Guest Post with Doug Dillon ~ Jean BookNerd

Book Nerd Guest Post

A former award winning educator, Doug writes about things paranormal and historical. His interest in the paranormal comes from personal experiences as detailed in the nonfiction adult book he and wife wrote titled, An Explosion of Being: An American Family's Journey into the Psychic. Out of those events and extensive historical research, he then created Sliding Beneath the Surface for young adults, Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy. Doug set his trilogy in the oldest and most haunted city in the United States, St. Augustine, Florida. Books II and III of the trilogy are on the way.

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My inspiration for THE ST. AUGUSTINE TRILOGY in general comes from these main sources:

● A fascination with, and experience in, the paranormal. That interest led to a nonfiction book my wife and I wrote a number of years ago titled, An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic.

● A dedication to young people and those young at heart who struggle to understand the world around them and their part in it.

● A love for America’s oldest and most haunted city, St. Augustine, Florida.

● A love of history, especially the past as it relates to Florida and St. Augustine.

As exemplified in the trilogy’s premise, I believe that we all “create our own reality whether in this world or the next.” This motivates me in my life as well as in my writing in general.

Specifically, in relation to Book I, Sliding Beneath the Surface, I was inspired by the story of the Second Seminole War in Florida and how it not only impacted the United States and Florida, but more specifically, how it so deeply affected Florida’s Native American, Black Seminole and slave population of the time.

Inspiring Authors and Writers:

I think all I can do here is to give you a sampling of those writers who, to me,

exemplify excellence in fiction, nonfiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, young adult fiction, spirituality, psychology, the paranormal world and quantum physics:

James Michener, Diana Gabaldon, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clark, Jane Roberts,

Eckert Tolle, The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, J.D. Salinger, Louis Sachar, Phillip Pullman, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Carl Jung.

A new resident of America’s oldest and most haunted city, St. Augustine, Florida, fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden suddenly finds himself up to his eyeballs in frightening paranormal experiences. At the end of his rope in trying to figure out what is happening to him, Jeff decides to rely on his friend Carla Rodriguez, and Lobo, an old Native American shaman, for help.

Despite this guidance, things get even worse. Jeff’s spine tingling encounters increase in number and intensity at an alarming rate, scaring him even more. Eventually, he makes the startling discovery that unresolved circumstances involving a bloody event directly out of Florida’s distant past threatens his sanity and possibly his life.

Finally, overwhelmed by forces he cannot understand or control, Jeff’s world shifts from frightening to downright terrifying. In desperation, and on Lobo’s advice, he leaps headlong into the unknown in order to save himself. What Jeff discovers though is that he has entered a level of reality he is completely unprepared to handle while unwittingly dragging Carla with him.

Like all the books in THE ST. AUGUSTINE TRILOGY, the premise for Sliding Beneath the Surface is simply this: You create your own reality.

You can purchase Sliding Beneath the Surface at the following Retailers: