Weekend Name Drop: Cynthia MacLean

In last week’s instalment of the Weekend Name Drop, I featured another school chum from university. This week, while I’m still visiting my home province of Nova Scotia, I’m featuring someone from even further back, all the way to elementary school days. Meet Cynthia MacLean.

Name: Cynthia MacLean

Creative field: Author, Sailor, Entrepreneur

Location: Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Best known for: Author of the novel, Tipping Point

My connection: I attended Dr W.A. MacLeod Elementary School with Cynthia, in Riverton, Nova Scotia, and we spent a few years together at West Pictou District High. I knew her as Cindy Smith then. We’ve reconnected in recent years on Facebook, especially as she released her first novels. Admittedly, Cynthia has a sharper memory of those days, but we’ve swapped some stories of people we knew. We recall that we both loved to read and write. I read and reviewed Cynthia’s first book, Tipping Point, here on my blog, and Cynthia reciprocated by reviewing my third novel, The Chain. Throughout our contact, we’ve learned more about one another and shared ideas around writing as well as marketing.

Inspiration for this writer: Like so many of my fellow writers who publish independently, I admire the fact that Cynthia is doing it – just doing it is so much more than many. On top of that, in Tipping Point, she has written a compelling, femme-fatale page turner. And there’s more – Cynthia has been prolific in recent years, producing another novel, Left, to be released soon, along with some Amazon Short Reads. In addition to her writing, for which she shows great passion, Cynthia applies her years of entrepreneurship experience to marketing her books and has shared some secrets with me, even prompting to be to be more involved on Pinterest, of all things!

Why you should check her out and share with others: As I wrote in my review of Cynthia’s novel, romance and mystery are not my preferred genre, but they sure are for lots of readers, especially those who like some dark twists. Cynthia strikes me as one of those genuinely positive, enthusiastic people who enjoy letting another side run rampant in their fiction. Read her “Six Facts About Me” to find out more about her. You’ll be inspired. Like my friend, Nix Whittaker, Cynthia is extraordinarily proactive and prolific, and like fellow Pictou County writer, Sarah Butland, she is hometown proud. Check her out.

Sample of work:

From Cynthia’s upcoming novel, Left:

“Hmmmm, interesting loops on the handwriting,” Phia said to herself. The results were in. Whoever was writing to her was a pathological liar.

She looked down at the floor. She only had a third of it left to scrape. She raised one eyebrow. Then glanced down to the letter. Open the letter or finish the floor? She closed her eyes and let her curiosity fade away. No, the floor had to be finished today or it would be next week before her schedule opened up again to get it done. She startled as the clock chimed eleven o’clock. She would have to stop working by two o’clock if she was to make her shift at three that afternoon.

She had taken on the waitress job to help pay for the courses she planned to attend this fall at the local university. It had been twenty years since she finished her degree in history, back in Canada. And she found herself longing for the educational environment once again.

Some of her favorite courses, from the day, had been in graphology. The very thought of the subject made her burst with anticipation. She sighed. Unfortunately, the study of handwriting came with a price. She now examined everyone’s handwriting to see if she could discover their quirks. And it wasted a lot of time. The power to slip inside someone’s skin, through their writing, was pure temptation. She glowered at the letter and got down on the floor with her scraper.

Each flake flew away, like a train plowing through snow.  It was freeing her from both old paint, and her old life in Canada. Freeing. She smiled. That’s what she was doing.