THE REVEREND JOHN LESTER - DESTINY’S DAMNED

In a dramatic moment outside the apartment house where Eric Caldwell was murdered the reader meets the Reverend John Lester, minister of the Calvary Gospel Church, San Francisco.

As if thunder suddenly struck from a dry, clear sky, a scream rolled across the lawn and hit them. Sybil turned.
Her eyes on fire, her voice shrill as a whistle, the woman on the porch next door was shrieking in long desperate cries, setting them all on edge. Darting from side to side, her gaze a flurry of fear, she was frozen, unable to stop what was happening.
Outside an open gate and in the middle of the street, a curly haired toddler without a coat, in blue and pink overalls and shirt, was squatting, trying to pick up a penny, oblivious to the dinosaur about to consume him. Less than twenty feet from him, a 60’s vintage Lincoln with gray fender and dented passenger door, was about to run over him.
A middle-aged man with close cropped hair and thin, taut lips was driving, not paying attention to the road. His mouth agape, he was staring at them instead, ignoring the mother’s frantic screams.
With no time to move or otherwise react, Sybil picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could at the passenger window. Sailing in the direction of the driver’s eyes, he started, clasped the wheel, and as the stone chipped the window, screeched to a stop. Exploding with rage, he opened the door on the driver’s side and got out, rounding the front fender to come after her. Grabbing the hood ornament to pick up speed, he cursed, “You bitch, I’ll get you for this!” He was pushing off the ornament when he heard the mother’s cries.
She was just feet in front of the car. Her arms around the toddler, weeping.
“Jesus,” he whispered, realizing what almost happened.
His anger turned to fear. Taking one last hateful look at Sybil, he retreated, jumping back into his brute of a car. Racing the engine and shoving it into reverse, his tires squealed as he careened backwards down the street. Wheels smoking, he backed around the corner, gunned the engine, and roared away.

Excerpt from DESTINY'S DAMNED


© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
available:
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SATAN’S SCAT-MARY MAGDELENE SET ADRIFT

The French claim Mary Magdelene came to France and died there. But did she really?

The Catholic version of Mary Magdelene’s journey to France begins with Mary and others being set adrift by the Jews. As the story goes: Fourteen years after Our Lord’s death, St. Mary was put in a boat by the Jews without sails or oars - along with Sts. Lazarus and Martha, St. Maximin (who baptized her), St. Sidonius (“the man born blind”), her maid Sera, and the body of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. They were sent drifting out to sea and landed on the shores of Southern France, where St. Mary spent the rest of her life as a contemplative in a cave known as Sainte-Baume. She was given the Holy Eucharist daily by angels as her only food, and died when she was 72. St. Mary was transported miraculously, just before she died, to the chapel of St. Maximin, where she received the last sacraments.
Source: Catholic Online, St. Mary Magdelene “The Penitent,” www.catholic.org.

Even on its face, there seems to be problems with that story. First, if Mary and the others were set drifting in the Mediterranean, why did they go all the way to France? How did they get around all the land masses between Palestine and France? Where would the currents have taken them? Why didn’t they land sooner?
What destination would have made more sense in light of biblical and historical fact? Turkey maybe?

From: SATAN’S SCAT


© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
available:
www.pilchuckpublishing.com
amazon.com
books stores and libraries

SATANS SCAT: THE COMULSION TO KILL-THE AFTERLIFE

If you were a compulsive killer in one life, would that compulsion follow you into the next? And would it be even stronger?
What would you be?
What would you look like?
What would you feel like to your victim?

Excerpt from SATAN’S SCAT:

Curling beneath her robes and coiling up her legs, the swirling, black smoke took form, and something oily and bristly crawled upon the nun’s breasts and bit her. “Ooohhh,” she shuddered, frantically hitting and swatting at what she though was a rat.
Its jaw clenched, its teeth dug deep into her flesh, she screamed, but there was no sound. Flailing at him, hysterically clawing at the robes that confined her, her fingers tore at her chest. Ripping the robe to her breasts, she flung it open and grabbed.
An empty victory. The rat was gone, and so was her nipple.
A hesitant witness to what was happening to her behind the abbey, the sun was but a glint on the horizon waiting until it was over to rise. Crowded into a corner of the enclosure, the chickens were but stunned and silent observers.
Sobbing, she knelt, unaware that the form that bit her was still there. Stealthily moving just over the dust in circles around her, it was stalking her. Long and sinewy, its fingers reached up and hovered over the inside of her thigh. Titillatingly skimming over the soft hair of her skin it moved over her groin and upward.
....


© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
available:
www.pilchuckpublishing.com
amazon.com
books stores and libraries

A POPE MADE MARY MAGDELENE A WHORE

Mary Magdelene was apparently not a whore until Pope Gregory the Great made her one in 591 A.D. He was at the Basilica San Clemente in Rome when he announced it.
He based his conclusion on an event briefly described in the New Testament, Chapter Seven of Luke. Though the woman was not named, Luke mentions that a “sinful woman” anointed Jesus’ feet.” From that description, he assumed the woman was Mary Magdelene and that she was a whore. He made her a whore so Jesus could reform her.
After Pope Gregory made Mary a reformed whore, her reputation spread through Europe, and she became somewhat of a heroine. The French, as you might suspect, made her their heroine, which is why the stories were told she ended up there. In the 13th Century a Dominican Monk claimed, in writing, she came to southern Gaul after Jesus died.

SOURCE: May 29, 2006 issue of Newsweek, “An Inconvenient Woman,” by Jonathan Darman with Anne Underwood.

© Shawna Ryan
Author: thrillers DESTINY'S DAMNED & SATAN'S SCAT
available:
www.pilchuckpublishing.com
amazon.com
books stores and libraries