Featured Author: M.C.V. Egan

About the book

"M.C.V. Egan twists truth and fiction until you question your perceptions...it is a story of real love, triumph and search for self." - Beckah Boyd @ The Truthful Tarot

5 out of 5 stars:  "An unusual yet much recommended read." - Midwest Book Review 

On August 15th, 1939, an English passenger plane from British Airways Ltd. crashed in Danish waters between the towns of Nykøbing Falster and Vordingborg. There were five casualties reported and one survivor. Just two weeks before, Hitler invaded Poland.

With the world at the brink of war, the manner in which this incident was investigated left much open to doubt. The jurisdiction battle between the two towns and the newly formed Danish secret police created an atmosphere of intrigue and distrust.

The Bridge of Deaths is a love story and a mystery. Fictional characters travel through the world of past life regressions and information acquired from psychics as well as archives and historical sources to solve "one of those mysteries that never get solved." Based on true events and real people, The Bridge of Deaths is the culmination of 18 years of sifting through conventional and unconventional sources in Denmark, England, Mexico and the United States. The story finds a way to help the reader feel that s/he is also sifting through data and forming their own conclusions.

Cross The Bridge of Deaths into 1939, and dive into cold Danish waters to uncover the secrets of the G-AESY.

Get the revised 75th anniversary of The Bridge of Deaths on Amazon in ebook and paperback.

Guest Post

by M.C.V. Egan

Pondering on Peace and the Past

Pondering on peace after last year’s PEACE BLITZ in which around fifty bloggers from around the world wrote and posted their thoughts on peace, I came away with the distinct impression that peace can be a very personal and unique feeling or idea. The posts were as varied as can be and all of them were fascinating to me.

As I see it, peace can be described in a wide variety or ways: harmony, calm, freedom from disturbance, quiet, stillness and tranquility, to name just a few.  Any of those words convey pleasant and very different images to us all.

However, the words that describe war all seem to convey if not the same image then surely the same feeling: conflict, combat, confrontation, hostilities.

Pondering on that made me worry and wonder if in great part peace is so elusive in some way because it is visualized in such a wide variety of ways. There are, after all, different types of pacifists: absolute, conditional, selective, and active.

I would love to imagine that I could someday be the absolute pacifist my character Maggie is in The Bridge of Deaths, opposed to war all war and violent conflict. The fact of the matter is that I was born in 1959 and war has been excused in one form or another for as long as I had any awareness of the term. As a young kid watching the Vietnam conflict on T.V. as if it was ‘just the news’ I believe synthesized an acceptance of the inevitability or even excuse of certain conflicts. 

An absolute pacifist believes that it is never right to take part in war, even in self-defense. The value of human life is such that nothing can justify killing a person deliberately. As a parent, in self-defense or to protect my child, I cannot imagine I would not resort to any means—even violence.

I guess this might make me a conditional pacifist, which is embarrassing if not sort of convenient: A belief that one is against war and violence in principle, but that there may be circumstances when war will be less bad than the alternative.

I don’t think I am a selective pacifist and judge war by a matter of degree. I oppose violence and harm from small and large weapons. Apparently the selective pacifists only oppose wars involving weapons of mass destruction—nuclear or chemical and biological weapons—and it is unclear to me if this is because they see it as morally repugnant or as illogical because it is likely to have side effects far worse than whatever it could fix.

In a small way I am an active pacifist, but to really wear that label I feel the need to commit far more to the cause. Although some active pacifists have been known during war to take part in activities that seek to reduce the harm of war—such as driving ambulances or cooking for troops—some will refuse any involvement at all. I often heard of that growing up with stories of people who fled to Canada or Sweden to avoid the draft, and with great courage as a matter of principle and not one of fear.

But of course there are some “closet pacifists” afraid to act according to any beliefs or to refuse to fight. History has recorded many who have bravely chosen punishments or made their lives difficult rather than support wars or if drafted participate.

Nowadays, most democratic countries accept that people have the right of conscientious objection to military service, in some countries alternative forms of public service are available for objectors, but as we watch so much turmoil in the world today, I wonder how loud and powerful voices of peace would be if countries felt obliged to instill obligatory conscriptions.

