Nicole Quinn and Cameron Emerson think their whirlwind romance across the provinces of Northern Italy and their spontaneous elopement are the most exciting changes their lives will ever take until they return to Hawthorne Manor and the large Emerson Clan, Nicole is greeted with not only the uncomfortable family dynamics but also rivalries and ambitions that turn into distrust and accusations when mysterious tragedy strikes. Is it accident or evil intent? Was a sinister plot conceived in the Italian Alps and brought to deadly fruition in the mountains of the Emerson Estate? The desperate search for the victim and the hunt for the truth unleash a nightmare and unearth buried secrets no one could have possibly imagined. As their lives are changed forever, the Emerson family is forced to face the loss of one of their own and accept the fact that the mountains continue to conceal more than they are ready to reveal.
About the Author: Charlotte Ann Minga was born in the South at the middle of the twentieth century under the same wandering star as her engineer father and librarian mother. As a child, she traveled extensively with her parents and older brother across North America when it wasn't the national pastime and camped through eight European countries the summer she graduated from high school. Thousands of miles and seemingly endless hours in the car to daydream fueled her imagination. With her writer's memory, she has spent her lifetime collecting moments of the sights, smells, feels, and ambiances of the people and places she has seen and created a series of novels to share the stories they ignited. Shadow in the Wind is the first of this series. Charlotte came to age in the sixties and didn't enlist in the feminists' movement but was drafted. She held firm to her dream to be a wife and mother and raised three children. When her life took the unexpected left turn of divorce, she returned to college, graduating Magna Cum Laud with a legal degree. She wrote her first novel when she was a teenager. She wrote it again shortly after her first child was born, again when her second child started kindergarten and one more time when her third child left home. When her life blossomed with a second chance at love and marriage, her present husband encouraged her to complete the journey and actually publish her work. She and her husband retired and while he returned to teaching, she returned to her first love of writing. They live in their country retirement home in North Mississippi with their menagerie of rescued cats and dogs and look forward to the kids and eleven grandchildren (and counting) coming home. Mother, daughter, sister, wife - is the context of her life.