The Invisible Man from Salem - Christoffer Carlsson - Extract - Blog Tour

I'm taking part in the blog tour for The Invisible Man from Salem by Christoffer Carlsson today!

This is the first book in the Leo Junker series. 

It's published in the UK by Scribe Books and is translated by Michael Gallagher.

I'm featuring an extract from the book. Do visit the other stops on the tour too - see the picture above!

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Extract from The Invisible Man from Salem...

I’m outside, standing under the overcast sky. I take several deep breaths. My head’s spinning, and I feel sick; it’s hard to breathe. It’s been so long since I thought about her. She’s been there sometimes, like a ghost. Some nights.

Julia Grimberg’s necklace was in Rebecca Salomonsson’s hand. They couldn’t have known each other. It must have been put there by whoever killed her.

And, as if I’m being watched, my phone buzzes.

not going to have a guess? writes the anonymous sender.

guess what? I write, looking over my shoulder, looking around for anyone who might be sticking out from the crowd. 

guess who i am, comes the reply.

are you the one who killed her?

no it wasn’t me

do you know who did it? 

maybe

who was it?

I can see you, Leo

~~~~~

About the novel...

When a woman in his building is killed, Leo cannot stay away. Despite being on suspension from the force, he bluffs his way onto the crime scene and examines the body. When he notices that the woman is clasping a cheap necklace in her hand – a necklace he instantly recognises – he knows he must investigate, even though he has been warned to stay away. As a series of frightening connections emerge linking the murder to his own troubled youth in Salem, Leo is forced to finally confront a long-ago incident that changed his life forever. 

Selling over 70,000 in its first year in print in Carlsson's native Sweden and netting the coveted Swedish Crime Academy's Award for Best Crime Novel, The Invisible Man from Salem has earned comparisons to Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo from critics. Still in his 20s, Carlsson – who has a PhD in criminology – has become one of the country's most in-demand authors, acclaimed for his ability to combine page-turning prose and razor-sharp social realism.

About the author...

Christoffer Carlsson was born in 1986. The author of two previous novels, he has a PhD in criminology, and is a university lecturer in the subject. The Invisible Man from Salem has been a bestseller in Sweden, and won the Swedish Crime Academy’s 2013 Best Crime Novel of the Year award. 

It is the first in a series starring a young police officer called Leo Junker, and will shortly be developed into a three-season TV

drama by StellaNova Film. 

Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin & Samantha Norman - Blog Tour

Today it's great to be hosting the blog tour for Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman. My stop features an extract from the novel for you to sample below. 

Published by Bantam Press on 12th February 2014 in Paperback, priced £7.99

Synopsis

Run, run, girl. In the name of God, run.

1141. A mercenary watches from the icy reeds as a little girl with red hair is attacked by his own men. He is powerless to stop them.

But a strange twist of fate brings them together again. Sheltering in a church, he finds the girl freezing cold, close to death, clutching a sliver of parchment. And now he is certain of what he must do.

He will bring her back to life. He will train her to fight. And he will protect her from the man who calls himself a monk, who lost a piece of parchment he will do anything to get back . . .

An epic account of the brutal winter when Stephen and Matilda tore England apart in their battle for its crown – when atrocities were inflicted on the innocent, but bravery found a home in an old solider and a young girl.

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About the authors

Ariana Franklin was born in Devon and, like her father, became a journalist.

Having invaded Wales dressed in combat uniform with the Royal Marines for one of

their military exercises, accompanied the Queen on a royal visit, missed her own twenty first birthday party because she had to cover a murder, she married, almost inevitably,

another journalist. She then abandoned her career in national newspapers and settled

down in the country to bring up two daughters, study medieval history and write.

Ariana was the author of the acclaimed, award-winning Mistress of the Art of Death

series. She passed away in 2011, before she was able to deliver the manuscript for Winter Siege. Her daughter, Samantha, decided to complete the novel on her mother’s behalf.

Samantha Norman is a journalist and broadcaster who is mad about horses. She lives in west London with her two sons Harry and Charlie, and their dogs Becks and Spider.

