Nookta?

With my latest book published and no job in sight, I find myself with time on my hands. And just what does Ms. Kamp do when she has time? Research past lives, of course!

Having recently spent so much time in Canada, I've been thinking about my Indian past life a lot lately. I remember very little about it at this point, having only had two memories, one of which I forgot to write down (let that serve as a lesson to ALWAYS record any information you recall). Here's the memory which did get written down:

September 20th, 1993
....Indians in British Columbia. Huddled in a make-shift house, my legs bare. The girl I wanted, with a mostly beautiful Indian face. The water’s edge, at high tide, lapping a few feet below the top of the near-vertical rock face with the trees almost overhanging into the water. My canoe, carved and painted at the bow, primarily in black, white and bluish-green. Going out with the whales, others with me in other canoes, the whale charging and easily overturning my boat, the whale’s white under-face turned green by the water and the teeth coming at me, silently—this was very ordinary, as if it couldn’t possibly be happening, and yet also I felt urgency, some sort of panic at the back of my thoughts. These animals were revered by me—I loved them as sacred, even though I was going to kill one, I meant it no harm. I realized, watching this, feeling this, over and over in a vague replay, that we, the Indians, were hunting the whales and they were defending themselves. I don’t know if I died—it seemed like I did. I couldn’t get the image of that green and black face coming at me out of my mind.

So, with all this free time, I did some searching for which First Nations Groups hunted whales, specifically killer whales. It seems the Nootka, or Nuu-chah-nulth, were the only real whale hunters...so that narrows down my location to the western side of Vancouver Island (excluding the Makah on the Olympic Peninsula because the landscape doesn't look right). I've read that only the chief was allowed to strike the killing harpoon blow, that only the chief's family was allowed to hunt whales, so this suggests that, if my memory is correct and we were actually hunting, then I would have been a member of the chief's family. In the memory I failed to write down, my father in this life was a little, old, gray-haired Indian man in that lifetime, very chief-like, although this could just be a confusion with one of the characters in Daniel Day-Lewis' Last of the Mohicans. Also, from what I know about killer whale behavior, they seldom attack or molest boats or kayaks unless harassed, so odds would be good we were actually hunting in this memory.

While I was in Canada, I had a chance to see an iron "slave killer" knife in a local museum there. I had written about just such a knife in my first book, The Last Killiney, and it was surprising to find out how accurate my description was, and how much resonance I experienced upon seeing this artifact. Since iron was more plentiful amongst the First Nations Groups after contact with the fur traders -- and the Nootka were among the first to make contact -- it seems likely my memories date from after Mary Carter's lifetime, e.g. after 1830.

I will need to conduct some past-life self-regressions to learn more, but right now this is where I stand in my research. All very interesting. Now I'm thinking about getting in my truck and driving up there, maybe visiting some of the places one can actually drive to, Tahsis and Gold River. *adds to To-Do List*

The Wager is now available!

My latest book, The Wager, is now available for sale! Huzzah!

You can find it here in both Kindle and Nook formats, as well as links to all my other books in the series, too.

Thanks for taking a look!

Another book....

Well, I've been gone all spring and summer, holed up in a cabin on the edge of the sea in British Columbia, Canada. I've been working on the third book in The Ravenna Evans Series when in fact I should be searching for gainful employment. But since the chances of securing a job seem slim, I find myself on the brink of publishing my fourth book, The Wager.

The first book in this series, The Last Killiney, is a time-travel romance featuring a hero based on/inspired by a mish-mash of Bono and Thomas Carter. It takes place mostly aboard Captain Vancouver's voyage to the Pacific Northwest in the 1790s -- a setting I thought was just a fun idea when I first began writing this story in 1992 (or whenever it was, so long ago now I can hardly recall). However, I've recently learned that one of the main participants in Vancouver's voyage was actually Mary Carter's neighbor's nephew, so the setting it seems is also a reflection of my past life. Funny how these things crop up (because the subconscious always seems to know about our past lives even if we don't).

The second book in The Ravenna Evans Series is called The Bayman's Bride, and it's a straight historical romance with no time travel or reincarnation theme. This story takes place in Belize during the 1790s, and it's about a Spanish sea captain who falls in love with his employer's wife. Lots of sex, lots of funny bits. I know I'm biased, but I think it's a really good book.

Now the third book, The Wager, is finished. There are some references to my past life in this one, too, what with Thomas Carter's interest in Irish independence from British rule, as well as his drinking, social life, and eventual death. But that's not really what the book is about; instead, it's a story inspired by Johnny Depp.

Famous for playing a listing, kohl-eyed pirate, Depp is someone whose name incites lust in females everywhere...but how many women really know much about him? Or even care what kind of person he is? If they were trapped on a desert island with him, how long would it take for the lust factor to wear off, and how many would become bored with him? The Wager is a story about just such a man: too beautiful to be seen as anything but a piece of meat, and thus never finding real and lasting love. Of course Ravenna, the heroine of all three books (in The Bayman's Bride, too, though in disguise) learns to appreciate Bill Wyckham for his personality, deeds and good heart, not just for his looks. However, she finds a few obstacles in the way of this new love -- her dead husband, for instance. Because when one possesses a time-travel potion, the possibilities are endless.

Stay tuned for a release date for The Wager (hint: it should be within days).

Thanks for reading!