Spotlight and Interview with M.C.V. Egan

Spotlight:

About The Bridge of Deaths

"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 ofNykøbing 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.

About the author

M.C.V. Egan is the pen name chosen by Maria Catalina VergaraEgan. 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.

The 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.

Interview:

Is The Bridge of Deaths really a culmination of 2 decades of research? Why are you so interested in WW II History?

Yes, at least a good eighteen years of research. I was so clueless when I began to dig around the plane crash that killed my grandfather in 1939 so I guess someone with a better historical background would have never taken that long.

I am embarrassed to admit that I had to look up almost every incident I came across even something as common knowledge as The Munich Pact.

I know I had to have studied it at some point in school or university but to be honest I know I did fail history at least once.

Why are you releasing a revised edition and what is different from the original?

When I released the original in 2011 I was so afraid that people would dispute some of the files I used that I carefully and meticulously added footnotes for EVERYTHING, over 200.

To my surprise some people loved that, mainly lawyers! But it felt like awkward reading for some, and it was understandable,especially in the e-book format as the footnotes can be distracting. In the revised version I added the necessary footnotes to the narrative and got rid of all of them. I also summarized two parts that were loaded with information and detail and added them to the back as appendices for the more curious readers.

The book is formatted in a very user friendly way so the reader can go from one chapter to the other or to the appendices.

To give it a more up to date touch, as the book takes place in 2010. I added an epilogue in the summer of 2012.

The new cover has the image of my grandfather’s watch which is part of the story.

Over 200 footnotes? So this is not a novel, or is it?

Oh yes it is a novel. It has fictional elements so it must be categorized as such. The characters that sift through the data are fictional even if two are strongly based on real people; one of whom is me!

I also used very “unorthodox” ways to research such as psychics and past life regressions; not my own, and that to many is fiction.

How did you use psychics and past lives?

I have two watches, one that was my grandfather’s and another sent to us by British Airways LTD. The use of psychometry is not that scoffed at, I mean the FBI has used it, so I thought, Why not? It was just amazing, with no photos or previous knowledge a psychic started describing the bridge and another the lettering on the wing of the plane.

The most shocking was that all described to a T another of the men who died for the second watch, no spoiler! I won’t tell you which but it was uncanny. There were five people gifted in psychometry who did this for me.

The individual who had the long past life regressions, five in total has asked to remain anonymous, but I was allowed to sit in and take notes, they were also recorded but the quality is horrible which is a shame because just like Maggie in the book, I did ‘go under’ and slept through one of them!

 What does your writing process look like?

It really varies, I try to be organized but at times it is just messy! I do use a tape-recorded and then type from that, I go for long walks toying with a concept and might record something. This is my current writing process, with The Bridge of Deaths I was (had to be) more organized as so much of it is real data.

Do you have any strange writing habits?

Other than the use of a tape recorder? I love composition notebooks and longhand is that strange?

I have been know to write full paragraphs on a napkin here and there! And if I am driving and do not have a recorder I call home and leave myself a message, wow, I just realized I am probably a little strange!

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning? Do you have any name choosing resources you recommend?

I do! I love the meaning of names and Maggie was going to be OLIVIA because she is a pacifist but it just did not feel right.Too obvious too cliché right? And then I found out the real person the character was supposed to be in a past life was a MARGARET, and I could not believe it.

I like that part in the book, when that fact floors Maggie.

The best thing is find a used book store and buy a baby namebook, those have the origins, meanings and variations in names. It is also a better tool than on-line, but do compare with online resources such as http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/ or http://www.babynames.com/

Do you have a certain time that you set aside to write?

Right now I am trying to do it while my son is at school, but I am a great night write and that is not good as I need to function during the day. At 55 I need a good solid seven hours of sleep to feel whole during the day, when I was younger it was a different matter.

What advice do you have to give to aspiring authors?

Don’t be afraid, write and be flexible, willing to let a story flow and change, keep the original it might come in handy and remember to use YOUR original voice, do not try to copy anyone, that always comes through and kills the authenticity.