~~~~~

Extract

Winter Siege

Chapter One

The Cambridgeshire Fens, February 1141

At first, news of the war going on outside passed into the fenland without impact. It oozed into that secret world as if filtered through the green miasma of willow and alder that the fenlanders called ‘carr’, which lined its interminable rivers and reed beds.

At Scutney, they learned about it from Old Sala when he came back from his usual boat trip to Cambridge market where he sold rushes for thatching. He told the tale in the village church after the celebration of Candlemas.

‘Now yere’s King Stephen—’ he began.
‘Who?’ somebody asked.
Sala sighed with the exasperation of a much-travelled

man for the village idiot. ‘I told you an’ told you, bor. Ain’t Henry on the throne now, it’s Stephen. Old Henry’s dead and gone these many a year.’

‘He never told me.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Him bein’ a king and dead.’
As always, the little wooden church smelled of cooking from the rush tapers that had been dipped in fat. Scutney couldn’t afford beeswax candles; anyway, rushes gave out a prettier light.
‘Get on with it, will ’ee?’ Brother Arth struggled out of the rough woollen cope he wore to take the services and into the sheepskin cloak that was his working wear in winter. ‘I got ditchin’ and molin’ to see to.’
They all had, but the villagers stayed where they were – it was as well to be informed about what was going on in them uplands.
Sala stretched back his shoulders and addressed his audience again. ‘So this King Stephen’s started a-warring with his cousin, the Empress Matilda. Remember as I told you old King Henry, on his deathbed, wanted his daughter, this Matilda, to rule England? But the nobles, they don’t want no blasted female queenin’ it over un, so they’ve said no and gives the crown to Stephen, old Henry’s nephew.’
He looked sternly into the standing congregation. ‘Got that now, Bert, have you? Good. Well now, Matilda, she ain’t best pleased with bein’ passed over and seems she’s brought a army as is a-fighting Stephen’s army out there some’eres.’
‘That it?’ Nyles wanted to know.
‘Enough, innit?’ Sala was miffed that Nyles, the big man of the village because he owned more sheep than anybody else, hadn’t been more receptive to the news. ‘I been tellin’ you as there’s a war goin’ on out there.’

Nyles shrugged. ‘Allus is.’
‘Excitin’, though, Pa, ain’t it?’ asked eleven-year-old Em, looking up at him.
Nyles cuffed his daughter lightly about her red head for her forwardness in speaking in church. She was his favourite, but it didn’t do to let females get out of hand, especially not this one. ‘Well, good luck to ’em, I say. And now let’s get on with that ditchin’ and bloody molin’.’
But Old Sala, irritated by the interruption, raised his hand. ‘I’ll tell you summat else, Nyles. And you’ll want to listen this time. Want to be keeping a close eye on that one, you will,’ he said, pointing at Em. ‘Folk say as there’s a band o’ mercenaries riding round ’ere like the wild hunt and with ’em there’s a monk; likes red-heads, he does. Does terrible things when ’e finds ’em too.’
Nyles shook his head indulgently and turned towards the door. He knew Old Sala with his scaremongering and preposterous tales of abroad and yet he suddenly felt in- explicably chilly and, without realizing it, had reached out and drawn the child closer to him. Daft old bugger.
‘That it then, Sala?’ he asked. The old man looked deflated but nodded and with that the men, women and children of Scutney trooped out of its church to continue their own, unceasing war – against water.
The North Sea, that great enemy, was always threaten- ing to drown East Anglia in one of its rages, submerging fields and cattle, even lapping the just-above-sea-level islands that dotted the flattest land in England. In winter, the sluggish rivers and great drains had to be cleared of weed or they clogged and overflowed.

