I love that girl...

Katrina Buckhold, my protagonist, my mentor, my hero...

Oh, my goodness, I love that girl. Katrina Buckhold, my very first female protagonist to make it onto the printed page, the star of my debut novel THE TRAZ and the lifeblood of the  BackTracker series. I fell in love with her when she first appeared in my dreams as frightened young girl on an autumn ridge. Waiting...for what I did not know. Terrified, and I did not know why.

Katrina Buckhold

"Tell me. Tell me. Tell me," I said and she did.

Not everyone loves Katrina, and most of us don't at least some of time. She's abrasive and annoying. Self-centered and manipulative. Immature. Sometimes shallow.  But always, somehow, compelling.

She survives tremendous odds, faces unfathomable traumas, is perpetually in danger. Saves lives and touches souls.

I want to be her and I don't know why. Her life is so very tough, full of heart-ache. Murder, death, lonliness. Betrayal. Her social circle so small. Her fans, far away and silent.

But she stays with it. She's determined. She has a self-confidence I can only dream of. She is committed to seeing things through. She wants so much--for herself and her world--and she never stops reaching for it.

At the end of each book, each chapter of her life she is better, stronger, kinder, wiser than she was in on page one. Through each novel she changes and, as she changes, she changes me.

Perhaps that's why I love her, am obsessed with her, spend so much time spinning her tales. Perhaps that's why there are eight books drafted in the series. Perhaps I want to be her so...I can change lives.


Brought to you by The BACKTRACKER Series 

Eileen Schuh, Author
DISPASSIONATE LIES
FIREWALLS
FATAL ERROR
Schrödinger's Cat
THE TRAZ

Autumn: My fave season

I first met Katrina Buckhold* when she was trembling and terrified, waiting for something on an autumn ridge...

Autumn. Ah, yes. My fave seasons and Katrina's, too.

"Fallen leaves, some mottled and others striped, crunched beneath their feet." FATAL ERROR

"Autumn, her favourite season. It was the colours, the golden light from a sun travelling low on the horizon, the musty, distinctive autumn aromas. She loved the red berries on the mountain ash. The yellow of fallen leaves on the green of the grass and the sound of them crackling under her feet." FATAL ERROR

Outside, Katrina drank in the astounding beauty of the Alberta September. Across the river, gold leaves glittered behind the red berry bushes lining the bank.  FATAL ERROR

"Interspersed in the dazzle of fall colours were the spruce trees, stretching their deep green toward the rich, late-afternoon sun." FATAL ERROR

  "The sky was a cloudless blue dome and the air was thick with the pungent scent of autumn." FIREWALLS

Katrina headed into the evening sun. The weather had held for her wedding, and two weeks later, it was still holding. Autumn, her favourite season. It was the colours, the golden light from a sun travelling low on the horizon, the musty, distinctive autumn aromas... FIREWALLS




*Find out more about how I first met Katrina on CHILL WITH A BOOK


Brought to you by Katrina Buckhold and the BackTracker Series