Character Guest Post: Olivia by Kate Parker

As danger stalks her, can Olivia expose a cunning killer before she becomes the next victim? — Deadly Darkness: A World War II Mystery (Deadly Series) by Kate Parker 3/6
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Character Guest Post – Olivia
by Kate Parker

Hello, I’m Olivia Denis, Livvy to my friends, and at the beginning of Deadly Darkness, I become Olivia Redmond. It was touch and go because a local landowner and celebrity, Arctic explorer Sir Rupert Manning, decided since I didn’t actually live in the local area, I had no right to be married in St. Athanasius Church.

St. Athanasius is the home church for my cousin Lady Abby and her husband, Sir John Summersby. It is where I go to church whenever I visit on a weekend, which is often. It is the perfect church for a fairytale wedding. A magnificent pipe organ. Eight medieval bells in the tower. Stained glass windows. A long, but not too long, aisle to walk down beneath a towering roof.

Sir Rupert Manning mustn’t have found the church impressive, since he rarely attended Sunday services. The only reason I was able to get married there was because I hurried and had the banns read early before Sir Rupert could destroy any chance of Adam and me walking out as the bells rang. As it was, he fought the wedding until the last moment.

And for no reason at all. I believe the man was a heartless snake.

We made one major mistake with our wedding. Oh, doesn’t everyone have one thing that messes up their perfect day? But ours was a disaster.

The village St. Athanasius is in can be reached on a rail line in southern England and not so far from London that our friends and colleagues couldn’t come to the wedding, enjoy the wedding breakfast, and still make it back to London in time for dinner. The location was perfect.

Everyone was able to attend. In the case of my father, he not only attended, he walked me down the aisle and made cutting comments about my dress and my hair at the same time. I could have cheerfully choked him, but we had a church full of witnesses. I’d hoped he wouldn’t be able to make it, but no such luck.

And he wasn’t the major mistake with our wedding.

We’d chosen July 8^th for our wedding day, the next available Saturday at St. Athanasius, in the spring. Then the government announced the date for the first full scale blackout practice across the southern third of England. July 8^th.

Everyone old enough remembered the Germans bombing London during the Great War, and aircraft had improved a hundredfold since then. Fortunately, navigation hadn’t. If the German pilots couldn’t see lights on the ground to mark their path, it would be much harder for them to hit their targets.

The obvious answer was blackout curtains in every window. Every streetlamp, car headlight, and shop window light were extinguished. This needed to be practiced before Germany and Britain went to war. So the government chose our wedding day for the first practice, and of course for the part of England where we were having our wedding.

Sir John, being a magistrate, was called on to travel around the district checking for lights that shouldn’t be visible. Adam, being younger and sharper eyed, was asked to drive Sir John around. And there went our wedding night.

I sensibly decided to ride with them. It was our wedding night, after all, and I would spend it with my new husband, but in Sir John’s vehicle. Not the most romantic of settings, with Sir John as chaperone.

And as the night went on, it quickly became even less romantic…

Deadly Darkness is the sixth book in The Deadly Series by Kate Parker. Available in ebook and print from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Apple.

About The Book:

As Britain prepares for an imminent invasion, the murder of a celebrated Arctic explorer leads to the discovery of a web of Nazi spies on the south coast.

July, 1939. Newlywed Olivia Denis Redmond plans to spend a peaceful honeymoon in the country before war rips her soldier husband away. But when she finds a dead body in the midst of a blackout, Olivia is drawn into the investigation.

Since the police inspector isn’t interested in clues pointing to espionage and blackmail, Olivia must unlock secrets hidden for years in this idyllic village and face the wrath of an unseen enemy.

As danger stalks her, can Olivia expose a cunning killer before she becomes the next victim?

Deadly Darkness, the sixth book in the Deadly Series, is for fans of World War II era spy thrillers and classic cozy mysteries, of intrepid lady sleuths with spunk and smarts. No explicit cursing, sex, or violence.

Start exploring this journey or mystery and intrigue today as Britain and Germany draw dangerously close to war.

Buy Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

About The Author:

Kate Parker caught the reading bug early, and the writing bug soon followed. She’s always lived in a house surrounded by books and dust bunnies. After spending a dozen years in North Carolina, she moved to Colorado. The Rocky Mountains are beautiful, but she’d developed a love of wide rivers, warmer and wetter weather, and fast-growing greenery that sent her hurrying back to North Carolina.

Deadly Travel is the fifth book in the Deadly Series, and Kate’s plan is to follow it quickly with Deadly Darkness, both set in 1939 in the days leading up to war. There are at least three more of the Deadly Series coming that will bring the beginning of the war to Olivia’s doorstep. Kate reports that she is having fun creating new stories to entertain readers and chaos to challenge her characters.