Oh, and the mole, as big an enemy as the sea, had to be killed to stop the little bugger from weakening the dykes with his bloody tunnels.
No, the people of Scutney didn’t have time from their watery business to bother about wars between the danged nobles. Anyway, they were safe because just over there – over there, bor, see them towers in the distance? – was Ely, greatest cathedral in England.
Every year, the villagers had to deliver four thousand glistening, squirming eels to Ely in return for being protected by St Etheldreda, whose bones lay in a jewelled tomb within the cathedral walls.
Powerful saint, Etheldreda, an Anglo-Saxon like themselves, and although Scutney people resented the number of eels they had to catch in order to feed her monks, they were grateful to her for keeping them safe from the outside world with its battles and carryings-on.
Oh yes, any bugger who came a-trampling and a-killing in this part of the fens ’d soon have his arse kicked out of it by good old St Ethel.
That’s if the bugger could find Scutney in the first place and didn’t drown in the meres or get led astray by spirits of the dead who took the shape of flickering Jack-o’- Lantern flames in the marshes by night.

Folk allus said that for an enemy force to attack Ely it’d take a traitor to show the secret causeways leading to it. And who’d be so dang-blasted stupid as to betray St Etheldreda? Get sent straight to Hell, he would.
Such was the attitude.
But a traitor was even now preparing his treachery, and the war was about to penetrate Scutney’s fenland for all that St Etheldreda in her 500-year-old grave could do about it.

The first the village knew of its fate was when soldiers sent by Hugh Bigod turned up to take its men away to build him a new castle.
‘Bigod?’ roared Nyles, struggling between two captors while his red-headed elder daughter batted at their legs with a frying pan. ‘We don’t owe him nothing. We’re Ely’s men.’
Hugh Bigod, newly Earl of Norfolk, owned a large pro- portion of East Anglia. The Scutney villagers had seen him in his fine clothes swanking it at Ely with their bishop during Christmas feasts and suchlike. Didn’t like him much. But then, they didn’t like anybody from Norfolk. Didn’t like the next village across the marshes, come to that.
Nor was he their overlord, as was being energetically pointed out to his soldiers. ‘Tha’s not law, bor. We ain’t none of his. What’s he want another castle for? He’ve got plenty.’
‘And now he do want another one,’ the soldiers’ sergeant  said, ‘in case Empress Matilda do attack un. There’s a war on, bor.’

‘Ain’t my war,’ Nyles told him, still struggling.
‘Is now,’ the sergeant said, ‘and if them nippers of yourn don’t cease bashing my legs, they’ll be its next bloody casualties.’
For Em had now been joined by her younger sister, Gyltha, wielding an iron spit.
‘Leave it,’ Nyles told his girls. But they wouldn’t, and their mother had to drag them off.
Holding them tightly, Aenfled watched her husband and every other able-bodied man being marched off along the roddon that led eventually to Cambridge.
‘Us’ll be back, girl,’ Nyles shouted at her over his shoulder, ‘but get they sheep folded, an’ don’t ’ee sell our hay for a penny under thruppence a stook, an’ look to that danged roof afore winter’s out, and . . .’ He had suddenly remembered Old Sala’s warning in the church. ‘Keep Em close...’ And then he was too far away to be heard.
The women of Scutney stood where they were, their men’s instructions becoming fainter and fainter until only an echo came sighing back to them and even that faded so that the air held merely the frightened bawling of their babies and the call of geese flying overhead.
They didn’t cry; fenwomen never wept.

The men still hadn’t come back by the beginning of Lent. It was a hard winter, that one. Birds dropped out of the air, killed by the cold. The rivers froze and dead fish could be seen enclosed in their ice. The old died in their huts; the sheep in their pens.

In the turbaries, spades dulled themselves on peat that had become as hard as iron, so that fuel became scarce and it was necessary for tired, overworked women and their families to venture further and further away from the village in order to retrieve the peat bricks that had been stacked a year before to provide fire for shepherds during the lambing season.
On St Valentine’s Day, it was the turn of Aenfled and her children to trundle a barrow into the marsh to fetch fuel. They’d left nothing behind in the woolly line and the thickness of their wrappings made them look like disparately sized grey statues perambulating through a grey landscape. Their breath soaked into the scarves round their mouths and turned to ice, but a veil of mist in the air promised that the weather might, just might, be on the turn. The children all carried bows and arrows in case a duck or goose flew within range.
Tucked into Em’s belt was a little carved wooden key that Durwyn, Brother Arth’s son, had shyly and secretly shoved into her hand that morning.
Gyltha wouldn’t leave the subject alone. ‘Wants to unlock your heart, he do. You got to wed un now.’
‘Sod that,’ Em said. ‘I ain’t never getting married and certainly not to a saphead like Durwyn. Anyways, I ain’t old enough an’ he ain’t rich enough.’
‘You kept his old key, though.’

