ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Miller Wright &amp; Associates, Inc.</title> <link href="../../millerwright.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> </head> <body> <div id="navcontainer"> <div id="logo"><a href="/index.html"><img src="../../images/MWlogo.gif" border="0"></a></div> <div id="logotext"><a href="/index.html"><img src="../../images/LogoTEXT.gif" border="0"></a></div> <div id="navbar"> <ul> <li id="home"><a href="/index.html" class="navigation">HOME</a></li> <li id="news"><a href="/news.html" class="navigation">NEWS</a></li> <li id="aboutus"><a href="/aboutus.html" title="About Us" class="navigation">ABOUT US</a></li> <li id="clients"><a href="/clients.html" title="Clients" class="navigation">CLIENTS</a></li> <li id="contact"><a href="/contact.html" title="Contact" class="navigation">CONTACT</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div id="main"> <div id="rightcontent"> <div id="content"> <p> <p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br> Press Contact: <a href="mailto:miller@millerwright.com" class="link">Miller Wright</a> / <a href="mailto:danfortune@millerwright.com" class="link">Dan Fortune</a> at (212) 977-7800</p> <p> <h3>THE EMERALD BOOK COMPANY<br> PRESENTS </h3> <h1>FINDING EMMAUS</h1> <h3>THE NEW BOOK BY AUTHOR</h3> <h2>PAMELA S.K. GLASNER</h2> <h3>PART ONE OF THE LODESTARRE SERIES</h3> <h3>IN STORES NOW</h3> </p> <p>Fantasy and reality intertwine as an Empath, who s just discovered she s not insane, gets caught up in a real-life multi-billion dollar conspiracy and the one person who could possibly help is three hundred and fifty years away.</p> <p>Other than the very young and the very old, the most vulnerable people in our society are the mentally ill or those who are deemed to be. After all, with a documented history of mental illness, even in face of the most deplorable abuse, who s going to listen? And in our world, like it or not, if you have no voice, you have no power.</p> <p><strong><em>Finding Emmaus</em></strong> is a dark, fictional yet factually-based story experienced through the lives of two Empaths who, separated by three centuries, do not discover until adulthood that they are gifted and not mentally ill. They find a way to transcend time and death, meet each other, and then find themselves embroiled in a multi-billion dollar conspiracy between the US Food and Drug Administration and the pharmaceutical industry in which millions of Americans are being misdiagnosed and drugged for no other reason than the enormous income it generates.</p> <p><strong>FRANCIS (FRANK) NETTLETON</strong> is an Empath (someone who experiences the emotions of other people as though those emotions were their own) in 17th century Puritan America. The product of a society steeped in myths and misconceptions, he lives every moment of the first thirty-two years of his life in fear of next moment, believing himself to be insane. He is subjected to every toxic herb and potion, noxious infusion, bleeding and purging that his family s wealth can purchase in attempt after futile attempt to cure his mysterious ailment or exorcise his demons and he is, as a result, violently ill, literally and almost continuously, for years.</p> <p>Youth is a time for making terrible mistakes and life is for learning and Frank does both. His illness and bizarre behavior attracts the attention of the colonies most powerful and notorious witch hunter, setting in motion a chain of events a baseless accusation of witchcraft, a trial, a fire and a murder which brings his family to the brink of destruction. Blaming himself for all of it, he enters into a loveless but financially-advantageous marriage to save his family but it costs him his <strong>SARAH</strong>, the woman who is the other half of his soul.</p> <p>Finally, at thirty-two, after an elderly woman tells Frank what he really is, he embarks on an unparalleled journey to learn the true nature of Empathy and establish, once and for all, that, far from being evidence of lunacy or devilry, Empathy is an extraordinary, God-given gift. Frank spends the next forty-eight years creating <strong>THE LODESTARRE</strong>: a single, authoritative body of knowledge meant to dispel the misconceptions of Empathy and forever put an end to the relentless persecution and needless suffering of the world s Empaths.</p> <p>Frank has three goals in his life: to create The Lodestarre, to have it published, and to reunite with Sarah, the only woman he will ever love. To that end, he ll leave his wife and home behind and travel the length and breadth of Puritan colonial America in search of other Empaths, his life intertwining with fictional characters and historical figures alike, and throughout this time he will search endlessly for Sarah, but he will never see her again not while she s alive.