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Chasing The Wind
When six gifted children vanish around the globe, an investigation reveals genetic experimentation, dubious funding and the disappearance of a research assistant. Searching for proof of the Exodus, biblical archaeologist Lynne Raven meets enigmatic billionaire heir Connor Mackenzie. As the two grow closer, a disturbing link to the abductions and a past rife with secrets, visions, and voices changes their lives. In pursuit of the truth, can the two unravel the mystery of a prophecy... or be left chasing the wind?
410 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
28 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Norma Beishir
20 books27 followersI've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. I used to get in trouble in school because I was writing when I should have been paying attention in class. I foolishly sent a handwritten manuscript to a publisher when I was sixteen. It was rejected, of course--but an editor actually took the time to look at it and wrote me, saying I had talent but wasn't ready for publication yet. Some years later, I found an agent and sold my first novel within six months. Six months later, Berkley bought two more books from me--for a six-figure advance. In all, I published five bestellers with Berkley, nine romances through Silhouette, and--obsessed with having creative control--I made the move to self-publishing for my latest two. I write under my own name and two pseudonyms: Scarlett Martin and Toni Collins.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 28, 2011
An excerpt from Chasing the Wind
Connor~ "There's something else I've never told you about. I've had a nightmare--the same one--since I was fifteen. It's always the same, it never changes. There's a violent storm. I'm in the water, and it's very cold. The current is overwhelming me. I'm struggling to stay affloat. I see a light, a boat, and try to swim toward it. There's someone on the deck, calling to me, reaching for me, but I can't quite make it. I see your face, just once, before I'm pulled under."
Lynne~ "Mine?" Lynne asked.
Connor~ "You," Connor said. "The woman on the boat is you. I saw your face for the first time over twenty years ago. That's why you seemed so familiar to me the night we met."
Lynne~ "What do you think it means?" Lynne asked. She didn't laugh, didn't question his honesty or his sanity. She believed him. "God gives us visions sometimes to lead us where we have to go."
What an adventure! This very exciting book is filled with love, heartbreak, danger and a lot of very interesting characters.
Lynne is a religious archeologist who wants to work on a dig in Egypt, but she isn't able to start the dig due to lack of funding. In comes Connor Mackenzie. He asks his stepfather, Edward, to fund the project. He does, and Connor goes off on his own adventure with Lynne.
But, there's something mysterious about Connor. He has never been able to love anyone before. Any women he had before, he treated them like objects. He was afraid to love them in case they abandoned him like his mother did.
But, when he meets Lynne, he realizes that she is different, and he does everything to get her to love him. And, she does. With everything that she is, she loves him.
Connor is mysterious in other ways. He's able to heal others with a single touch. He healed the baby bird that Lynne found, allowing it to be set free when he touched it. He healed the bruise she received when a rock fell on her shoulder during an earthquake, and the woman with cancer that he met when he was a young boy.
"Go. The angels will guide you."
Connor and Lynne, married now and pregnant with a baby, are forced to run for their lives. Their love is tested in many ways when truths are brought to the forefront of their relationship.
This is an excellent read. It will keep you on the edge of your seat as Connor and Lynne face danger after danger as they try to keep themselves, and their baby, alive.
It isn't a book that you will likely be able to read in an afternoon, but I highly recommend this book. The love story is beautiful and the story compelling. I give this novel a 5 star rating.
Connor~ "There's something else I've never told you about. I've had a nightmare--the same one--since I was fifteen. It's always the same, it never changes. There's a violent storm. I'm in the water, and it's very cold. The current is overwhelming me. I'm struggling to stay affloat. I see a light, a boat, and try to swim toward it. There's someone on the deck, calling to me, reaching for me, but I can't quite make it. I see your face, just once, before I'm pulled under."
Lynne~ "Mine?" Lynne asked.
Connor~ "You," Connor said. "The woman on the boat is you. I saw your face for the first time over twenty years ago. That's why you seemed so familiar to me the night we met."