The U.N. International Peace Day was first celebrated on September 21st 1982. At the time I was living in Sweden and working with small children. We taught them about peace and made white paper doves. At the same time the Catholic priest in my church was actively refusing to comply with the compulsory military service. He did so calling himself a pacifist and not a priest—he eventually left the priesthood but I can only imagine he has never left his pacifist views.

So I guess digging deep into my mind’s eye when I tailored the character Maggie as an absolute pacifist I did so with that man in mind. The only absolute pacifist I have ever met. 

About the author

M.C.V. Egan is the pen name chosen by Maria Catalina Vergara Egan. Catalina was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1959, the sixth of eight children, in a traditional Catholic family.

From a very young age, she became obsessed with the story of her maternal grandfather, Cesar Agustin Castillo--mostly the story of how he died.

She spent her childhood in Mexico. When her father became an employee of The World Bank in Washington D.C. in the early 1970s, she moved with her entire family to the United States. Catalina was already fluent in English, as she had spent one school year in the town of Pineville, Louisiana with her grandparents. There she won the English award, despite being the only one who had English as a second language in her class.

In the D.C. suburbs she attended various private Catholic schools and graduated from Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland in 1977. She attended Montgomery Community College, where she changed majors every semester. She also studied in Lyons, France, at the Catholic University for two years. In 1981, due to an impulsive young marriage to a Viking (the Swedish kind, not the football player kind), Catalina moved to Sweden where she resided for five years and taught at a language school for Swedish, Danish, and Finnish businesspeople. She then returned to the USA, where she has lived ever since. She is fluent in Spanish, English, French and Swedish.

Maria Catalina Vergara Egan is married and has one son who, together with their five-pound Chihuahua, makes her feel like a full-time mother. Although she would not call herself an astrologer she has taken many classes and taught a few beginner classes in the subject.

She celebrated her 52nd birthday on July 2nd, 2011, and gave herself self-publishing The Bridge of Deaths as a gift.

Find M.C.V. Egan and The Bridge of Deaths on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and online.

PEACE POST by M.C.V. Egan

Have you ever been influenced by a character you created?

As a writer I can be a magician and with my magic wand; my pen, I can create or destroy on whim. I can create places, events and characters. A few years ago I created a character Maggie; I spent time with Maggie in my mind’s eye. Originally I wanted Maggie to be very Zen young woman, a seeker of inner peace. As the storyline developed and the image of Maggie grew so large that my mind’s eye in some ways did not feel big enough.

By tapping into memories of the great invisible friends I had as a child; one should note here that as a child I was fully aware that I created my invisible friends and it was simple to tap into that child-like creativity.

I started to play with my invisible friend, this time instead of making mud pies or having adventures with my dolls, I played like a grown up: I cooked with Maggie, I went for long walks with her and talked to her when I was alone in my car; one must note here that thanks to blue tooth no-one thought I was insane.

As Maggie’s personality grew, the inner peace angle was not enough and Maggie became a great pacifist, one willing to demonstrate to get her point across. A pacifist who believed and led her life with the principle that one of the greatest keys to peace is knowledge.

There is no magic moment when I realized how much Maggie influenced me. I always research when I want to include anything in a story, so I did start reading blogs and newsletters posted by peace groups. At some point I took a good long look at myself and wondered what defined me. What defined me not simply in my immediate surroundings and as a parent, a wife, an American by choice.

As a citizen of the world I am absolutely defined by the desire for PEACE. I was never a war monger per se, I did however feel that some wars were ‘understandable’ or justified. Having experienced Maggie I have come to feel that violence begets nothing but violence and that as unlikely as peace may seem for the world as a whole, every journey, whether made by an individual or by a large group, every journey does begin with a first something, a first step, word or action, so why not the journey towards Peace?

Tomorrow is September 21st, 2013. It is the 33 celebration for the UN’s International Day of Peace. There are movements worldwide, for prayer and meditation, peaceful statement for peace. I plan to attend the one in Miami. A link to the International Day of Peace Facebook page, where you can request if there is a Peace movement near you, is here.