</p> <p>Constrained by too much superstition and fear, The Lodestarre will never be published in Frank s lifetime. He dies  knowing that I have failed, that there are those who still suffer and there is not a thing I can do to ease their pain or persuade their caretakers that they are in no need of a  cure, they are in need of an education. And so, after his death, his daughter has The Lodestarre walled up in his house  in the hopes that some day, when the world has matured, perhaps become more tolerant, when people can open their hearts and their eyes, it will be discovered by the right person. </p> <p>Two and a half centuries pass.</p> <p><strong>KATHERINE SPENCER</strong>, 54, is also an Empath; she is also unaware and believes herself to be insane. She suffers all the horrors of mental hospitals and psychotropic drugs, which fail, of course, because she s not sick. Then, one day, in the spring of 2008, she is urged to consider the possibility that, far from being ill, she is more likely Empathic, but the only way to know for sure is to travel to Weaver's Bridge, where Frank lived 300 years ago, find Frank and find the legendary Lodestarre. She is told that Frank, himself, must become her teacher.</p> <p>After a lifetime of horrendous drugs and hopeless, torturous hospitalizations, the thought that there just might be a light at the end of this interminable, agonizing tunnel& :  There are those who will try to tell you that love is the greatest motivating force in the world, that love is the one thing that could compel even the most prudent or the most cynical of men or women to lengths they would never believe themselves capable of under any other circumstances. And they d be wrong. It isn t love that causes people to throw all caution to the wind, drives them to acts of desperation, or persuades them to believe, beyond all reason, in the utterly impossible it s hope. </p> <p>So she does go. And she does find it. And she does unveil it. And it unleashes a maelstrom which very nearly gets her killed, and opens an unexpected door to the worst possible kind of hell: manmade.</p> <p>Seventy to eighty percent of the time, psychotropic drugs do not work. This is a true statistic per the CDC. </p> <p>Once The Lodestarre is unveiled, the world learns that 15% of all humanity is Empathic. This creates a fictional premise for the monumental failure rate of these drugs: There are approximately 18 million Americans for whom psychotropic drugs are toxic but completely ineffective (that s true); there are approximately the same number of Empaths in the country (obviously fiction); Empaths are not ill, therefore not curable, and should therefore not be medicated.</p> <p>The leaders of the drug companies now fear that 70-80% of their annual $230 billion from the psychotropic market may be in jeopardy and they blame Katherine, so they send someone to frighten her off by physically assaulting her. As police chief Anthony Ford later tells her,  You re hitting them where it hurts: right in their bottom lines. </p> <p>Meanwhile, into Katherine s life comes <strong>SALLY CAVANAUGH</strong>, powerful (though novice) Empath with a secret infatuation which eventually transforms into a full-blown obsession. The same ability by which some Empaths can see, hear, feel, and speak with ghosts as if they are living beings, thereby permitting Frank to reunite with Sarah after her death and then Katherine with Frank 250 years later, also has its dark side: Dreamwalking. Dreamwalkers can enter and control peoples dreams. In other words, control the dreamer s mind, make the dreamer do anything they want, even drive the dreamer insane. Because of its potential for abuse, Katherine keeps The Lodestarre s revelation of Dreamwalking a secret, but Sally finds out about it and, through lies and deceit, insinuates herself into Katherine s life and the world of The Lodestarre just so she can learn the skill and use it to her own ends. It is Sally s actions which will ultimately jeopardize every good thing Katherine and Frank set out to accomplish.</p> <p>While Frank and Katherine are trying to convince the world that Empathy really does exist and that millions of people are being inappropriately medicated and hospitalized, that this population needs to be respected and heard and that their rights are being trampled by a nearly omnipotent corporate machine, Sally, whose moral compass is permanently stuck somewhere between justification, denial, and libido, does indeed invade the dreams of some well-chosen people, but does not manage to keep her secret a secret.