Muse lightning

I've always liked to joke that my muse has ADD. She never lets me finish one project before tossing more story ideas at me. Sometimes, the stories come out of the blue. Muse lightning. The idea strikes fast, and I have to capture it before it disappears.

Wild Life was like that. The news accounts of the private zoo owner in Ohio committing suicide in 2011 caught my attention - and my muse's. According to the online articles I read, a few animals escaped before authorities could reach the zoo, but most hovered near the fence, afraid and confused. Imminent nightfall forced the hard decision not to risk use of tranquilizer, but to shoot to kill. One person described this real-life tragedy as “Noah’s ark wrecked.” But what if the opposite had occurred, and most of the animals had escaped to invade the town?

In Wild Life, the fictional residents of Tarryville, Ohio, find out. As each person comes face to face with an exotic animal, hidden truths are revealed, and each likewise comes face to face with the harsh reality of their own lives. Perspectives, and priorities, can alter in an instant during unexpected events.

Written under my mainstream pen name of C.A. Masterson, Wild Life releases today from Sunbury Press.

Learn more about my mainstream, literary and speculative fiction at http://paintingfirewithwords.blogspot.com/