‘Tha’ll be on the fire tonight,’ Em promised her. ‘Keep us warm.’

They stopped; they’d felt the drumming of hoofbeats through their boots. Horsemen were cantering along the causeway behind them.
‘Get into they bloody reeds,’ hissed Aenfled. She pushed her barrow over the causeway’s edge and tumbled her children after it.
Horses were rare in the fenland, and those travelling at speed suggested their riders were up to no good. Maybe these were friendly, maybe not, but lately there’d been nasty rumours of villages sacked by demons, women raped – sometimes even murdered – and grain stores burned. Aenfled was taking no chances.
There was just time to squirm through the reeds to where the thick, bare fronds of a willow gave them some cover.
Her hand clasped firmly over the mouth of her younger daughter, not yet old enough to be silenced with a look, Aenfled prayed: Sweet Mary, let un go past, go past.
Go past, go past, urged Em, make un go past. Through the lattice of reeds above her head, she saw flicks of earth being thrown up as the leading horses went by. She bowed her head in gratitude. Thank ’ee, St Ethel, thank ’ee, I’ll never be wicked no more.
But one of the middle riders pulled up. ‘Swear as I saw something dive into that bloody ditch.’
‘Deer?’ One of the leaders stopped abruptly and turned his horse back. As he approached the wind picked up, lifting his robes and revealing the animal’s flanks, which were lathered white with sweat and dripping blood from a set of vicious-looking spurs.

Keeping still as still, Em smelled the stink of the men above her: sweat, dirt, horses, blood and a strange, pungent odour that was foreign to her.
‘Could ’a’ been.’
‘Flush the bastard out then. What are you waiting for?’ Spears began thudding into the ditch. One of the men
dismounted and started scrambling down, hallooing as he went.
Em knew they were done for. Then her mouth set itself into the thin, determined line that her sorely tried mother would have recognized and dreaded. No we ain’t. Not if I lead ’em away. She pushed her sister’s head more firmly into the ground and leaped for the bank. A willow twig twitched the cap from her head as she went, releasing the flame-red curls it hid beneath but, although she paused briefly, she didn’t stop for it. Now she was running.
Aenfled kept Gyltha clutched to her, her moans and prayers covered by the whoops of the men. She heard the one who’d come into the ditch climb back out of it and join the hunt. She heard hoofbeats start up again. She heard male laughter growing fainter as the riders chased their prey further and further into the marsh. She heard the far-away screams as they caught Em, and knew her daughter was fighting. She heard the horses ride off with her.
Birds of the marsh that had flown up in alarm settled back into their reed beds and resumed their silence. In the ditch Aenfled stopped praying.

