Guest Post: Safety in a Not So Normal World by Juli D Revezzo

A big welcome to my guest for the week, Juli D Revezzo. Here Juli questions why we are so willing to trust our cyber friends whilst telling our children never to talk to strangers.

When Amelia asked me to write about an issue for her blog, in all honesty, I drew a blank. I don’t tend to write issue related stories; I write my stories to give a reader a good time, or as in the case of The Artist’s Inheritance, a good scare. There, I wrote about a normal woman, hoping to live a normal life after the death of her brother-in-law. Instead, she finds out her husband isn’t having such a normal time of it.

I guess the biggest issue in the story is that of knowing whom to trust. The main character meets a man who says he can take his career to bigger and better heights—things he’s undoubtedly heard before. But there’s something about this offer that he trusts.

On the other hand, the artist’s wife, Caitlin, has other impressions of the dude. She doesn’t like this guy at all. She senses something very odd, and indeed, deadly about him.

Have you ever had such impressions of people? Have you trusted strangers? No; not much you say?

Are you on the Internet?

Do you have cyber friends?

Ah, now that’s a different story, isn’t it?

So, here we are, intelligent beings we think, and we teach our children “don’t talk to strangers” yet every day we “talk” to people online who, we give our trust to in good faith that the man or woman on the other end is in fact, a nice person. How do you know, really?

Parents, you can do your part to teach them how to remain safe. If you have open communication with your child (and we hope you do!) teach them that if someone on Facebook makes a friend request and your child don’t know how he or she knows them, they can ignore the friend request. If someone makes your child uncomfortable, tell them to unfriend and tell you what happened!

Perhaps putting the computer in a communal spot where you can keep an eye on them when they use it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Teach your children not to take everyone at (excuse the pun) face value. Or anyone, for that matter. If your instincts say not to trust this person, don’t “friend” them. Parents, don’t fight with your child about it; just tell them you’re concerned and that a modicum of skepticism can go a long way. The world isn’t all hearts and flowers, peace and love, no matter how much we wish it to be. Better safe than sorry.

After all, even my poor character Trevor learns not even help from the Otherworld can be trusted, doesn’t he? Imps, according to myth, can exist anywhere, why not in cyberspace? Unfortunately, I bet they’re not as easy to vanquish as Trevor and Caitlin’s imp turns out to be.

If you’d like to learn a little more about Internet safety, see these sites:
FBI – Kids Safety
Net Nanny
Kids News Room

If you’d like to know more about my novel, here’s a taste:

The Artist’s Inheritance

Trouble only a witch can solve…
Settling into their new home in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Caitlin finds strange changes coming over her husband Trevor. He seems obsessed with a beautiful chair he’s carving.

When the nightmares deepen and ghosts begin lurking—she knows something’s not right, and not just her newfound precognitive abilities. It’s the damned chair, she’s sure. Could it be just what it seems: a mundane piece of furniture? If so, why is it attracting dark forces—the forces she suspects drove Trevor’s siblings to insanity and suicide?

Before the same happens to Trevor, Caitlin must convince him to sell his art. But armed with only a handful of allies, and little experience of the supernatural, she must proceed with caution against the hellish forces besieging her family. If she succeeds, she will break the ancestral curse. If she fails, she may lose forever the one thing she cares about most: her beloved Trevor.

An Excerpt from The Artist’s Inheritance

This is a little about Gordon…He’s Caitlin’s (the main character) deceased brother-in-law. He was…a little odd. Read on and you’ll see…

The thought of an afternoon cleaning Gordon’s work shed did nothing for her spirits. But the project needed doing, and just as Trevor couldn’t look at Gordon’s photographs for long, he still couldn’t bring himself to enter the small structure. He said there was something spooky about the room.

Caitlin ducked her head in, stepped inside. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to her. So, she braided her hair out of her face and set to work.

She cataloged all the bent and crumpled pictures—and there were many. Flipping through them, she noted several shots of Fort Pickens, of the garden, the house, and a few sites around town and lastly, several pictures of Amelia. All these proofs seemed just smaller versions of the photographs up in their attic. She made a pile of them for sending to her sister-in-law.

Next, she turned to the leftover silver nitrate and carried the canisters of it and other chemicals to safe chemical dumps. Then she threw away every empty film roll she could find. She called Amelia and offered to send her the camera equipment, but Amelia refused.

“Do what you want with it, Cait. He didn’t trust me with it, so I don’t see any point in keeping it.”

Gordon didn’t trust her? How peculiar.

What’s up with Amelia and why’s she so bitter towards her late husband? You’ll have to read to find out!

About Juli D. Revezzo
Juli D. Revezzo has long been in love with writing, a love built by devouring everything from the Arthurian legends, to the works of Michael Moorcock, and the classics and has a soft spot for classic the “Goths” of the 19th century. Her short fiction has been published in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes, The Scribing Ibis, Eternal Haunted Summer, Twisted Dreams Magazine and Luna Station Quarterly. She also has an article and book review or two out there. But her heart lies in the storytelling. She is a member of the Independent Author Network. The Artist’s Inheritance is her first novel.

The Artist’s Inheritance is available at:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords
And in paperback at Createspace

I hope you enjoy their story. Thanks, Amelia for inviting me here today!

For more information on Juli and her books, see her website

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