Inspired by
Adventure
Karen Hunt
aka KH Mezek
Not long
ago, I returned from a month in Costa Rica, staying at a friend’s
house with an incredible view of Lake Arenal and the volcano in the distance. I
was there on a mission: to work on Book of Angels, the second book in my Night
Angels Chronicles. I flew from Los Angeles to El Salvador to San Jose, in
Costa Rica, and from there I had to take a tiny Cessna plane through the clouds
and a thunder storm to Liberia. I was the only passenger and I maintained a calm façade while underneath I was screaming, No!!!! Please get me
there safely, please! And into the thunder clouds the pilot would happily fly.
I was ready to kiss the ground when I arrived.
I have
always been an adventurer at heart and a romantic. I remember the first time I
saw Romancing the Stone and thought, oh, why can’t that happen to me! I wish I
was mousey Joan Wilder, who writes romance fiction and dreams of her wild adventurer,
sweeping her off her feet, and then, pow, it happens and she turns into a sexy
beauty as a result.
And now, there
I was in the jungles of Costa Rica, beneath a live volcano, writing just like
Joan!
I didn’t
meet the man of my dreams, sigh, but I had plenty of
inspiration to write about him, or rather, the fulfillment of Sera’s dreams: Peter,
the otherworldly Night Angel with whom she falls in love. Of course, love is
complicated, and Sera can’t be sure whether Peter returns her love or
whether he is just pretending, in order to gain control of the key.
In Costa Rica, I was staying way up a hill, on a dirt
road, with no form of transportation except my feet. All I did was write and
dream. Ok, I drank beer, too, on humid afternoons with the sweat on my
brow, the beer ice cold, and I would step outside and pick a couple of
mandarins off the tree and squeeze the juice into the beer. I can still taste
it and feel the breeze from the fan on my skin. On the occasions I
ventured down the hill to the little restaurant, I had to pass the dogs that
lived in the houses along the way. They were mean little creatures and they
would bark and snap in an annoying fashion. Then, there were the wild dogs that
would show up sometimes, not rabid, but vicious. I armed myself with a long
staff and I had to literally fight them off. That was when I most felt like a
character in my book — like I was on a quest, holding that staff and fighting
my way down to my goal. I also had to fight my way back up again but
usually I could find some nice person to give me a ride.
I zip-lined, an experience that was terrifying and
exhilarating at the same time—the best kind of adventure, where there is the
potential for disaster but it all turns out ok in the end.
Besides Costa Rica, I have had the good fortune to write
in some places with incredible views. But I would say the view I had in
Costa Rica, of Lake Arenal below and the volcano in the distance, was one of
the best.
Sometimes I would watch in fascination as a mist slowly
enveloped the lake and crept up the mountain, as if it wanted to smother me.
This was inspiring, because Key of Mysteryhas scary moments
involving mist. Every afternoon the sky released a downpour of rain, complete
with thunder and lightning. Another exhilarating experience, I never tired of
it. Once, I got caught in a downpour in the middle of the jungle and I ended up
soaking wet. I didn’t care. It was wonderful.
Where was my hero? Only in my imagination. But it was
still fun to fantasize about him.
Maybe at my next destination, riding horses across the
steppes of Mongolia, sailing down the Nile to Karnak, or visiting a temple in
Tibet, a shadow will appear against the sky, a man in a hat, and it will be
him. Maybe.
Or maybe not. Sometimes be best part of being in a
relationship is imagining it. Follow the path where it leads....in
my case, I always take the one that leads to adventure.
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Key of Mystery
by KH Mezek
Evernight
Teen Publishing, 77K
Paranormal/Vampires/Suspense/Multicultural
“Be careful who you love, it just
might kill you.”
When
Sera’s father is killed in a horrific accident, all he leaves behind is a
mysterious key. Sera places the key on a chain around her neck and vows to
avenge her father. Strange characters arrive in town including the otherworldly
Night Angels, who claim to be sent for her protection.
Sera
falls hard for one of them—exotic, arrogant Peter. But what if his promise of
love is only a ruse to gain access to the key? As Sera’s connection to the key
grows, so do her supernatural powers. Guided by clues left by her father, Sera
searches for the hidden chamber beneath the city, hoping to save what lies within
before the sinister mayor and his deadly followers drown humanity in a
bloodbath.
14+ due to adult situations
Excerpt:
Before my
dad’s death and the move to Cliffside, I had known only lies. I hadn’t seen the
truth about myself, my family, or my friends. But here on the ground, covered
in blood and dirt, and most likely dying, I knew I didn’t want to go back
there. I wanted to stay with the truth. The truth hurt like hell, but it was
better than being numbed by ignorance.
“No.” I
think I said it out loud, but it sounded more like a gurgle. I tried harder.
“Never give you the key.” I gasped. “Never.”
He hissed in
anger. “Then I will turn you into undead.”
“No.”
I knew he
was bluffing. If he turned me into one of them, he would never get the key. I
had to willingly give it to him, with a rational mind, and those undead were
anything but rational.
Gore howled
like he had on the plateau, and the nail raked across my face, penetrating deep
into my skin. He reached down and licked the blood with his long snake tongue,
a poison so painful seeping into my flesh that I almost passed out again.
When he
spoke next, his tone was venomous, each syllable biting as if they were his
teeth. “Clever girl, I will do something better. I will turn your brother into
undead. Think on that.”
I made a
feeble sound of terror, struggling to get up and unable to move.
He laughed.
“You will give it to me now. Or else your brother will end up like this.” He
grabbed one of the undead and pulled the grotesque, dead-eyed face down next to
mine. Then, he tossed it away like a stick.
This was the
end, then. Gore had won. I had to at least try to save my brother, even if
Gore's promises were lies. With unbearable effort, I reached up and tried to
undo the chain. I couldn’t. I tried to pull it up over my head but somehow, it
became tangled in my torn clothes. I was too weak and the problem of removing
the key from around my neck overwhelmingly impossible.
“Come,
little bitch, quickly.” Gore’s fingers dangled in front of my face, as if
itching to undo the chain for me. But he was powerless to do so.
A growing
uneasiness rippled through the undead standing in a circle behind him. Low
moans rose from cavernous mouths. Any second now, surely Gore would unleash the
hoard upon my brother to devour him. Why, oh why, couldn’t I undo the chain?
I grabbed
the key and pulled with all my remaining strength, whispering, “I want this. I
want to give him the key. I do.”
About the Author:
Karen Hunt is the author and/or illustrator of
nineteen children’s books and the co-founder of InsideOUT Writers, a creative
writing program for incarcerated youth in Los Angeles, and the founder of the
MY WORLD PROJECT, connecting youth who live in remote, violent and poverty
stricken areas around the world through art and writing. She is a 2nd
degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, a first degree brown belt in Eskrima, and a
boxing and kick-boxing trainer. As a child, she and her family escaped out of
Egypt right before the 6 Day War, lived in a 17th century castle in
Switzerland and smuggled Bibles into communist countries, to name a few of her
adventures. As an adult, she continued her adventures, living between London
and a village in Yugoslavia. She writes her YA works under the name KH Mezek.
Key of Mystery, book I in the YA Urban Fantasy series, NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES,
was published February 5, 2016 with Evernight Teen.
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