s only us.”
Needless to say, the characters in this novel are all products of my imagination. There is no one at Ohio State University on whom Dr. Carson Cantrell or Kate Lockwood or the graduate students are based.
I hope you will look for the next novel in the trilogy, which will pick up the stories of Tess and Gabe, and Kate and Grant, with a special focus on Charlene.
Please visit my website,
www.karenharperauthor.com
, for other information or just to say hi.
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ISBN-13: 9781460341575
Forbidden Ground
Copyright © 2014 by Karen Harper
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