Black Swan Chronicles
New Fiction by P.J. Lynch
A psychologically taut suspense novel full of magical realism and intertwined narratives, Black Swan Chronicles follows the journey of Amelia Mitchell who falls under the spell of a legendary Renaissance tapestry. Amelia goes from a bookish good girl with a preternatural sense of smell to a killer living off the grid.
The Black Swan Tapestry disappeared from France at the end of World War II. Fifty-five years later in a rundown Vermont town, it reappears in the keeping of Helen Penaherra, a glamorous Ecuadorian immigrant just hired as the new director of the village museum.
In return for lucrative bonuses, she loans the museum her precious tapestry rumored to grant a powerful circle of protection and prosperity for both the Keeper and her community. Almost magically, the town and museum bloom. As a giveback Helen creates an annual Tapestry Fellowship that acts as a golden ticket for one gifted high school senior. Amelia is the lucky 20th Anniversary Fellow.
But a drunken ex-fellow, Tre McIntyre, crashes the traditional celebration dinner to warn Amelia that over-curious fellows wind up missing or dead.
As she navigates the fellowship Amelia digs under ethically questionable trade-offs to find the tapestry’s cursed origin and a select but bloody history of Black Swan acolytes and keepers. Repelled by Helen’s own past as a Keeper and increasingly seduced by the Black Swan, she is tempted by the idea of rescuing the missing fellows with Tre’s help.
If she can survive a showdown with Helen over the swan’s magic.
Black Swan Chronicles is part of a trilogy about the race to possess magical items of power in a disrupted world featuring speculative narratives both historical and near contemporary. PJ is currently working on the second book, Other Frequencies, where Amelia must evade both supernatural and human enemies who are hunting the Swan tapestry when she uncovers a tuner of other frequencies created by an inventor who was inspired by the Black Swan in World War One.
