Jim Lawrence – författare

Uptown Chicago in November, 1963 is a brutal place for the James Allen McCrees of Letcher County, Kentucky. After migrating from the depleted coal fields in search of a better life, father, mother and three children have struggled for two years to make ends meet in a run-down area known derisively as Hillbilly Land, finding solace only in the songs of their Southern mountain heritage.

Now, however, as James Allens illness worsens, his wife, Mavis June, must take more and more on herself if the family is to survive.

These are the desperate circumstances in which 14-year-old Annie Mae McCree is forced to grow up and to complete her journey from girlhood to womanhood.

When her mother passes on to her a folk belief in a guardian angel, Annie dares to hope that she and her family will be under his protection. However, one shattering personal tragedy after another fractures that innocent faith and forces her on a painful spiritual quest of her own.

Along the way, she learns much about who she is, experiences the power of first love, and finds out a thing or two about angels -- most importantly, that they often arent who or what you expect them to be, and most of the time, they rarely look like angels at all.

Wildfires ravage much of Central Florida. They have burned out of control for weeks and nothing seems to be able to stop them.

In the tiny Spiritualist Village of Cassadaga, 71-year-old retiree and widower Everett Chambers, a certified medium and spiritual counselor, struggles with depression and loneliness following the death of his beloved wife, Eleanor.

One evening at an "All Message Service" Ev (as he likes to be called) receives a strange and ambiguous communication from the other world. It appears that a young woman who has recently "passed over" is desperately trying to contact her sister named Katherine. For some mysterious reason Ev has been chosen as the conduit.

At that moment 26-year-old Orlando television traffic reporter Katie OHara is experiencing frustrations with her job and is restless to find something more in life. One morning as she appears on a local news broadcast Ev and his friend and neighbor Jonelle Smathers see her traffic report. Ev is immediately convinced beyond doubt that she is the "Katherine" he is to contact.

His first attempts to communicate this "message" to Katie fail miserably. She, her co-worker Chantelle Sonnier, and Katies fianc Dan Abel, a local architect, all believe Ev to be a crackpot, "one of those Spiritualist kooks," and dismiss him outright.

Katie and Dan escape for a weekend of skiing on the Indian River near the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse. She continues to think about the odd message from the persistent old man in Cassadaga. One night at dinner she and Dan meet Rudy Vasquez, a college friend of Dans who is a detective with the Daytona Beach police department. Later we learn of a serial murderer of young women that has been dubbed by the press as "The Resort Killer."

In The Surrounding all these disparate elements eventually converge. Even as the wildfires continue to burn Ev and Katies fates become inexorably intertwined in a suspenseful and dangerous quest. They are forced to work together if they are to solve the haunting mystery of a dead girls true identity and to bring her murderer to justice.

In the process both the young woman and the old man have their own intimate and powerful encounters with the world of spirits. Each finds an emotional reconnection with loved ones who have "passed over" and each ultimately is forced to come face to face with the greatest mystery of them all.