Marcella’s first love has been MIA for eighteen years. Callie, her best friend and Sky’s sister, flips out when a mysterious package from Sky arrives on her doorstep. Inside his old backpack are bottles of precious essential oils, a memory stick, and a bag of emeralds. Are these his final effects? Or is Sky alive?
When Marcella’s husband Quinn hears about it, his jealousy spikes. He and Marcella have been married for seven years, and he’s not about to let some punk from the past mess that up.
Drug company goons want the data on the memory stick, because it links a newly discovered essential oil with a leukemia cure. They kidnap Callie, hoping to lure Sky into the open. Marcella and Quinn track her to the wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains, where against all odds they fight to save Callie and preserve the proof that could change the world.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Callie waved a yellow scarf from her pontoon boat and headed erratically toward my dock. The girl who’d been like a sister to me since I was thirteen had never mastered the art of steering. Matter of fact, she’d avoided getting her driver’s license for the past twenty years, and would probably never drive that old Buick her dotty mother left moldering in the garage.
Shocked to see her outside, I waved back, then swam to the dock and scrambled up the ladder to avoid getting crushed by her two-ton vessel. I grabbed my towel, blotted water from my face and hair, and wrapped it around my new bright pink one-piece suit. I’d been nervous to wear it—I thought it made my thighs look big. But now I’d been caught, and I couldn’t get that towel around me fast enough.
I watched the boat drift closer, shocked at my friend’s appearance. Her face twisted in despair. Her coal black hair hung limp on her shoulders, and her eyes puffed red. Instantly, my brain ran through the possibilities.
What got her out of the house?
Maybe somebody died.
Her sister? Not likely. She’d written off Willow years ago. They hardly spoke, even though they lived only two houses apart. And that woman was so nasty she’d probably live forever, preserved in her own acidic vapors.
Could it be her dog?
Beau had been sick a few months back. The Bernese Mountain Dog had been Callie’s constant companion for the past five years. But the life expectancy of the grand creatures was only eight or nine years. She’d been concerned for months, and Doc West, the vet who’d always been sweet on her, still paid her house calls for no extra charge. But when we’d spoken on the phone yesterday, she’d said Beau had recovered from his stomach problems and was doing fine.
Worried now, I grabbed the rope she tossed to me and secured it around a piling. The boat glided closer.
She looked horrible, as if someone had twisted her insides and squeezed all her pain up into her eyes.
Damn. Had someone hurt her again?
Some people were magnets for bad luck, and my dear friend seemed to attract trouble like mosquitoes to wet skin after the rain. Last year, her Honeoye Lake cottage had been broken into. The jerks had cleaned her out and beaten her senseless. She still bore the scar on her temple where the bastards had bashed her with her avant-garde pink flamingo centerpiece.
Yes. A pink flamingo. Not in her yard, on her coffee table. Draped with pink pearls and fake ivy. Don’t ask. And don’t look so surprised. My best friend cut a tragic figure, was pretty in a haunted sort of way, but I never said she had good taste. Of all the households in our quiet lakeside community here in upstate New York, her place was definitely the quirkiest.
Callie switched off the ignition, and the boat miraculously nudged the dock with a soft thump. I quickly secured the stern and offered her a hand. “Honey, what’s the matter?”
With a sob that sounded more like a hiccup, she heaved a big box over the railing and onto the dock, and climbed out after it. “You won’t believe this…”
I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Try me, Velvet.” Callie’s dark hair, delicate features, and big violet eyes used to remind me of the young Liz Taylor in National Velvet, thus the nickname.
She choked and wept fresh tears. Trembling, she glanced fearfully around her, then locked eyes with me. “Marcie, I…” With another sob, she fell on my shoulder. “Can we go inside, please?”
“Of course, sweetie.” I picked up the box and led her off the dock and up to the porch. Maneuvering backwards through the screen door, I got us inside and laid the box on the coffee table, then sat her on the couch. “Now. Spill it.”
Instead of talking, she fell into a fresh gale of weeping. I patted her shoulders, hugged her, and let her get it all out. She tried to speak, but the intensity of her emotions made her stutter and wail some more.
