Artifacts (Faye Longchamp Mysteries, No. 1) - Softcover

Evans, Mary Anna

3.9

2,684 ratings by Goodreads

9780743479509: Artifacts (Faye Longchamp Mysteries, No. 1)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743479505 ISBN 13: 9780743479509

Publisher: UNKNO, 2004

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Desperate to save her ancestral home, Joyeuse, an island plantation on the Florida coast, from escalating property taxes, Faye Longchamp sets out to uncover valuable historical artifacts on her estate, but instead of treasures from the past, she stumbles upon the body of a forty-year-old murder victim. A first novel. Reprint.

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From the Author:

I have always had a guilty passion for antebellum Southern domestic architecture, particularly in remote areas of the Deep South where traditional building materials of the time, like stone and cast iron and exotic wood, weren’t available and had to be "faked" by the use of carved cypress, handmade bricks, even mud and Spanish moss. The problem with these audacious homes is obvious: they were built by slave labor. I wanted to write a book that featured such a house—that gave it the status almost equal to that of the human characters. But how would any reader sympathize with a character who had inherited a mansion built by prisoners? Well, if the mansion was one step away from utter ruin and its owner was a descendant of the slaves that built it, maybe a reader would indeed care what happened to them. And that is how Faye and Joyeuse were born.

I did not intend Artifacts to have a strong romantic theme, so I created Joe to be the ideal sidekick for an independent woman. Kind, strong, and, yes, good-looking, but not Faye’s type. In my experience, intelligent women are attracted to intelligent men, so Joe was intended to be Faye’s true friend, but only that. Yet many people, women and men, have demanded to know why she doesn’t date him. Heck, most of them think she should marry him on the spot. I think Joe took on a life of his own as I wrote Artifacts, and every writer dreams of finding a character like that. He is more than I intended him to be. Will Faye ever notice his stellar qualities? That, my friends is another story—and another book (or two or three) entirely.

About the Author:

Mary Anna Evans has degrees in Physics and Chemical Engineering, but her heart is in the past. Her background includes stints as an environmental consultant and a youth choir director. She has also worked offshore and wrapped gifts for pay. Writing lets her indulge her passion for history, archaeology, and architecture, while giving her a great excuse for making up stories. Simply put, writing novels is fun. Mary Anna lives in Florida with her husband, three children, at least sixteen musical instruments, and a cat. Artifacts is her debut novel.

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