Except for her daughter’s soul, she never prayed again.

~~~~~

Author Guest Post - Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn - The Piano Player's Son - Blog Tour

Today I am pleased to feature a guest post from Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn, author of The Piano Player's Son.

The Importance of Settings in Novels by Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

There's a tendency in modern fiction to neglect setting for fear of boring the reader. Writers in the past had no such worries. We've only got to think of Hardy's descriptions of Dorset, the wild moors of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights', and the London that Dickens evoked. But the argument that today's readers are not interested in descriptions of place and will either skip those bits – or worse abandon the book altogether – is enough to frighten writers off.

But I think this is a mistake. Characters need to be rooted in place, as 'real' people are. Whether we're by the sea, on a mountain peak, in a kitchen, in an operating theatre, in a hot place, a cold place, a prison, at an airport, in conflict with or at home in our setting, our moods will be different. Different things will happen to us. We will meet different people. We will be different people. Without a strong sense of place, it's hard for a writer to fully realise character, and to achieve suspense and excitement.

So, how have I used setting in my novel ‘The Piano Player’s Son’? There are four main places in the novel, all ones I know and love. I was brought up in north London, and I decided to make the family home in Highgate. I went back to the area and identified the house where they lived. Not sure what the people who really lived there felt when I started taking photos of their house!

Some years ago, I spent time in Penzance and Northumberland and think they are both wonderful places, so I decided I wanted to make each ‘home’ for two of my characters – the eldest son, Rick, lives in a beautiful house in Rothbury, and the youngest, George, runs an art school in Penzance. Again, I went back to each area,‘found’ the houses where they live and took photos. Obviously I had to make up the insides! At a book group I visited recently, I was delighted when several people said they ‘knew’ the house in Rothbury as well as if they’d been there.

However, perhaps my favourite setting in the novel is Ischia, an island in the Bay of Naples, Italy, known for its health-giving hot springs, but often overshadowed by its more famous neighbour Capri. I've spent several holidays there, and it didn't take me long to decide one of my characters in 'The Piano Player's Son' would live there.

The character is Grace, one of Henry's four grown-up children. At the beginning of the novel, Henry dies, and gradually secrets emerge which overturn the family's view of the past and their parents' relationship. Grace wasn't there when her father died - she hadn't made it back from Italy in time - and she struggles to cope with this, especially when she returns to Ischia, where she and her Italian husband run a ristorante.

The ristorante looks out over the sea towards Castello d'Aragonese, a dramatic and compelling place with a rich history which Grace is fascinated by. This is almost the view of the castle from the ristorante.

(proximacharter.com)

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The following extract from 'The Piano Player's Son' describes the morning after Grace's return from England where her father's funeral took place:

Chapter Ten

When Grace woke, the shutters were ajar and a sliver of light slanted across the room. She stretched, easing her limbs into the cool reaches of the bed. There was no sign of Franco.

She turned on her back and listened. The ristorante was gearing up for another day. The familiar sounds calmed her, like waves breaking on shingle. She slipped from the bed and crossed to the window. She pulled back one of the shutters. The sun was shining and the light glinting off the sea was sharp and clear. It was a shock after the leaden skies of England. She drew a cardigan over her flimsy nightdress and stepped out onto the balcony.

Her eyes sought Sant'Anna's rocks, sturdy tuffs rising steeply out of the sea. On summer mornings, while it was still quiet, she liked to scramble down the steep path to the beach and swim across to the rocks. Franco had attached a rope to one of them so that she could haul herself up. She'd found a spot, where the sea had washed the rock smooth. She could sit in it, almost like an armchair.

She lifted her gaze from the rocks to the castello, her favourite place on the whole island. Like something from a fairytale, it stood on its cone of volcanic lava, mysterious and compelling. Grace had lost count of the number of times she had crossed the bridge and climbed up to the remains of the castle cathedral, where in the sixteenth century the poet, Vittoria Colonna's wedding was celebrated. She always took her copy of Vittoria's poetry with her and read in the shadows of the high vaulted arches. To her it was the most romantic place in the world, but Franco scoffed at her obsession with that old ruin.

***

Thank you, Lindsay, for the opportunity to talk about ‘The Piano Player’s Son’, and in particular the settings in the novel. I’ve really enjoyed remembering all those lovely places, and it’s made me want to return to each of them as soon as possible!

www.lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk

Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