Her newest disaster—whatever it was—already weighed heavily on me. The pain in her eyes was palpable, and I knew it was something huge without having to ask. Callie and I had shared high school crushes, teenage angst, kooky hairstyles, and unrequited love over the years. She’d been my maid of honor, in spite of her aversion to public places. A little extra Xanax had helped her through the ordeal where people actually looked at her and she had to converse with strangers. I’d thanked her from the bottom of my heart for that. I couldn’t have been married without Callie at my side.
“Callie? What’s wrong, sweetie?”
She looked at me, at the box, back at me, and burst into a fresh torrent of tears.
I gave her a box of pink tissues, and she grabbed a handful, pressing them against her eyes. She leaned over, hands to face, and rocked back and forth.
My dear little Velvet rarely stepped outside and had all her goods mailed or hand-delivered to her door. She’d been like this since freshman year in college. Although I still didn’t know all the awful details about the event that had messed her up so much, she’d dropped out of school and become a permanent cave dweller. I knew it had to do with two men in a black Mustang, hours of brutal rape, and the subsequent abortion her mother had forced her to have a few months later. Mrs. Lissoneau had kept her locked up like a prisoner for four long months. I’d missed her dreadfully. When I finally was allowed back in her house, she’d cried on my shoulder for days. But she’d never been able to get up the courage to talk about it.
Like I said, my friend attracted trouble, and it had been that way since I’d known her.
After several minutes, the tears finally slowed. Wiping her eyes, she looked around nervously. “Is your mother home?”
“Nope. She’s playing bridge. You’re safe.”
My mother, who insisted I call her Thelma, didn’t know the meaning of tact. She’d always resented my friendship with Callie and didn’t hide it, making rude comments about her agoraphobia and even stooping to insult her family when she could. It was all veiled, of course. But my mother had a mean streak in her, especially when it came to Callie, and as much as I loved her, she frequently galled me to red-faced fury. At times I was certain I’d been adopted.
Callie started to shiver, so I wrapped her in a navy blue throw that we kept folded on the back of the couch. “Are you cold, honey?” I tucked it around her. She was so tiny and looked as though she’d lost weight again. “There you go. It’ll be okay.”
She closed her eyes. “Where’s Quinn?”
“Relax. He’s up at the barn, refinishing that set of Eastlake chairs we just got in.”
“When will he be back?”
“Not for hours.”
Her agoraphobia didn’t end with the outdoors. She’d also managed to cultivate a severe case of social anxiety, and even my sweet, dear husband scared her.
Quinn Black Eagle Hollister was the unique result of the union between his British playwright father, who died very young, and a beautiful Seneca Native American, White Dawn. She’d raised Quinn to be one with nature, to abhor artificial anything, and to be incredibly clean. My sweet spouse insisted on doing all of our housework, since my attempts never passed muster. And although it sounded weird, it never once detracted from his raw masculinity.
With his lean, strong body, lovely dark skin, and angular face, he resembled an Indian brave, with the exception of his startling turquoise eyes he’d inherited from his father. The color of the stones in Native American jewelry, they had the effect of seeing right into my inner core. It was hard for me to imagine anyone being afraid of Quinn, but I empathized as best I could with poor Callie’s fears.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, still hiccupping a few sobs. “I haven’t seen you in so long, Marcie. God.”
As frustrating as it was to wait for her to open up, I knew I needed to be patient. And I felt a little guilty, because since we’d reinvested in our antique shop to expand the old barn and fix up the place, I’d had very few free days to take the boat over to her place on the other side of the lake. I think she’d gotten even more reclusive since, and I struggled not to let myself feel too much blame for her loneliness.
Of course, Honeoye, one of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, wasn’t exactly a remote location. The shores were populated with residents and renters alike, and although it wasn’t as people-packed as a city, there were plenty of folks to socialize with, including those who’d graduated from our high school. But dear Callie only hung out with me, a responsibility I’d shouldered from day one without resentment. I loved Callie like a sister, and taking care of her was a privilege.
She shifted closer to me, but still looked scared. “The only one you have to worry about is Ruby, and she’s sleeping.” I chuckled and pointed to our prize-winning ring-necked parakeet, whose rosy-tangerine color had won her best in class last summer. She snoozed on her perch. She’d been doing that a lot since her mother passed away two weeks ago. Poor old Sarafina had succumbed to some rare condition Doc West had mumbled and I hadn’t understood. Ruby’s reaction—not eating and sleeping most of the time—had been immediate. The doctor called it clinical depression, but I called it natural.
