Title: Survivor of the Clan
Author: Jennifer Ott
Genre: Thriller
Scottish doll maker Shelby Locke loses everything in one instant. She watches helplessly as motorcyclists assassinate her husband and abduct her daughter. Nagging questions and even confounding reminiscences only exacerbate the problem, and her geneticist father is no help.
In the aftermath of the violence, she discovers not-so-subtle hints, which prompt her to travel to Odessa, Ukraine. Upon her arrival she follows clues laid out by the perpetrators, as if they want to be discovered. What is even more shocking, she discovers her own true identity. Could she be one with those who took away her family?
To unite with her daughter, she must join forces with those bent on nihilism, and submit her loyalty to a man, whose life mission is to rekindle his long lost kin, even if by nefarious means.
Author Bio
Jennifer Ott graduated Albright College in Pennsylvania with a degree of Fine Arts. She also studied at the Syracuse London Center, filmmaking at NYU and screenwriting through Gotham Writer’s Workshops in New York City. Her screenplays The Tourist and Truth and Craziness were semi-finalists at Austin Film Festival. Full length novel, Saying Goodbye was honorable mention of Best Beach Book awards for romance in 2014, and novella Edge of Civilization received critical praise from the Vietnam Veterans Association. She has written numerous books of several different genres from satire, historical fiction, thrillers and literary fiction.
In the real world, away from her writing, she works as a product developer in the garment industry, which has offered her the opportunity to travel around the world. When not writing or working, she enjoys yoga, meditating and relaxing on the beach.
Excerpt
The lights in the ballroom went out. A few shrieks from guests echoed through the hall. Kyle grabbed Shelby’s hand and pulled her close to him. Muttered voices sounded in the dark. A scream rang out and then another. Bodies shoved past in the midst of chaos. A wave of warm fluid fell upon Shelby’s gown and bare shoulders. She felt herself drenched in what she feared might be blood.
When the lights came back on, Shelby gasped noticing her husband’s white tuxedo shirt soaked in red liquid. “Kyle!”
He gazed down at his chest and at Shelby’s gown. Sniffing the fluid on his shirt, he said, “Matter root dye. It could be worse.”
While the intellectual elite gazed upon themselves in shock, their expensive gowns and tuxedos covered in organic dyes, Morehead patted Kyle on the shoulder and bellowed in laughter, “Environmental protesters, oh, they’re so rather harmless, yet entertaining.”
“Matter root dye really doesn’t matter,” Kyle joked.
On the walls graffiti hurriedly written read:
Soulless Murders.
Barbarity and cruelty.
“I don’t understand. Why would they protest? You’re trying to help humanity,” Shelby said.
“The organics are anti anything genetically modified.” Kyle slung his arm around Shelby’s shoulder. “The world has changed, therefore we must as well in order to survive.”
An hour later, when Morehead gave up trying to save his ball, Shelby left with Kyle and the remaining guests. Outside they waited for their limousine to arrive among other scientists saying their goodbyes and best wishes to one another.
More protesters filled the street, this time carrying signs with pictures of mutated cattle and sheep fetuses. “By manufacturing life you are destroying the very fabric of it!” a protester shouted.
Photographers flashed pictures of the protesters and the elites having to bear witness. Through the bright lights flashing, Shelby caught glimpses of the horrific pictures. When their limousine pulled to the curb, Kyle opened the back door for her. She climbed inside, having a hard time believing her family would be associated with something so grim
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