Website: www.lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk

Blog: http://lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk/blog/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindsayStanberryFlynn.Author

The Piano Player's Son on Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/The-Piano-Players-Lindsay-Stanberry-Flynn/dp/1907090932/

SilverWood Books: www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverwoodbooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SilverWoodBooks

Goodwill Tour: Paying It Forward - Keith Maginn - Guest Post & Excerpt

Today I am delighted to welcome author Keith Maginn back to the blog, talking about his second book, Goodwill Tour: Paying It Forward. You can also read an extract from the book below.

Guest post by author Keith Maginn

My name is Keith Maginn and I released my second book, Goodwill Tour: Paying It Forward in January of 2013. GWT is a travelogue about a journey that I went on with my friend in mid-July of 2011. Emily and I set off from Cincinnati, Ohio on a 3,000-mile road-trip through the southeastern United States. We gave our own money to hand-picked strangers that we met along the way, with the stipulation that they had to pay the money forward to someone else. Goodwill Tour recounts how Emily and I tried to spread kindness and make a difference in the lives of others while having a once-in-a-lifetime journey.

The idea for the trip actually started out as a joke. Emily and I met through my memoir, Turning This Thing Around. A friendship developed over time and we started half-seriously daydreaming about doing a tour to sell my books. The two of us brainstormed how we could combine having an adventure with doing something philanthropic. Emily had read Bill Clinton’s book Giving and was well aware of the “Pay-it-Forward” cause. Ultimately, she came up with the idea to go out on the road, meet deserving strangers and give them money that they had to give to someone else. Meanwhile, I would be taking notes along the way that I would turn into a book.

The whole trip came about quickly and we didn’t have time to plan much of anything. Emily and I only had a 15-day window for our trip, so the route had to be within driving distance of Cincinnati, our hometown. We knew the Southeastern U.S. route would put us in the Deep South in the middle of a very hot summer, but that course would allow us to visit more places that we had never been previously. Just a few days before we were going to leave, Emily and I decided to go to Memphis, Tennessee - New Orleans, Louisiana - Savannah, Georgia - Charleston, South Carolina - Asheville, North Carolina…and many towns in between.

Other than a loose idea of destinations, Emily and I decided we would just take a leap of faith and trust our instincts. We wanted to put ourselves into positions to meet deserving people. In some cases we were able to work alongside volunteers, at a soup kitchen for example, and other times meeting our donation recipients was more serendipitous. Believe it or not, giving money to strangers was harder than we expected!

The people that we chose ranged from a nun to a mother of three young children to a monk. As you can imagine, all were quite surprised when complete strangers handed them cash. What struck me the most about these people is that they kept thanking us for what we were doing, while they were the ones really making a difference—Emily and I were travelling around for a few weeks, while the people we met worked or volunteered to help others on a daily basis for little or no credit.

Stepping off of the trolley in our first stop (Memphis, Tennessee) was when it first hit me—we were actually going through with this crazy idea! Emily and I had the next several days to do whatever we wanted. No deadlines, no 9-5 job, just a goal to have fun and to touch some lives.

Giving away the first donation to a special young woman in Memphis made us realize that things might work out after all. She was genuinely grateful and all three of us were in tears. (The first interaction also gave us a false sense of how smooth the trip and the giving would be, as things were not that easy the rest of the trip!)

Emily and I easily could have backed out of this trip, could have put it off for “another time”…a time that likely would never come. I am glad that we took a chance. No one can ever take that away from us. In the words of John F. Kennedy: “There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

You only live once. You don’t want to have regrets the rest of your life because you didn’t go after something you were passionate about. When my aunt found out that Emily and I were going on this journey, she said “One of my regrets is that I didn’t do once-in-a-lifetime things when I was young and unencumbered.” You will never know unless you step out of your comfort zone and follow what your heart is telling you to do. If you go forward, you might be surprised how things just seem to work in your favor. I hope Goodwill Tour: Paying It Forward inspires others to take their dream trip and/or to make a difference in the lives of others.

As an unknown, independent author, I am grateful to Lindsay at The Little Reader Library for giving me a platform to help spread my message. I also appreciate people like you for reading my story. I would love to connect with you on Twitter (@Keith_Maginn) or at my website (keithmaginn.com). Thank you and all the best!!

Excerpt

First donation: Memphis, Tennessee

