Around the Fire with Brenda Whiteside

Happy mid-December. Here in Northern New Jersey we've had out first accumulating snow. We picked up about 3 inches over the weekend. I spent the entire day in my jammies reading. If you want to know what I read, pop over to my review page www.dvstoneauthor.com/d-vs-reviews.html after you spend sometime with today's guest. Brenda is going to take it from here.

​How open-minded are you? Years ago, standing with other parents in the lobby of a hotel waiting to be assigned a young Austrian boy who we would house for a week during a hockey tournament, I glanced over the group. A blue-eyed cutie stared at me, and our gazes locked. I had the wildest sensation I knew this child for eons. When they drew names, he was assigned to our home. Coincidence? I think not. We’ve been close friends from afar for decades. We always have been and always will be. The universe tells me so. 
I’ve always been captivated by what the sixties subculture tagged mind expansion. The concepts of déjà vu, aura reading, intuition, empathic visions or sensations, dream meanings, clairsentience, and other forms of communication—gaining knowledge outside common experience—fascinate me. 
There are people who apparently possess a sixth sense. Ordinary people who don’t consider themselves particularly gifted have moments of empathic enlightenment. Decades ago, when I lived in Germany, I had to go to the hospital for minor surgery. My mother, in Arizona, knew without being told. She called my husband to find out what was wrong with me. 
The setting of my latest series is Joshua, Arizona, and is modeled after a real-life town called Jerome. This town hangs on the side of a mountain, roads stacked like stadium seating, with a view of the green valleys and red rock mesas miles away. I’ve been intrigued by this old mining town for decades. I combined that interest with my love of the mind-expanding concepts of the sixties to create The MacKenzie Chronicles. 
Living in present-day Joshua, Arizona—an 1800s mining community-turned-ghost-town, reborn hippie haven, and now tourist town clinging to the side of Spirit Mountain, the MacKenzie family saga unfolds in each book. Although not the main theme of the series, their mystical tendencies and their openness to accept what can’t be explained helps to solve mysteries and adds to the suspense. 
Have you had any other-worldly experiences? Have you experienced déjà vu?

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The MacKenzie Chronicles is the romantic suspense trilogy by award-winning author, Brenda Whiteside. In the 1960s, Susie Muse and Frank MacKenzie were part of the hippie evolution of a dying, Arizona town. They stayed, made a home, and raised a family. Touched with the mystical, in present-day Joshua, Arizona—an 1800s mining community-turned-ghost-town, reborn hippie haven, and now tourist town clinging to the side of Spirit Mountain—only the MacKenzies can unlock the secrets and dangerous mysteries of the town.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JCKBVH2​
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Brenda Whiteside is the award-winning author of romantic suspense and cozy mystery. After living in six states and two countries—so far—she and her husband have settled in Central Arizona. They admit to being gypsies at heart and won't discount the possibility of another move. They share their home with a rescue dog named Amigo. While FDW fishes, Brenda writes.
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