To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis

Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/toliveforevertour

Tour Hashtag: #ToLiveForeverTour

​Publication Date: March 1, 2014
World Hermit Press
Formats: Ebook, Paperback

Is remembrance immortality? Nobody wants to be forgotten, least of all the famous.

Meriwether Lewis lived a memorable life. He and William Clark were the first white men to reach the Pacific in their failed attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. Much celebrated upon their return, Lewis was appointed governor of the vast Upper Louisiana Territory and began preparing his eagerly-anticipated journals for publication. But his re-entry into society proved as challenging as his journey. Battling financial and psychological demons and faced with mounting pressure from Washington, Lewis set out on a pivotal trip to the nation’s capital in September 1809. His mission: to publish his journals and salvage his political career. He never made it. He died in a roadside inn on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee from one gunshot to the head and another to the abdomen.

Was it suicide or murder? His mysterious death tainted his legacy and his fame quickly faded. Merry’s own memory of his death is fuzzy at best. All he knows is he’s fallen into Nowhere, where his only shot at redemption lies in the fate of rescuing another. An ill-suited “guardian angel,” Merry comes to in the same New Orleans bar after twelve straight failures. Now, with one drink and a two-dollar bill he is sent on his last assignment, his final shot at escape from the purgatory in which he’s been dwelling for almost 200 years. Merry still believes he can reverse his forgotten fortunes.

Nine-year-old Emmaline Cagney is the daughter of French Quarter madam and a Dixieland bass player. When her mother wins custody in a bitter divorce, Emmaline carves out her childhood among the ladies of Bourbon Street. Bounced between innocence and immorality, she struggles to find her safe haven, even while her mother makes her open her dress and serve tea to grown men.

It isn’t until Emmaline finds the strange cards hidden in her mother’s desk that she realizes why these men are visiting: her mother has offered to sell her to the highest bidder. To escape a life of prostitution, she slips away during a police raid on her mother’s bordello, desperate to find her father in Nashville.

Merry’s fateful two-dollar bill leads him to Emmaline as she is being chased by the winner of her mother’s sick card game: The Judge. A dangerous Nowhere Man convinced that Emmaline is the reincarnation of his long dead wife, Judge Wilkinson is determined to possess her, to tease out his wife’s spirit and marry her when she is ready. That Emmaline is now guarded by Meriwether Lewis, his bitter rival in life, further stokes his obsessive rage.

To elude the Judge, Em and Merry navigate the Mississippi River to Natchez. They set off on an adventure along the storied Natchez Trace, where they meet Cajun bird watchers, Elvis-crooning Siamese twins, War of 1812 re-enactors, Spanish wild boar hunters and ancient mound dwellers. Are these people their allies? Or pawns of the perverted, powerful Judge?

After a bloody confrontation with the Judge at Lewis’s grave, Merry and Em limp into Nashville and discover her father at the Parthenon. Just as Merry wrestles with the specter of success in his mission to deliver Em, The Judge intercedes with renewed determination to win Emmaline, waging a final battle for her soul. Merry vanquishes the Judge and earns his redemption. As his spirit fuses with the body of Em’s living father, Merry discovers that immortality lives within the salvation of another, not the remembrance of the multitude.

My Review:

Four Stars

First, I have to confess that at first I was having a difficult time balancing all the different concepts of this storyline.  We have the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis in a sort of limbo. He is a ghost and trying to fulfill his last adventure.  On a personal note I found it interesting to learn about The Natchez Trace.  I had no idea about the mystery surrounding his death and I think that the idea of a restless soul played well in the story.  Next, we have Emmaline Cagney.  Emmaline is a sort of adventurer herself.  She is on an adventure to find her father and flee her mother.  The author then inserts a crazy Judge.  The Judge, was an eerie character and honestly, he gave me goose bumps.  As the past and the present (the present being the late 70s) mess together all these identities are interconnected.  The different perspectives of the story helped see the story from different angels although at first it made the plot more confusing.  Once the plot begins to intertwine and all their destinies become dependent on each other, the story works and the journey becomes worthwhile.  I loved the creativity behind this plot and the mixture of paranormal with history and the quest for fulfillment-for both the ghost of Lewis and Emmaline’s journey. 