In the morning, Emily and I decided to heed several friends’ suggestions and took the $4 monorail to Mud Island River Park. On the ride over, a female staff member dressed in khakis and a bright red Mud Island polo shirt greeted us. Being the lone passengers at the time, Emily asked the attendant, “Are you our entertainment?” Without hesitation, our host did an impromptu dance for us.

We could tell immediately that Jena (pronounced “Gina”) was an affable young lady who didn’t waste time complaining about the 100-degree temperature. When questioned about her favorite part of the job, she said it was being able to meet people from all over the world, from Amsterdam to Hawaii. Her favorite thing about Memphis: “Beale Street. There are so many places to go and eat, to hear live music. It’s always live.”

Jena could have been in a foul mood, outside in excessive heat. Instead, she had a big smile for everyone, asked questions, and seemed genuinely interested in our responses.

Since two cars shuttled visitors to and from Mud Island, we told our new friend that we would catch her train on the way back (which she told us was the car that Tom Cruise had ridden during the chase scene in the movie The Firm). As we got off the rail, I hinted strongly to Emily that we’d just met our first donation recipient.

While we put the idea on the back burner, Em and I explored Mud Island. Had the temperature been 25 degrees cooler, the park would have been the ideal setting for a picnic. We saw several young adults singing and dancing, oblivious to the hotness. The sun shimmered on the Mississippi and a light breeze lifted from the water from time to time. It was a beautiful day in Memphis, with blue skies and few clouds.

When we stood by to return from the island, a staff member told us Jena was on her break for the next 45 minutes. We decided to wait. After all, we’d promised we would see her again.

So we plotted.

Giving money to a stranger was foreign to us. We didn’t know how to give cash to a person we had just met. Even Emily, who seems comfortable in any situation, was nervous.

I suggested we pose the idea to Jena as if we were conducting a survey, asking strangers what they would do if someone gave them $100. (Unlike the donations to come, this was not necessarily a pay-it-forward gift: One of Emily’s co-workers had donated $100 to be used specifically in Memphis, as her family had lived there years ago when her husband was in the military.)

Soon enough, we saw Jena again. She remembered our names, which impressed us, as she probably saw hundreds of people every day. Jena looked suspicious: “They told me y’all wouldn’t get back on without me.”

Emily: “Well, we told you that we’d see you on our way back.”

I dipped my toe in: “Yeah, we’ve been walking around asking people this question, ‘What would you do if someone just walked up and gave you $100?’”

Without hesitation, Jena replied: “The staff is not permitted to accept tips.”

I tried again: “No, no, no. I’m just saying hypothetically. What if someone gave you $100?”

Without a second’s pause, Jena answered: “I have four kids. I’d give them each $25.”

Emily and I changed the subject and hid our smiles.

Worried Jena might be prohibited from taking our gift, we decided we should talk to her boss. After getting our picture taken with Jena, we told her goodbye, acting like we’d never see her again. When I got to the ticket booth, I asked to see the manager about one of the staff members.

The woman behind the desk shot back, “What did he or she do wrong?”

I clarified that it was quite the opposite. We wanted to reward Jena for her great attitude.

As the woman paged the manager, she said: “Well, you picked a good one. Jena sometimes goes across the street and shares her lunch with the homeless people.”

Two men came out of a back office and asked me how they could help. I explained that Emily and I were doing a “goodwill tour” of several cities and wanted to give money to deserving people. I told them how great of a job Jena was doing and that we were not giving her a tip, but a surprise gift as part of our project. They agreed that Jena was a great choice and asked only that we give her the money offsite.

One of the men radioed for Jena to come down to the office. A few seconds later, she saw Emily and me with her boss and gave us a “what-the-hell-is-going-on?” half-grin. Her boss asked Jena to go across the street with us and get him a newspaper. Hesitantly, she walked with us. I can’t imagine what was going on in her head at this point.

I broke the ice: “Remember that $100 we talked about on the monorail, Jena? Well, we want to give it to you. We are traveling around, meeting special people and giving money away. After meeting you and seeing what a great job you do, we want you to be our first selection.”

Jena was shocked, and tears welled up in her eyes, which caused a chain-reaction in Emily and me. She couldn’t believe strangers as of a few hours ago were giving her money. Jena said she couldn’t wait to share the joy with her kids. She informed us that she is 26 and the mother of three boys and a girl, ages one, four, five and eight.

Giving Jena the money felt great (though the credit goes to Emily’s co-worker Nancy for her generous contribution). It was an emotional experience, and we seesawed between nervous laughter and happy tears. Jena sighed, “Today, I am truly blessed.”

After more hugs and pictures, Emily and I had to move on. Relieved that our opening donation went better than we could have imagined, we were able to relax. Maybe this crazy plan would work out after all.