BONE PENDANT GIRLS
by Terry S. Friedman
February 10 – March 7, 2025 Virtual Book Tour
Synopsis:
THE ANDI WYNDHAM SERIES
Beware the Fisherman.
Andi Wyndham has communicated with spirits since she was a kid. When a bone pendant carved into the likeness of a girl’s face calls to her at a gem show in Pennsylvania, she can’t resist buying it and a sister piece. When she discovers the girls are missing runaways and the pendants are made of human bone, Andi is drawn into a mystery that will force her to confront her gifts, her guilt, and the ghosts haunting her.
Pendant Girls Mariah and Bennie urge Andi to find a man they call “Fisherman,” a master of disguise. Teaming up with a handsome private eye and a South Carolina sheriff, Andi must find the girls’ bodies and put their souls to rest, before the Fisherman casts his deadly net to trap Andi.
Praise for Bone Pendant Girls:
“Beautifully written, Friedman’s lyrical style will lure you in and scare you senseless.”
~ Annette Dashofy, USA Bestselling author of the Zoe Chambers Mysteries
“Friedman’s fast-paced thriller is both heart-pounding and heart-wrenching.”
~ Starred review Library Journal, March 1, 2024
“Full of paranormal twists, Bone Pendant Girls is a supernatural thriller about trust and acceptance.”
~ Foreword Reviews
“This supernatural thriller provides an enjoyable wrinkle in narration. The audiobook doesn’t feature a single narrator voicing all characters or a full cast with an individual narrator voicing each character. . . . Together, the three narrators provide enlightening perspectives on the hunt at the heart of this chilling production.”
~ D.E.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2024]
Inside the Author of BONE PENDANT GIRLS:
I’m so excited to share that Terry S. Friedman, author of BONE PENDANT GIRLS visited with me recently. Here are some highlights from our conversation.
What inspired you to write your first book?
I began writing Bone Pendant Girls as if Mariah would tell the story. She was trapped in her grave and confused about how she got there. The more I wrote, the more I realized this novel was a rooted in my psyche. Mariah represented a cold case missing girl, a former student. Years later, when the cold case became hot, her story appeared on TV. Her killer confessed after seven years. Apparently, he didn’t realize there is no statute of limitations on homicide. When I finished writing the novel, I realized I’d exposed more than the cold case. I had dug deep into my relationship with my own daughters and the times we didn’t understand each other. As an adolescent, I’d always wanted to run away from home. I sympathized with Mariah and her mother. I cried when I wrote the scene where Mariah is found. Even after many revisions, that scene still brings tears.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in Bone Pendant Girls?
At one point in the editing process, my wonderful editor kept saying she’d get the revisions to me tomorrow, and she was about a week late. (I didn’t realize until later that she was battling cancer.) Her revisions changed the characterization of Mariah’s mother. The mother I wrote was weak. The editor gave the mother strong words, “This is who I am. This is what I do.” Her perception of Mariah’s international journalist mother was so much better than mine. The only other tiny thing I’d change is when Andi says in the beginning she worried that a cartoon character would show up at the Wawa and buy her a cup of coffee. Originally, it was Elvis, not a cartoon character. The final didn’t end where I’d planned, but it still ended on an emotional high note.
Who has impacted your life the most and in what way?
My mom would be a strong contender. She gave me words and my love for literature. A high school English teacher, Mrs. Rosenwasser provided me with new voices in literature and some excellent advice about choosing a college far from home. An MFA mentor was the first person who ever told me I had talent. But I truly believe I am a product of what I read, and I’ve been a voracious reader since I learned to read. All those strong heroines made me believe in myself and realize my vision as a writer. My adolescent years were difficult because my older brother struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. That turmoil in my family showed me how to tune into the important things and tune out what I couldn’t do anything about.
What event in your life do you remember first when asked for a humorous story?
My second teaching job landed me with a wacky yet fiercely supportive group of colleagues. We ran that school so well that we had 14 principals over a decade. One principal told us being assigned at my school was the kiss of death. Think Abbott Elementary. We had the tough kids. To let off steam, we were pranksters especially during our outdoor education program. Three of us were untouchables. I was among those three. Amateur pranksters knew pranking us would result in dire consequences. Some of my better work was never attributed to me, so I’m not telling those stories. When I moved on to another staff, I took my pranking prowess with me. Recently, I told my granddaughter, my penny story. I shared a room with a teacher who didn’t like sharing his room. I owed him money for the water cooler in the teachers’ room, so I sent him a message. Eight hundred and seventy-five pennies in a paper bag. When I brought the bag to the teachers’ room, my department chair glanced over and said, “Better be careful there’s nothing wet on the top of his desk.” I cleaned that desktop thoroughly with a wet rag before I put the bag down in a small puddle. We were still finding pennies months later.