Lynne~ "What do you think it means?" Lynne asked. She didn't laugh, didn't question his honesty or his sanity. She believed him. "God gives us visions sometimes to lead us where we have to go."
What an adventure! This very exciting book is filled with love, heartbreak, danger and a lot of very interesting characters.
Lynne is a religious archeologist who wants to work on a dig in Egypt, but she isn't able to start the dig due to lack of funding. In comes Connor Mackenzie. He asks his stepfather, Edward, to fund the project. He does, and Connor goes off on his own adventure with Lynne.
But, there's something mysterious about Connor. He has never been able to love anyone before. Any women he had before, he treated them like objects. He was afraid to love them in case they abandoned him like his mother did.
But, when he meets Lynne, he realizes that she is different, and he does everything to get her to love him. And, she does. With everything that she is, she loves him.
Connor is mysterious in other ways. He's able to heal others with a single touch. He healed the baby bird that Lynne found, allowing it to be set free when he touched it. He healed the bruise she received when a rock fell on her shoulder during an earthquake, and the woman with cancer that he met when he was a young boy.
"Go. The angels will guide you."
Connor and Lynne, married now and pregnant with a baby, are forced to run for their lives. Their love is tested in many ways when truths are brought to the forefront of their relationship.
This is an excellent read. It will keep you on the edge of your seat as Connor and Lynne face danger after danger as they try to keep themselves, and their baby, alive.
It isn't a book that you will likely be able to read in an afternoon, but I highly recommend this book. The love story is beautiful and the story compelling. I give this novel a 5 star rating.
January 31, 2012
I've recently read the revised edition of the book, now released, which has been changed from third person point of view to first person, and the end result is an astonishing, powerful, and intimate story. The book follows a couple, Connor Mackenzie and Lynne Raven, as well as a number of other characters, telling an epic, sprawling tale of good versus evil through their eyes. The novel touches on archaeology, faith, destiny, and love throughout, intriguing the reader while taking them on a journey that touches down in places like Britain, Italy, Jerusalem, the Sinai, and New Zealand.
Lynne Raven is an archaeologist seeking physical proof of the Biblical Exodus in the Sinai. She's often far from her home and family in America, occasionally feeling the notion that time is catching up to her. Her work begins to be funded by Connor, who meets her by chance, finds her intriguing, and accompanies her to the dig site. He's a man of many secrets and difficult family relations with a sister, Sarah, and step-father, Edward. We find ourselves wondering at first if he's mentally stable. It's a question Connor himself wonders. He's a man who keeps himself at a distance, closed off from the world, the pain of his mother's death an overwhelming factor in his life. He also has, as we gradually see, an innate ability to heal with his own touch.
Gradually Connor and Lynne fall in love as they get to know each other, as Lynne gradually gets him to open up to her. Their courtship, such as it is, is filled with lightness and humour, Connor going out of his way to openly flirt with Lynne and win her over, and they marry. It doesn't take long before they're expecting a child, but circumstances quickly send them on the run. Violence follows them as the secrets of Connor's past and his family's connection to a man of pure evil catch up. They go into hiding in New Zealand, and Connor finds himself at a point where he must make a fateful decision about his future, and that of his wife and their baby son. It requires him to come to terms with the true nature of who he is and what he's meant to do.
The love between Lynne and Connor is the emotional core of the book, and it works wonderfully. There's such a sense of believability about the couple, a feeling of genuine connection and love. They're suited to each other, and as they deal with the chaos, heartache, and losses that the story throws at them, we find ourselves very sympathetic to them. And by extension, the way each character reacts to the events surrounding them feels true to their personalities. Lynne is a woman of faith with good family ties who accepts; Connor must go through the purging by fire, figuratively speaking, to accept what fate has in store for him.