Callie looked at Ruby briefly and buried her head in her hands. “Okay. I… I can’t breathe. Marcie. Help me.” In seconds, fat tears soaked her cheeks.
I pulled her toward me, trying not to stare at the box on the coffee table. “Callie. Honey. What is it?”
She shuddered against me, then sat up and sighed, pointing to the box. “It’s from Sky. And I’m too scared to open it.”
My throat almost closed. “What? When did it arrive?” I balanced the heavy carton on my knees. Battered and stained, it looked to have been around the world and back. Callie’s name and address were printed neatly on a label. There was no return address, but its postmark was no more exotic than Speculator, New York.
“It arrived this morning.”
I started to tear the packing tape off the box, then stopped and looked at Callie’s devastated face. “Wait a minute. How can you know it’s from Sky?”
Callie looked down at her delicate hands. She whispered so softly I barely heard her. “I got a phone call last night. After midnight.”
My heart beat faster and my hands grew clammy. “From Sky?”
Could he still be alive?
She shook her head, cascading loose locks over her cheeks. “No.”
Frustration welled inside me. “Then who called you?”
“He didn’t say. Or if he did, I couldn’t tell. The connection was bad. It was someone who knew him. Knows him.” She sobbed. “I’m not even sure if he’s still alive, Marcie. But the guy said Sky wanted me to have this. Whatever the hell it is.”
I wanted to shake her, but I knew it wouldn’t help shed any more light on Sky’s eighteen-year disappearance. If she knew anything, she would have told me. I ripped into the box and tore at the ragged foam that surrounded an olive green knapsack. I stared at familiar peace symbol buttons and the patches I’d sewn onto the bag for Sky when we were teens. “Oh my God. This is the same bag he had in high school.”
She reached for it and held it to her, rubbing her face against it as if it were Sky’s hand.
A strong scent rose from the bag. It was pungent, yet sweet. Strong, yet enticing. I gently disentangled Callie’s fingers from the strap and unbuckled it. The scent grew stronger. Peppermint? Lavender? And something that reminded me of the ceremonies in a Catholic church.
Callie’s big eyes grew wider. “What is that smell?”
I pulled out a dark maroon zippered case. Lumpy and heavy, the fabric was blotted with stains. “Let’s see.” I unzipped it and flipped back the top. Inside were nestled dozens of brown glass bottles with colorful labels. I picked up the first.
“White Angelica.” Unscrewing the cap, I sniffed it. “Wow. What is this?”
I held it to Callie’s nose. “Nice, huh?”
She frowned. “Yeah. It’s beautiful. Is it perfume?”
“I don’t think so.” I rubbed my fingers over the bottles, turning them up to read the labels. “Wintergreen. Balsam fir. Lemon. Frankincense. Lavender. Thieves. Inner Child.” I opened the balsam fir and smelled it. “Wow. Strong. It really smells like the tree.”
“What’s it say on the label? And why would Sky send me these?”
“Good question.” I grabbed my reading glasses from the coffee table and brought one of the bottles to the window to read the fine print. “Young Living Essential Oils.” I rotated the bottle. “One hundred percent peppermint oil.” I almost forgot about Sky for a moment, so intrigued with the collection of exotic smells. “Cool.”
“What are they for?” Callie asked. As if Sky had sent her a box of chocolates, she started opening and sniffing each one. Heady aromas filled the air. “Mmm. This one is beautiful.”
“Let me try.” I reached for the bottle marked Valor and inhaled deeply. “Wow.” Turning it in the light again, I read the ingredients. “Spruce, rosewood, blue tansy, and frankincense. Frankincense? Man. That’s what one of the wise men brought Baby Jesus, right? I didn’t know it was real.”
“Me neither.” Callie’s eyes shone. “Marcie. Sky wanted me to have these.” She took both my hands in hers as if I’d know the answer. “But, why?”
With my heart pounding, I set the box of oils aside and dug deeper into the backpack. “I don’t know. But let’s see what else is in here. Maybe we’ll find some answers.”
Professional Reviews
Nonstop Excitement and Suspense!