Terry, even our interview brought tears to my eyes… I can’t wait to spend time with Bone Pendant Girls!
Book Details:
Genre: Paranormal Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Southern
Published by: CamCat Books
Publication Date: February 25, 2025
Number of Pages: 496
ISBN: 9780744307931 (ISBN10: 0744307937)
Series: Andi Wyndham, Book 1
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | CamCat Books | Goodreads | Audible
Read an excerpt:
Ginkgo leaves drifted down like butterfly wings outside the gem show. They made a yellow carpet on the walkway to the boarding school’s gymnasium. Within the swirling leaves, Andi heard a voice. Hollow metallic vowels rustled like leaves in gutters. Consonants scratched and thumped like animals trapped in heating ducts. When the frantic skittering of syllables merged into words, a ghostly plea slipped into her consciousness. Trapped . . . help.
“You’ll find your way to the Other Side,” Andi whispered.
Some days, the spirits refused to leave her in peace. Turning off spirits’ voices was like trying to keep a snake in a bird cage. The Shadows had been with her since she was four. Her mother had sent those spirits to watch over her. But the voice she heard today was not the Shadows. They rarely spoke.
Please . . . help.
Andi opened the door. “I’m not the one to help you,” she told the young voice. “I attract bad men.”
The ticket ladies took her money and stamped her hand. She scanned from one end of the gymnasium to the other. So many vendors. Where to start. Left past the fossils to a station called P&S Lapidary. They always had unique pieces.
Please . . . ma’am. The whisper had a faint Southern lilt.
“Aw come on. Hijack someone else’s head. Go see my ex-husband. Convince him to give me all his money.” Andi looked left and right to make sure no one had heard. No need to worry. Odds were good that at least one other person in the crowd talked to herself.
Andi made her way through thirty stations. Through bargain-bound women rummaging in bins of clearance beads, through vendors taking orders to set stones, through miles of bead strands, she searched for the perfect happy, shiny piece. Twice around the gym, and that whispering voice drilled its way into her conscience again.
Please . . . buy . . . me.
Cripes! The urgency of that sweet young voice. She heaved a sigh. “Hope you’re not expensive. Where are you?” Her feet ached and the place was stifling hot. “Where?”
Over here!
She couldn’t see a damn thing through the shoppers lined up two people deep at the stations. Up on her toes, down, from foot to foot, sideways. A tiring, annoying dance. Andi shivered despite the stuffy gymnasium.
Here!
Easing her way through the shoppers, she peered into a glass display case. Malachite beads, a red coral branch necklace, two strands of ringed freshwater pearls, and one pendant with a cameo-style face etched in bone.
The vendor with a bolo tie looked like her ninth grade geography teacher. “Let me open that for you. The face pendants are going fast. Only two left.” He lifted the hinged glass cover.
Me! A loud whisper from the carved pendant with a girl’s face.
Andi looked intently at it. Like most cameos, the face was a side profile. Tendrils of the girl’s curly hair escaped an upswept hairdo, framing her face. At first, she appeared to be asleep. Then the girl’s face turned and studied her too, eyes blinking as if she’d just awakened. Andi shivered. In the spirit world she’d inherited from her mother, voices whispered. Images in jewelry didn’t move.
What now? She spoke silently. Subconscious to subconscious.
Hurry, ma’am! Buy . . .
A woman who reeked of Chanel No. 5 snatched the face pendant from the case.
“Excuse me,” Andi said. “I came here to buy that piece. It called to me.” There now, she’d admitted she was crazy. She gave a lopsided grin and a shrug. “Please could I have it?”
“Sorry, hon. I got here first.” A condescending glance at Andi, and the lady wrapped her bratwurst fingers around the pendant.
“Not to worry, ladies,” the seller told them. “I have another like this.” He pushed the tablecloth aside, reached under the table, and pulled out a second pendant. “It’s stunning with Namibian Pietersite accents. I could let you have it for the same price.”