The strong characterization extends to the various other characters that populate the book. If Connor and Lynne represent the good of the book, then their counterparts representing evil are more then a match. Nicholas Dante is a sinister presence in the book, a man of cruelty and evil who has a facade of respect, and yet is a man of no redeeming qualities. He orchestrates and pulls strings, seeking to control Connor for his own ends and his own beliefs. His hired enforcer is a memorable villain named Judas Caine, a brutal psychopath who has none of his employer's refinement. Caine is the sort of man who enjoys causing the most amount of pain he can, a sadistic hitman whose actions are, to say the least, profoundly disturbing. While I have, in the past, enjoyed villains with at least something sympathetic in their nature, I find these two-utterly unsympathetic and the very definition of pure evil- to be very compelling.
There are a number of other characters that I rather liked throughout the book. Phillip Darcy is a photojournalist who happens to count Lynne among his various ex-wives (his pet name for her is Duchess, a touch I rather like). He's a likeable rogue with a chaotic personal life, and he's rough around the edges. I liked his personality, his way of sparring with pretty much everyone. He comes into contact with Lynne and Connor in the Sinai, where events occur and strange discoveries are made that cause him to start asking some very serious questions. Caitlin Hammond and Jack Farlow are a pair of FBI agents looking into several missing children cases that tie into the larger story, and their investigation brings them into Connor's orbit. Their rapport and dialogue is well written, and has the same genuine feel to it that the rest of the book has. And Connor's sister Sarah is a revelation as a character. She starts the book off as cold, hostile, and perhaps coming across as emotionally unstable, and her journey through the novel brings her to a very different place.
The novel deals with weighty themes throughout. History plays out in its pages, as do the themes of good versus evil, the acceptance of destiny, and the struggle with coming to terms with faith. There are harrowing, horrific moments in the book that will have you shuddering (a speciality of Mr. Caine, you see). And there are moments that will make you laugh. Chasing The Wind tells an epic world spanning tale that manages to be a very intimate, personal story of the love between a man and a woman. It's a terrific, compelling book that you're going to love reading.
Lynne Raven is an archaeologist seeking physical proof of the Biblical Exodus in the Sinai. She's often far from her home and family in America, occasionally feeling the notion that time is catching up to her. Her work begins to be funded by Connor, who meets her by chance, finds her intriguing, and accompanies her to the dig site. He's a man of many secrets and difficult family relations with a sister, Sarah, and step-father, Edward. We find ourselves wondering at first if he's mentally stable. It's a question Connor himself wonders. He's a man who keeps himself at a distance, closed off from the world, the pain of his mother's death an overwhelming factor in his life. He also has, as we gradually see, an innate ability to heal with his own touch.
Gradually Connor and Lynne fall in love as they get to know each other, as Lynne gradually gets him to open up to her. Their courtship, such as it is, is filled with lightness and humour, Connor going out of his way to openly flirt with Lynne and win her over, and they marry. It doesn't take long before they're expecting a child, but circumstances quickly send them on the run. Violence follows them as the secrets of Connor's past and his family's connection to a man of pure evil catch up. They go into hiding in New Zealand, and Connor finds himself at a point where he must make a fateful decision about his future, and that of his wife and their baby son. It requires him to come to terms with the true nature of who he is and what he's meant to do.
The love between Lynne and Connor is the emotional core of the book, and it works wonderfully. There's such a sense of believability about the couple, a feeling of genuine connection and love. They're suited to each other, and as they deal with the chaos, heartache, and losses that the story throws at them, we find ourselves very sympathetic to them. And by extension, the way each character reacts to the events surrounding them feels true to their personalities. Lynne is a woman of faith with good family ties who accepts; Connor must go through the purging by fire, figuratively speaking, to accept what fate has in store for him.