Coming home - those are the words that immediately came to mind as I read the first few pages of Essentially Yours, a sequel to the exciting mystery, For the Birds, by Aaron Paul Lazar. I had forgotten how much I loved these characters, and they welcomed me back with open arms like I had never been gone. That's part of the magic created by an author like Lazar. Don't get me wrong though, perfect strangers are welcomed into the fold as well because you could easily read this book without having read the first. Either way, you will never want to leave because the excitement and suspense is nonstop.
How many times have you read the second or third book in a series and felt that it just didn't live up to the quality of the first book. Sometimes the energy just seems to fizzle out, and your interest is no longer held captive. But if the author can find a way to recharge that energy and infuse it into subsequent books, he has found the secret to success. Aaron Paul Lazar, with three different series on the go, has definitely found that secret in this second book of the Tall Pines Mysteries series.
Turning the first page, it appears as if life is finally back to normal. Marcella and Quinn Hollister have resumed their happy lives running an antique shop and enjoying each other's company in their home on one of the beautiful finger lakes of upstate New York. After surviving an extremely dangerous adventure just a year ago, life seems beautifully quiet and routine. What are the chances that their lives could be turned upside down again? Well, some people seem to attract trouble, and apparently Marcella is a trouble magnet! While enjoying a relaxing morning swim before joining Quinn at work, her peace is shattered by the arrival of a pontoon boat from across the lake. Most alarming is that at the wheel is her best friend, Callie Lissoneau, an agoraphobic who is usually too petrified to step foot out of her house. Something must be terribly wrong. Coaxing the story out of a distressed Callie, Marcella is once again drawn into a whirlwind mystery that will hold the reader mesmerized until the last page is turned.
This time around the mystery revolves around a curious phone call and a box that arrives at Callie's door from her brother, Sky, who disappeared 18 years ago, containing an olive green knapsack, brown glass bottles full of essential oils, a very old book appearing to be a holistic health guide, a hemp necklace with a small vial of liquid attached to it, a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, an amber crystal, a bag of emeralds, and a memory stick full of data. Is Sky actually alive somewhere, and if so, what do all of these items have to do with his disappearance so many years ago? Now, take all of these items, throw in, among other things, a murder, a kidnapping, a ransacked house, a medical research facility, a ruthless and greedy drug company, a hair-raising and almost war-like helicopter gun battle that puts everyone in grave danger, and even a psychic crystal connection that provides them with clues, and you have the recipe for a heart thumping race through the Adirondack Mountains to save what matters most to the future of a possible medical breakthrough.
One of Lazar's greatest strengths as a writer is the way he develops each of his characters into someone uniquely memorable and allows us into their heads and hearts to feel their every thought and emotion. You meet Marcella, who is stubborn to a fault, but this is because she will stop at nothing to protect the ones she loves. Her husband, Quinn, tends to be obsessive compulsive, but Marcella's love for him is so deep that she endures his quirks because he is her rock and gives her strength. Callie has had a very difficult life dealing with a sister who hates her and the memories of a brutal rape during her college years. Her agoraphobia is quite understandable considering all she has been through, and Marcella has always been there to support her through it all. Lazar not only develops rich characters but he then works his stories around the strength of the relationships between these characters. Each character has his or her own peculiarities, but somehow they seem to complement each other, and the strength of the relationships allow them to work through anything, whether it be something as simple as feelings of jealousy or something as dangerous as freeing a friend kidnapped by gun-wielding thugs. As a result, you easily come to love each and every one of the characters in the story, and you cheer them on every step of the way because ultimately you just want them to find happiness.
The suspense builds continually throughout the story like the growing tension before a thunderstorm, and you feel like you are on pins and needles waiting for the storm to break. As the reader, I had questions flying around in my head throughout, and I found myself talking to the characters, suggesting ideas when they were stumped. What I love about Lazar's mysteries, though, is that there is always a good wind down period at the end of the story where all of the remaining puzzle pieces are put into place and the characters settle back into their normal lives. It allows you as the reader to wrap up all the loose ends in your mind and feel contentment for the characters before you have to leave them.
Once again Lazar weaves a tale that made me resent my family, job, and other obligations every time they took me away from the story. All I wanted to do was keep reading right to the end without interruption. There is something about the way he crafts his stories that makes them flow like a smooth stretch of river interspersed with multiple sets of rapids in that you have only just allowed yourself to take a breath and calm yourself before you are thrown into the rapids once again. However, whether floating through the calms or battling the rapids, you always travel unimpeded. What I mean by that is that there is not a single section where you are hampered by rocky areas of boring details or heavy, unnecessary descriptions where you seem to become stalled in your reading. Nothing stops you from wanting to continue. If you love a fast-paced mystery with meaningful characters that become like family, I can't recommend this book enough, and I for one will be waiting with baited breath for the next instalment in the series.
