The Crystal Ball - kindle ebook by Joyce Mason


The morning starts with a gentle wake-up call from a most unusual clock. It’s a New Year’s Eve that quickly turns into a fast-paced day you’ll never forget. The scene: A San Francisco Victorian with furnishings and gismos that mix antiques with robotics, the past and the future. If you think that’s a strange combination, wait till you meet the odd couple who lives there.

Michele “Micki” Michaels is 50 but looks 30. Curt Stern’s 50ish and looks it. She’s an astrologer and non-profit longevity association president. He’s a retired domestic spy, a fried former FBI agent.  He just wants to put up his feet up and give intrigue a rest.

Fat chance! No sooner does the alarm go off than a phone call from a mysterious and threatening extortionist turns Micki and Curt’s world upside down on one of the most important days of her life. The bad guy wants her to cough up the secret of longevity—or else. He’s all but proven he’s capable of harming someone she loves.

Besides New Year’s Eve, it’s the 25th anniversary of the Immortalists on Planet Earth Association, Micki’s groovy group of longevity enthusiasts and metaphysical do-gooders just want to live long, well--and to make the world a better place. They’re having a combo silver anniversary and New Year’s Eve affair, a costume gala with the theme, “come as you’ll be in the future.” The get-ups are outlandish, but not nearly as outrageous as Micki and Curt’s ad lib crime busting techniques … with a little help from Curt’s informal fraternity of ex-cops and spies. The stranger is threatening to crash the Ball. How will they know who he is with everyone disguised in costumes? How will they protect the unsuspecting crowd from his escalating threats?

The one thing Micki and Curt have in common is that they’ve been hot for each other since they were teenagers. Their combined magnetism nearly sucks jewelry off passers-by. They have to figure out on the fly from opposite perspectives how to put their chemistry to work for them. They have to save the Ball, the people they care about—and to save this one amazing day that changes everything for both of them.

The Crystal Ball is more than a humorous mystery. It’s a love story about two people struggling to resolve their differences and the creativity, humor and heart it takes us to do it. It’s a metaphysical love-in and a visionary glimpse of how high-minded people can band together to make a difference. It’s also down-to-earth and practical, these things all rolled into one page-turner.

In the end, it all comes down to love--and the love of life.