Judy July has lost a large portion of the memory of her past. She needs a job. Her only credentials, published author J J Watergate, are good enough for the small community college where she applies and is accepted to the staff.
What she can remember causes her to enlist the students in the Creative Writing class that she teaches to help her by going on a class trip to help define the character they are creating to play protagonist in their novel, a group project. In doing so, she finds herself and her students in a life threatening situation.
Betrayal, espionage, and foreign intrigue are all encountered in July Heat. Two of her students turn out to be part of the plot a foot to kidnap her, and a new student, who signed on days before the kidnapping, turns out to be a key player in the kidnapping and hostage situation.
The foreign language teacher, Jacque LaPlant, who now lives across the street from Judy and teaches at the same community college, is the man she had forgotten, her ex-trainer and partner from the assassin training camp. When this memory finally surfaces, so does the terror she faced then.
Judy and the students are kidnapped while on this class trip. Half of them are released, the other half along with Judy are headed for a destination that finally reminds Judy of the past she has forgotten. Cairo, Egypt becomes painfully clear in her mind. She was brainwashed and reprogrammed as an assassin for a foreign entity bent on ruling the world. Their assassins are to take out the world leaders one by one. Judy botched her shot at the Polish President, who was eventually killed in a suspicious plane crash. Mistakes are not tolerated. Judy escaped, running for her life from this assassins group and Jacque LaPlant, to the US.
Eventually, Judy July does manage a daring rescue of her students and herself from the clutches of their captures before they reach Cairo.
Read an excerpt!
The question posed by the student’s manuscript was the question a lover might ask—or a partner in some crime too heinous for her to consider. Yet, it couldn’t be her life that it echoed or was it mimicked? Delta was silt piled up from years of the rush of water passing through, the rush of life flowing through it on its way to bigger things. Delta, the city now, not the river, was similar with the onrush of visitors or passers through on their way to something bigger. It occupied her mind. Why did she choose to join the silt and stay in this town where the river forked?
The prose on the page passed through the editing side of her mind while the other side thought of escape. But, escape to where, from whom or what? She’d only be found again. It had happened before. She still didn’t know who or why, but she knew he was there, stalking her. Maybe this time she’d stand her ground and refuse to leave, stay put without running from some real—or imagined fear. Maybe this time, she’d take her life back.
There’s a real horror in loneliness, but it’s not the worst horror. It’s no reason to put up with rage, twisted love or jealousy. There’s that greed, so ingrained with all the rest it threatens to rot the soul from the inside out. Like a cancerous leprosy eating away at who you are, why you’re here. He, that enigma from her past, was all that and more, that was the only thing she was sure of on a gut level. But who was he? No, she would not run again, not this time, not from this place. She liked it here and already felt a real sense of belonging.
She returned again to her students’ writings. “I met him on the stairs,” the student wrote. But that’s not where she met Ramón and she was now sure it was Ramón. If not, his name a name as fearful as that of the man Luke for sure. Were they the same person? She couldn’t be sure—not at this moment anyway. The name seemed strange and unfamiliar. He wasn’t from some Asian remoteness that planned their daughters’ marriages long before they came of age. Her parents never bargained with her life that way. So why would he, did he think…?
~ * ~
The students filed in with muffled chatter, in most cases arms loaded down with books. She hadn’t finished grading papers, but she’d make them a writing assignment before class began. She’d have time then.
“Class, fifteen minute writing assignment. Grab paper and pen. Here is your prompt.” Judy stood and surveyed the room. Papers shuffled. A few moans protested her directions, but she didn’t need attitude this morning. She needed space, time.
“If I went there a second time…” She looked at the blank stares as if she had suddenly become a two-headed monster and spoke in a foreign language.
“That’s it?” SK was always the one to speak out.
Judy could see she was perplexed. She had little sympathy this morning. “That’s it, pen to paper, fifteen minutes. Show me your unbridled talent, write like the wind.”
She smiled and returned to her desk and her task. Their angst was nothing compared to hers. The phrase she had given them caught in her throat like a pill accidentally swallowed before she was ready and it was going down sideways.
Second chances… if only she could go back a second time. She would know now. But, there were no second chances, not in the real world—not with Ramón and the terror he brought to her life. Was he still part of what she was feeling now, the not knowing what or why she was running away? The timer ticked away loud seconds as she and her students tried to outwit the clock. Bodach, man or ghost. Were her fears her own bodach or her past? Was the threat this time all in her imagination? And what is a threat anyway but fear, self-imposed fright of an imagined situation or person? Get over it!
Judy wrapped herself around the task of grading papers in front of her. These students were good. She enjoyed reading their work. If only she could put up a wall in her subconscious mind to block the thoughts the students’ penned words evoked.
As she finished Don’s paper, a thought replaced her task-oriented perusal of his paper with an idea, a purpose for the class to pursue. She could enlist their help. As long as she couldn’t remember who she was or where she came from, the fear that hung over her head—the dread that consumed her day and night—would rule her life. The sharp creative minds of this class may find her and drag her back from the abyss that offered no comfort or solace. She quickly organized the thought she had into a perfect plan.
~ * ~
The timer signaled that she and the students had a new path to pursue. “Please pass your papers to the front. Make sure your names are on them.” Some with pens racing across the page were reluctant to let go of their story. “A story is really never finished, even after it’s published.” Judy wanted them to know this. She wanted them to know it was okay to stop and go back to it another time, or, as in most cases, move on to something new.
Read reviews from other books by Billie Williams!
"Billie A. Williams has breathed life into a believable set of characters you'll love or love to hate. The story is packed with enthralling plot twists that keep the reader glued to the page as the dark dynamics of relationships and crime unfold. Death by Candlelight holds rare delights in store for the murder mystery lover."
--Susan J. Letham, http://www.Inspired2Write.com
Fire At Thunder Ridge: “Bloody footprints in the snow--the most puzzling fire I’ve ever heard about--once wasn’t enough for this book. I had to go back & read it a second time to admire Billie Williams’ inventiveness & vivid imagery all over again.”
--Fran Keighley, Golden Wings Award winning author.
"Kudos to Ms. Williams. THE PINK LADY SLIPPER is a book that I could not put down. It is a page-turner from the first page to the last. This book is filled with spellbinding excitement with twists and turns at every corner. I can hardly wait to read Ms. Williams next book! She is an excellent storyteller!"
-- Linda Lattimer, author of Skeletons Too Close to Home
PURCHASE JULY HEAT AT WINGS EPRESS OR AMAZON. ALSO AVAILABLE IN A KINDLE EDITION.
Williams is currently a member of The Wisconsin Regional Writers Association (WRWA) Upper Peninsula Writers Association (UPWA)National Association of Women Writers (NAWW) Sister’s in Crime, Women in the Arts Program, Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC), Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. (SCBWI) and Children’s Book Insider, and the Children Writers Coaching Club. Visit her at her website www.billiewilliams.com and sign up for her Newsletter Word Mage or visit her blog at http://printedwords.blogspot.com/.
She lives with her husband, Tom, and two kittens in Amberg, a small Northern Wisconsin community where the winters are cold and long, but the people are warm and friendly.
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