</p> <p>As Katherine digs deeper into the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry, for her own edification as well as for the benefit of those for whom she now advocates and, simultaneously, as Sally perfects (and celebrates) her devastating Dreamwalking skills, Finding Emmaus dives headlong in the darkest aspects of human behavior. And as more and more of the previously-buried reports and fraudulently distorted clinical trial results are brought to light by Katherine and her closest associates, plans to permanently silence her are set in motion.</p> <p>As the story closes, all of Frank s desires have been met: The Lodestarre exists, he is reunited with Sarah and, though it would take three hundred years, The Lodestarre is indeed published. Katherine, too, has most of what she has dreamed of: the promise of a future without fear or drugs or mental illness and finally, a purpose in life. Even Sally has what she wants: the perceived love of the man whose mind she now controls.</p> <p>But here s the rub: the story is really not over. The pharmaceutical industry leaders and everybody else who profits off the backs of the inappropriately over-medicated will not go gentle into that good night. Frank and Katherine are about to have huge battle on their hands, and whether or not they will succeed is deliberately left as a question. And whether or not Sally is ultimately successful is also anybody s guess. So, though all the loose ends are neatly tied, and though the story could end here, it does not.</p> <p>The ending leaves the door open just wide enough, and is the perfect segue to, the next book in the series, which is in progress right now. Some will see The Lodestarre as a godsend, others as an emissary from Hell. Lives are being saved and destroyed and maybe in the end it will come down to nothingmore than a head count on both sides to determine who won.</p> <p>The book closes with Katherine wondering:  Maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe Emmaus (a safe haven) does not exist anywhere in the world. Maybe, until humans can evolve into something less destructive, Emmaus will always be just out of reach. I hope not, but then again, wasn t that what brought me to this place to begin with: that greatest of all motivating factors in the world? That one thing which will compel people to throw all caution to the wind and persuade them to believe, beyond all reason, in the utterly impossible: hope. </p> <h3>* * * * * * *</h3> <p><strong>Pamela S. K. Glasner</strong> is an author, most recently having completed book one of a historically accurate, dark historical fiction series based concurrently in the 17th and 21st centuries.</p> <p>Pamela was born in New York City in 1953. Just prior to her eighteenth birthday, her family relocated to Connecticut, where she obtained her bachelor s degree in English and secondary education from Eastern Connecticut State University.</p> <p>Until recently she was a Real Estate Developer, acquiring blighted and/or abandoned antique urban apartment buildings, restoring them to their original beauty and then providing safe and decent housing for men coming out of prisons and shelters. </p> <p>In 2007 she was honored with the coveted "Historic Preservation Award" for her exceptional work on a 100+ year-old building which is on the National Registry of Historic Places. Shortly thereafter, Pamela made the decision to divest herself of her real estate holdings in order to pursue her first love - writing - on a full-time basis.</p> <p>A former English teacher, Pamela is also a Registered Reader at both the Royal Society of London and the British Library, as well as a member of the Connecticut Historical Society and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. She has enjoyed teaching and addressing groups on a variety of topics, lecturing regularly on subjects relating to the real estate industry and, most recently, her new historical fiction novel, <strong><em>Finding Emmaus</em></strong>.</p> <p>In addition to writing, Pamela loves losing herself in research, fine red wine, public speaking, and London, England . . . though not necessarily in that order.</p> <p>Now residing in rural Connecticut, Pamela is at work on her second novel, book two of The Lodestarre series.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div id="rail"> <iframe src="../clientlist.html" frameborder="no" width="150" height="800" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe> </div> </div> <div id="leftcontent"> <div id="image"><img src="findingemmaus.jpg" alt="Somethin' Like Love" class="floatLeft"></div> <p><a href="http://lodestarre.com/" target="_blank" class="link">www.lodestarre.com</a></p> </p> </div> </div> <div id="footer" class="footer"><img src="../../images/footerTEXT.gif"></div> </body> </html>