MYSTERY SHE WROTE...
DREAM GATE II...GRABBING TIME
This suspense-thriller, book number eight was intended as a sequel to Grabbing Air.
I heard from readers who became invested in the two main characters and wanted to know if their life was going to continue on together. As there was more romance in this project than even Shadows And Light, I too wanted to keep going, but how? Then the 'how' presented itself in of all places The Wall Street Journal.
An advanced technology launched a new algorithm [pitched as a financial-investment] called Bitcoin, caught my attention.
At first there wasn't many research sources, but over the course of several months, accumulating news articles and magazine features provided enough for me to work with. It also began to worry me to my core...I didn't see this crypto as a currency or an investment at all, but a high-risk venture. My research pointed crypto toward something else we had seen before. Who had reinvented a pyramid-scheme that could not be seen or touched or measured by any other standard than by its maker?
Even more concerning to me, from that early 2019 Wall Street Journal feature to present day, cryptocurrency & Bitcoin has managed to syphon away billions [$$$] from true investments we can see, touch and measure. [Fortune Magazine, March 2024...Bitcoin soars past $72,000 to new all-time high as Coinbase shares climb to highest level since 2021... www.fortune.com/crypto ]
Anyway, for how I needed to setup the plot, it helped that years before, I had been able to travel quite extensively around the UK and Europe [mid 1990s] while my husband worked on a lumber project. For two of those three years we lived on the island of Cyprus.
I was born in Washington State [Canadian dad, American mom] then moved to Alberta as a young child and lived there until my late 30s. When I remarried, I also lived and worked in Colorado, then Cyprus and some years later we moved to Arizona. I have also been to 42 U.S. states, as well as five other Canadian provinces. So, my settings are typically places I know well because I've been there, several more than twice, which makes it extremely fortunate for a writer.
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Was Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency developed by one person or a closed group or a hostile government? And - was the ultimate goal of an invisible financial exchange created for money laundering or a means by which to hide corporate profits or for triple entry accounting--or all three?
*Olivia Jamieson's dreams have returned. After the resolution of the first case Olivia thought the dreams that left so many clues to that mystery were only fluke events.
However, soon after moving to Washington DC with Peter and settling into another remodeled condo - the 'Gate' presented Olivia with clues to an investigation tied to Peter's 'next' as yet unallocated, but highly classified assignment. An assignment that swiftly shifted from one of suspicious activity originating from a small Latvian bank, to escalating financial destabilization - globally...
Author website: Patchwork Publishing, LLC
Read full chapters via: Sherrie Todd-Beshore | Substack
**Every writer's journey is the same, but different...In "FROM THERE TO HERE" a memoir, [of sorts] I share more detail of 'my' unique journey that may be of some help to others who find themselves compelled to write too...