No . . . me. An adamant voice.
“I don’t want the other pendant,” Andi said. “I came here for the one in her hand.” At the next booth, a woman holding a jade jar stopped talking and stared at her. Andi blushed, knowing she sounded like a petulant child.
Suddenly, Chanel Lady gasped. “Ouch! Awful thing cut me. It has sharp edges.” A thin line of blood welled on her finger, and she dropped the pendant as if it had bitten her.
Andi caught it before it hit the floor. The silver bezel felt ice-cold. A young girl’s eyes gazed up at her and blinked. Thanks, ma’am.
She stared at the pendant. Her mother had warned about spirits attaching to people. If spirits attached, she’d said, terrible things could happen.
Chanel Lady cradled the darker pendant. Not a word was uttered from it. Maybe the tea-stained piece believed in being seen and not heard. Its bone face was younger. Pietersite in the top bezel had chatoyancy, a luminous quality. Thin wavy splotches of browns, blacks, reds, and yellows swirled through the dark stone like tiny ice crystals in frozen latte.
“Yes. I like this one better. Excellent quality Pietersite,” Chanel Lady said.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll take her payment first.” The seller probably wanted to send the woman to another station before she started a fight with his customers.
“No problem. Is this ivory?” Andi asked. Whether vendors called it mammoth bone or not, elephants didn’t deserve to be slaughtered for jewelry.
“Absolutely not. Wouldn’t sell it if it was. Cow bone,” he assured her.
A triumphant smirk aimed at Andi, and Chanel Lady made her way through the crowd. Subduing an impulse to give her the middle finger, Andi turned back to the pendant. She studied the heart-shaped face, turned it over and winced at the tiny price sticker. Was she insane? Andi couldn’t afford that; she’d lost her teaching job.
“I’ll need your address and email.” The seller handed her a clipboard.
She’d fought over it and won, no changing her mind now. While he charged her credit card, Andi filled out the information for his mailing list. Then she weaved through the shoppers to find a quiet corner by the concessions stand.
What the hell. The pendant was a dose of credit card therapy. Unzipping the plastic sleeve, she lifted the piece by the bail. Two bezels set in silver. One disk held labradorite, a luminous blue stone with black veins, and in the second bezel, a face carved in bone. She shifted it in her palm, studying the details. Had light played with the image, making it look like the girl moved? It would warm at the touch of her skin.
Once more around the gym, and she left the show, slogging through the field toward her car, wondering how a whispering girl had convinced her to buy a pricey pendant. Yet, she had a sense that something other her credit card bill had changed.
***
Excerpt from Bone Pendant Girls by Terry S. Friedman. Copyright 2024 by Terry S. Friedman. Reproduced with permission from Terry S. Friedman. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Terry Friedman is a writer and a rockhound. Her novel, BONE PENDANT GIRLS, a paranormal thriller, was published by CamCat January 30, 2024.
Terry began her writing career freelancing for a small newspaper outside Philadelphia. While raising her daughters Jessica and Chelie in West Chester, PA, she taught English for decades and traveled abroad with students. Terry earned an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and also graduated from the FBI Citizens Academy. Thirteen of her fiction and non-fiction pieces have been published, and she co-edited Delaware Valley Mystery Writers’ short stories anthology. DEATH KNELL V.
She is an award-winning author. In 2022 the Southeastern Writers Association awarded her first place in their writing contest for her humor piece, second place for BONE PENDANT GIRLS in a fiction category, and an honorable mention for THE BANSHEE’S WAIL, an unpublished Irish novel. She is a Killer Nashville Claymore Finalist in the Supernatural category.
A Pennwriters Board member and a member of Sisters in Crime, she currently writes thrillers from coastal South Carolina. Terry has traveled the world from Fiji to Delphi and brings to her writing a solid respect for things that go bump in the night.
Catch Up With Terry S. Friedman:
www.TerryFriedmanAuthor.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads – @tfried44
BookBub – @tfried44
Instagram – @wineandreeses
Threads – @wineandreeses
X – @tfried44
BlueSky – @tfried44
Facebook – @TerrySFriedmanAuthor
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Oh my goodness, that was incredible! I will be reading this book soon and I am so glad I got a chance to read this first. It makes me more excited to read the book.