Also visit my Blogs tomorrow where I will be hosting an International Peace Blog Hop.

MCV Egan's blogs:
Bridge of Deaths | 4covert2overt | Is History the Agreed Upon Lie

About the author:

M.C.V. Egan is the pen name chosen by Maria Catalina Egan the author of The Bridge of Deaths. She was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1959 and from an early age became obsessed with the story of her maternal grandfather, Cesar Agustin Castillo, principally the story of how he died.

Catalina has lived in several countries and is fluent in Spanish, English, French and Swedish.

Maria Catalina Egan is married and has one son. Although she would not call herself an Astrologer, she has taken many classes and taught a few beginner classes in Astrology. This is one of her many past times when she is not writing or researching.

Peace is her ultimate passion.

Connect with the author:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon paperback | Kindle | Hard cover

M.C.V. Egan Answers Eight With Amy

Today, A Blue Million Books is host to M.C.V. Egan, the author of The Bridge of Deaths. I’m anxious to talk to her about her book, which currently has sixty-five reviews and one hundred fifty-four likes on Amazon. How does she do that? We’ll talk, but first, meet M.C.V. Egan:

M.C.V. Egan is the pen name chosen by Maria Catalina Egan, the author of The Bridge of Deaths. She was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1959, and from an early age became obsessed with the story of her maternal grandfather, Cesar Agustin Castillo, principally the story of how he died.

Catalina has lived in several countries and is fluent in Spanish, English, French and Swedish.

Maria Catalina Egan is married and has one son.  Although she would not call herself an Astrologer, she has taken many classes and taught a few beginner classes in Astrology. This is one of her many past times when she is not writing or researching.

Peace is her ultimate passion.

And a few words about her book:

With the Second World War a mere two weeks away, the crash of an airplane in Danish waters near a bridge called Storstromsbroen did not get the attention it would have had today or in times of peace. While Bill is looking for psychological answers to his recurring nightmares, he meets Maggie who is very familiar with the bridge in his dreams. She urges him to look for these answers through past life regression therapy. They join forces with Catalina whose grandfather also died in the same accident that haunts Bill's dreams.

Hello, Catalina, and welcome to A Blue Million Books.

Hi, Amy. I am so honored and glad that you invited me to A Blue Million Books. 

Happy to have you here. The title of your book is The Bridge Of Deaths. How did you come up with that title?

It is almost as if the title chose itself.  When I was researching the 1939 plane crash that the book documents, the bridge Storstomsbroen was an inevitable presence, as the plane crashed very close to that bridge and went in the water in between two police jurisdictions.

I was able to visit the area several times, and I became aware of two things: That after the plane crash of the G-AESY in the summer of 1939, as the Second World War unfolded, the bridge became a marker for allied troops on their way to bomb Berlin, and the Germans mounted anti-aircraft guns to shoot down the allied planes. The bridge was surrounded by death on both sides.

I also found out that it had become a rather popular bridge to jump off for people who chose to commit suicide. It was inevitable to name it The Bridge Of Deaths.

Absolutely. How would you describe your book in a tweet? (140 characters or less.)

Cross The Bridge Of Deaths into 1939 uncover secrets a well-documented historical Journey with a fictional twist & a touch of the paranormal

You had to leave out a period to make the 140 characters exactly, but I'm impressed, and it still counts! I leave out punctuation a lot on Twitter so I can fit it all in. Excellent job! How did you create the plot for this book?

My original intention was a well-documented true story.  There were two problems with this. Inasmuch as the research was from traditional resources; archives, history books, newspaper microfilm, interviews with people related to those in the story, engineering reports, real autopsies. The research was also based on two very un-orthodox sources; documented and recorded past life regressions and psychometry; psychics holding two watches that came from the crash.

On the one hand, the subject of the past life regressions requested anonymity; something I promised to honor, and I had personally become too involved. I created three main fictional characters that helped the reader navigate through the historical data as well as experience the esoteric, if you will:

One character is named Catalina, and the only thing she and I have in common is that we are the granddaughter of the first body retrieved from the plane. I am a married mother and have a very full life. I have never been torn in my philosophical beliefs, I was raised a Catholic and slowly, naturally, and quite painlessly I found my truths. 