Read an Excerpt HERE.

Buy the Book

Amazon (Kindle Ebook)
Amazon (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble (Nook Ebook)
Barnes & Noble (Paperback)

About the Author

Hey. I’m Andra Watkins. I’m a native of Tennessee, but I’m lucky to call Charleston, South Carolina, home for 23 years. I’m the author of ‘To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis’, coming March 1, 2014. It’s a mishmash of historical fiction, paranormal fiction and suspense that follows Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) after his mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in 1809.

I like:

hiking
eating (A lot; Italian food is my favorite.)
traveling (I never met a destination I didn’t like.)
reading (My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo.)
coffee (the caffeinated version) and COFFEE (sex)
performing (theater, singing, public speaking, playing piano)
time with my friends
Sirius XM Chill

yoga (No, I can’t stand on my head.)
writing in bed
candlelight

I don’t like:

getting up in the morning
cilantro (It is the devil weed.)
surprises (For me or for anyone else.)
house cleaning
cooking

Author Links

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Google+
Pinterest

Natchez Trace Walk

The Natchez Trace is a 10,000-year-old road that runs from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. Thousands of years ago, animals used its natural ridge line as a migratory route from points in the Ohio River Valley to the salt licks in Mississippi. It was logical for the first Native Americans to settle along the Trace to follow part of their migrating food supply. When the Kaintucks settled west of the Appalachians, they had to sell their goods at ports in New Orleans or Natchez, but before steam power, they had to walk home. The Trace became one of the busiest roads in North America.

 

To launch To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis, I will be the first person of either sex to walk the 444-mile Natchez Trace as the pioneers did since the rise of steam power in the 1820′s. March 1, 2014 to April 3, 2014. Fifteen miles a day. Six days a week. One rest day per week. I will spend each night in the modern-day equivalent of stands, places much like Grinder’s Stand, where Meriwether Lewis died from two gunshot wounds on October 11, 1809.

I will take readers into the world of the book. You’ll see the places that inspired scenes and hear the backstories of different characters, with running commentary by my father, who’s tagging along with me.

I’ll also have a daily YouTube segment where I answer reader questions about the book, my walk, my arguments—I mean—interactions with my dad, and whatever readers want to know. Ask me anything at

mystories(at)andrawatkins(dot)com.

You might see yourself on this site during my tour.

Virtual Book Tour Schedule

Tuesday, April 1
Review at Jorie Loves a Story

Wednesday, April 2
Review & Giveaway at Unabridged Chick

Thursday, April 3
Interview at Jorie Loves a Story

Friday, April 4
Guest Post at Kincavel Korner

Monday, April 7
Review & Giveaway at Just One More Chapter

Tuesday, April 8
Review at Book Nerd
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Wednesday, April 9
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Friday, April 11
Guest Post & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Connection

Monday, April 14
Review at Book Addict Katie

Tuesday, April 15
Review at Cheryl’s Book Nook
Spotlight & Giveaway at Bibliophilic Book Blog
Spotlight & Giveaway at I’d So Rather be Reading

Wednesday, April 16
Interview at Kincavel Korner
Guest Post & Giveaway at Cheryl’s Book Nook

Friday, April 18
Review at Book Drunkard

Monday, April 21
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book

Tuesday, April 22
Review at Bibliotica
Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book

Wednesday, April 23
Review at Confessions of an Avid Reader

Thursday, April 24
Review at 100 Pages a Day

Friday, April 25
Review at Griperang’s Bookmarks

Monday, April 28
Spotlight & Giveaway at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

Tuesday, April 29
Review & Giveaway at Luxury Reading

Wednesday, April 30
Review at A Bookish Girl

Thursday, May 1
Review & Giveaway at The Maiden’s Court

Friday, May 2
Review at Layered Pages
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

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