Never disappoints - Loved it!
Marcella's first love, Sky Hollister, has been missing for eighteen years and believed dead. But suddenly Marcella's best friend Callie, an agoraphobic owing to a past trauma that will come back to haunt her, receives evidence that her brother might still be alive. The evidence includes a bag of emeralds and a memory stick for which they have no password and several little brown bottles with colorful labels that hold precious oils.
Even though she is now married, Marcella's emotions overwhelm her as she struggles with old feelings. Will Sky be the same boy she remembered, so exciting and handsome and passionate? Or have the years in the Iraq war and God knows what else over all this time, hardened him? Would she be able to resist him? Did she even want to?
When her husband, Quinn, a half-Seneca Indian hears about the evidence indicating Sky is alive, he is driven to jealousy at thoughts of Sky Hollister returning to destroy what he and Marcella has built over seven years of marriage. No way will he allow that to happen.
But Sky's life is in peril and then Callie goes missing and Quinn puts his fears on the back burner and joins in the rescue mission for Sky and Callie, before they are killed. At last, Callie's psychically gifted Bernese Mountain dog, Beau find Sky hiding in the woods. But Callie is still missing. And their own lives are threatened.
The chase through the Adirondack Mountains is heart stopping and deadly, but it's only the beginning of their nightmare as together they try to find and rescue Callie. There are mysteries upon mysteries in this novel. Essentially Yours is a non-stop thriller, but more than that, it's a love story, filled with sensuality. I say sensuality rather than blatant sexuality because that's the kind of writer Lazar is. Made me want to get those essential oils for myself. There is a gorgeous scene of Marcella and her lover (I won't tell you which lover) in the water that I promise you'll not easily forget.
Aaron Paul Lazar's novel Essentially Yours will keep you feverishly turning pages not only to find out what happens next, but to bathe in the sensuality of his vivid descriptions that draw you into his story and keep you there through all the excitement and fear and romance. There is a higher purpose in Sky's determination to save the data on the memory stick. But the bad guys are more than that; they are evil and will stop at nothing to satisfy the demands of their bosses, a rogue wing of FBI.
I highly recommend Essentially Yours, a story that will stay with you long after the final sentence.
Mystery with Heart, Soul, Character, and great scenery!
Author Aaron Paul Lazar has the knack of creating believable characters, putting them in beautifully rendered landscapes, and making their subsequent trials and tribulations seem believable too. His Tall Pines Mysteries are no exception, and Essentially Yours is the second in the series.
The title brings to mind the essential oils that form a backdrop to this tale. While Marcie's down-to-earth attitudes give her a natural reluctance to use oils instead of medication for her headache, her honest love for her husband makes her open to try, just as in the earlier novel, For the Birds, she had to accept the inexplicable to save her mother. This willingness to look further pervades the novel, allowing the reader to see beyond the road ahead into the beautiful scenery of isolation, beyond the mechanics of big business to the humanity of people in need, and beyond archetypical assumptions to a place where innocent victims can ask for and welcome help.
Marcie's former boyfriend Sky disappeared a long time ago. His sister Callie has become a recluse, and Marcie has married half-Indian Quinn. When a message arrives out of the blue from Sky, with bottles of essential oils, Marcie's beautiful relationship with Quinn just might be threatened by memories of the past. But their love is as strong as their faith and as real as the Adirondack mountains where they seek for Callie. With mystical help from Callie's dog, hope from crystals and healing from oils, Marcie and Quinn embark on a rescue mission that's filled with danger, excitement and intrigue.
Essentially Yours is a fast-flowing mystery with great scenery, exciting action, thoughtful intrigue, and wistful hope. The Tall Pines cast of characters is growing, and there's a heartfelt welcome to the tale that makes the reader almost feel like another assistant in the wings. A fun, easy-reading series with gentle touches of food for thought... and essential oils.
This cozy murder mystery takes place aboard luxury liner, Queen Elizabeth II, as wealthy couple celebrate their silver wedding anniversary with family and friends.
