Touched by the Willow Brook: A Novelette of the Willowbrook Saga

By Shannon Muir

While the drama unfolds in 1990s Willowbrook, Mona Williams has married and become the well-known author M. Birdie Greymont. Living in relative isolation in the Pacific Northwest, events unfold that make her realize it is her time to return to Willowbrook and make a difference. This novelette sets up the events that will lead to her return to the town she never thought she'd see again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Muir
• Release date: May 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463364314

Shannon Muir

SHANNON MUIR's short stories include suspense and mystery elements such as those found in her first full-length story from Pro Se Press, CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS DOC AND SALLY IN "THE DEATH OF BUDDY TURNER". Additionally, she's written short stories for Pro Se Press such as “Tragic Like a Torch Song” in THE DAME DID IT from Pro Se Press, "Pretty as a Picture" in the anthology NEWSHOUNDS, “Tropical Terror” in CRIME DOWN ISLAND and “Hidden History” in EXPLORER PULP. She’s also written the Single Shot New Pulp tale “Ghost of the Airwaves,” a short story offered in electronic format only from Pro Se Press.From her personal self-published projects, her best known titles in this area include the rural crime series THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA.In other genres, Shannon's published short stories include “Meeting the Monster” in the Emby Press anthology SUPERHERO MONSTER HUNTER: THE GOOD FIGHT and "Cover Story" in ARIA KALSAN: MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE.Shannon holds a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington, which she considers to be her hometown. She also holds an MA in Communications from California State University, Fullerton, along with additional education in screenwriting, project management, library technician studies, and most recently a certificate earned with distinction in General Business with Emphasis in Marketing from UCLA Extension. Currently, she is working on a Masters of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.She is married to FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY collaborator and fellow author Kevin Paul Shaw Broden. They live in California in the United States.She is a member of Sisters in Crime (national, Guppies, and Los Angeles, where she also served on the Los Angeles board for a two terms beginning in 2018), as well as the Toastmasters4Writers Chapter of Toastmasters International (where she serves as chapter Secretary), Women in Animation, and a Professional member of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Book preview

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COPYRIGHT

TOUCHED BY THE WILLOW BROOK: AN INTERLUDE NOVELETTE OF THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA

By Shannon Muir

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Shannon Muir.

First Smashwords publication May 2020.

This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy from Smashwords or a vendor partner. If you want to share this work with others please purchase a copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of artists and creators.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

EPILOGUE

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – WILLOWBROOK SAGA: THROUGH THE GENERATIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

I needed to put Willowbrook away for a while to figure out how to best focus the remaining steps of the journey. One thing that immediately became apparent was that a character early in the story would come off as too much of a deus ex machina if I re-introduced her in the main book.

This novelette, TOUCHED BY THE WILLOWBROOK, is intended to look into M. Birdie Greymont – also known as Mona – and what happened to her in the intervening years. It allows readers to see firsthand why she would come back to Willowbrook, instead of marbling in a bunch of backstory later on in a novel.

I hope you enjoy it.

Shannon Muir

Glendale, California

May 2020

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PROLOGUE

Willowbrook’s history began generations earlier, in the pioneer era of the Pacific and Inland Northwest. A small band of people came looking for a new life, more attuned to the ways that they wished to live, not in accordance with the law or God. A man some called a snake oil salesman, his powerful sister who knew how to use beauty as power and came to lead other women to do the same, a fallen preacher, and several who shared their philosophy led the town into a new era.

What they never envisioned would be their own descendants rising up and clawing away at their vision over time. Just because they had their perfect vision of what the world should be did not mean that others would share it over time. The fallen priest would take a