Drowning in Goodwater

Best friends, Leo and Ben are in for an explosive Fourth of July weekend the likes of which the small fishing village of Goodwater, Florida has ever seen. The teenagers find themselves under siege from a diabolical black ops entity testing a chemical weapon that has friends and neighbors succumbing to the lethal agent. A stranger may or may not be an ally, but there is no way of knowing.

Leo Forbes is dying to get summer started after spending the last two weeks on restriction, a clearly unjust punishment, handed down by his father. The father–son relationship has been strained for some time over a strong difference of opinion regarding Leo’s career plans, rousing Leo’s desire to leave the tiny fishing village in Goodwater, Florida. However, this Fourth of July weekend, even his father, will wish they didn’t live on the little spit of sandy land. Leo and his best friend, Ben take off to Sugar Key following an unfortunate series of events only to find themselves in an apocalyptic scene eviscerating there small town innocence in an instant. Now, Leo is on a mission to save friends and family from an unknown threat annihilating all living creatures and foliage. The unidentified organization is out to stop Leo and anyone who gets in their way—by any means necessary. An amiable stranger arrives in town offering to help, raising suspicion, Allan Bandy integrates quickly into the Goodwater community. For God-sakes he has moved in down the street between the dead neighbor’s houses! Can they come together—should they?

Karen Cook is a freelancer and a novelist and writes intense stories in both the young adult and suspense/thriller genres. Growing up in New Jersey with a penchant for traveling— she easily took off for the west coast; living in California, Nevada and Washington. She and her husband, Carl returned to a much more southern, eastern locale: Florida, before moving back to the northeast where they presently live in Pennsylvania. Like young Leo Forbes, the protagonist in her latest conspiracy thriller, he shares the same itinerant desire to experience life through relocation only he is up against greater life threatening forces quite possibly preventing his escape—ever. The people and places Karen has come across have filled her mind’s eye stage with innumerable characters, thus creating the many stories she has imparted with great enthusiasm to her receptive, if not patient, husband. Pen to paper started years ago, after the loss of a child to a broken judicial system. Karen began to write—therapeutically, in the beginning, then the characters and stories she had collected over the years, on her travels around the country lined up. Single file at first, then five and six abreast and now they span as far as the eye can see waiting to take their place on the pages of the greatest job she has had to date. Karen is excited for you to meet these characters on the pages of the first book in the new Leo Forbes series: “Drowning in Goodwater” This thriller takes place in a small peninsula fishing village in southwest Florida—a place found by Karen and Carl on an “exploration” stop. So a Sunday afternoon at an outdoor festival put the town of “Goodwater” in the forefront of Karen’s most interesting places.