The second character is Bill, who represents the actual subject who underwent the four past-life regressions. 

And finally, my favorite character--Maggie--helps the story flow with a fun narrative.

Your book sounds fascinating. Do you outline or write by the seat of your pants?

I write with a combination of both methods. As I explained above, I have a full, wonderful life. I almost always carry a small tape-recorder; I have been known to record very long-winded sessions during a school carpool line that became full chapters. I sometimes just record a thought. I do create basic outlines and lists; I feel I have to know where I am heading, otherwise how do you foreshadow and help the reader feel like they are peeling layers in a story?  I do lean very much on lists and my outlines grow and change.

Do you have imaginary friends? When do they talk to you? Do they tell you what to write or do you poke them with a Q-tip?

Again I do both, especially with my work in progress. Which is a far more character-oriented vs. story-oriented book, as is TBOD. Just a few nights ago I was pondering on a scene from the book I am writing now, and there were things that did not feel coherent, and I started to doze off, and I realized that the way to make it work was to tweak a secondary character. I had a pen and note-pad by my bed, and I wrote a few notes. I went to sleep, and I woke up around 3:00 a.m. (thank God my husband is a sound sleeper,) and I added something that I am very excited about to that character idea.

When I checked my messages, I got an e-mail from a woman I had never heard from before, and her name was the name of the character I had chosen! I got chills.

Whoa! That gives me chills.

So I guess you could say they talk to me, I can tell you with Maggie I cooked and visited and felt a very real presence; and yes I miss her!  I do however have to ‘poke them with a Q-Tip’ if they are dormant, as of course there is no such a thing as writer’s block, and it is their entire fault! I am so lucky to be a writer I have fictional characters to blame my woes. ;)

I think that’s one of the perks of having imaginary friends—you can blame them! How do you develop your characters?

This is very pertinent to my WIP. I do not use the same technique every time, and I like to explore and play. I can perhaps choose to interview my character and ask anything from their age to their passions. If I am struggling, I will make it as mundane as a job interview.

I try to imagine them and ask them questions about happy, sad, exciting and boring things. I make sure they are reacting as who they are and not who I am; although to some extent, since I do not work with fantasy or aliens, I do believe a bit of me must go into the characters.

When you start a new book, do you know what the entire cast will be?

Not at all! I worked so hard with just two principal characters for TBOD, and in an author’s note I explain how Maggie came to be, and she solved so many issues. After that, I can guarantee that I will always be flexible and open-minded about adding and deleting characters from a story.

Which character did you most enjoy writing?

How I wish I could write about my work in progress! The characters there are a BLAST! This is an answer that has recently changed from other interviews, so please, if you find one that says Maggie, I was not lying--I answered what at the time I believed to be the truth.

I gave Catalina fears that I do not possess, and I also gave her certain attributes that are not mine. The truth is, it was such fun to give her doubts about psychics and contradictory feelings about her faith. Alone and lonely, I gave her the space for a HUGE obsession, which with me always had to be a part-time one. 

Well, Catalina, that’s eight questions, but I’m going to cheat a little and ask one more. I’d like to know how you find names for your characters.

I am fluent in four languages and familiar to varying degrees of communication in several others, so when I am struggling with a name, I do think of the adjectives that describe a character and try to find a name in any language that means just that. A quick example is Todd; it means fox, so if I had a male character that is sly like a fox, foxy handsome, any attributes to said animal, the name Todd would help me develop the character.

Catalina, thank you so much for talking about your work with us. 

Amy, I have to say this was one of the most interesting and fun interviews I have had.

Why thank you! Thank you so much! I hope you'll come back when your next book is published. 

Catalina is currently working on a novel with a co-author, Jolie DeMarco, called 4COVERT2OVERT IN 33 DAYS. She says it is very different from both of their previous works, but they hope people will find it entertaining as much as they may find it eye-opening. It has a paranormal and historical slant. Catalina says it’s very different working in tandem with someone else and very fun.

Find Catalina:

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Publisher:  AUTHORHOUSE

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