The strong characterization extends to the various other characters that populate the book. If Connor and Lynne represent the good of the book, then their counterparts representing evil are more then a match. Nicholas Dante is a sinister presence in the book, a man of cruelty and evil who has a facade of respect, and yet is a man of no redeeming qualities. He orchestrates and pulls strings, seeking to control Connor for his own ends and his own beliefs. His hired enforcer is a memorable villain named Judas Caine, a brutal psychopath who has none of his employer's refinement. Caine is the sort of man who enjoys causing the most amount of pain he can, a sadistic hitman whose actions are, to say the least, profoundly disturbing. While I have, in the past, enjoyed villains with at least something sympathetic in their nature, I find these two-utterly unsympathetic and the very definition of pure evil- to be very compelling.
There are a number of other characters that I rather liked throughout the book. Phillip Darcy is a photojournalist who happens to count Lynne among his various ex-wives (his pet name for her is Duchess, a touch I rather like). He's a likeable rogue with a chaotic personal life, and he's rough around the edges. I liked his personality, his way of sparring with pretty much everyone. He comes into contact with Lynne and Connor in the Sinai, where events occur and strange discoveries are made that cause him to start asking some very serious questions. Caitlin Hammond and Jack Farlow are a pair of FBI agents looking into several missing children cases that tie into the larger story, and their investigation brings them into Connor's orbit. Their rapport and dialogue is well written, and has the same genuine feel to it that the rest of the book has. And Connor's sister Sarah is a revelation as a character. She starts the book off as cold, hostile, and perhaps coming across as emotionally unstable, and her journey through the novel brings her to a very different place.
The novel deals with weighty themes throughout. History plays out in its pages, as do the themes of good versus evil, the acceptance of destiny, and the struggle with coming to terms with faith. There are harrowing, horrific moments in the book that will have you shuddering (a speciality of Mr. Caine, you see). And there are moments that will make you laugh. Chasing The Wind tells an epic world spanning tale that manages to be a very intimate, personal story of the love between a man and a woman. It's a terrific, compelling book that you're going to love reading.
December 19, 2019
I love this & I can't wait for more.
I will be also leaving a review on Goodreads @ Amazon.
And letting everyone know about it.
So i gave it a 5 Stars.
I will be also leaving a review on Goodreads @ Amazon.
And letting everyone know about it.
So i gave it a 5 Stars.
May 27, 2020
Even for non-Christian readers, this thriller holds your attention. While the story has an overtly Christian theme it doesn't come actoss as pushy, has great characters and lots of action.
November 29, 2011
Riding a Hurricane
By
Lena Winfrey Seder
In “Chasing the Wind,” Norma Beishir and Collin Beishir chase the reader with a hurricane of adventure. They introduce us to two main characters: Lynne (an archaeologist with a modern Christian view) and Connor (aka Andrew a geneticist who is low in faith), and they appear on the surface to be as different as night and day. We get to follow their exciting adventure across the world as we are introduced to some interesting minor characters. We watch as Lynne and Connor grow together as if they had known each other all of their lives. We drop into their destiny and travel with them.
Beishir is a master storyteller who controls suspense and employs all the great ingredients that cook up this political, religious suspense thriller. Beishir leads us through a maze of plots and subplots that lead us to surprising discoveries. Beishir has an amazing ability to elaborately describe psychological motivations of the characters while painting their passion and drawing out their ambitions. Heroes are true heroes (like Connor who transforms before our eyes) that have human flaws while villains are super-villains (like the assassin Caine and Dante with his cult-like global cartel); we are allowed a peek at their abusive childhoods that is a key to their motivations and what makes them tick. We get to taste their evil and insanity.
Beishir entranced me from the beginning and hypnotized me until the end. The quick pace and intense mood of the novel with colorful and humorous dialogue made the story hard to put down. We find ourselves cheering for Lynne and Connor as they face some formidable obstacles. We are left pondering so many engaging issues as well as realizing this novel could really reflect so much of reality, especially in today’s modern world of genetics and technology. Beishir raises ethical issues that we are still struggling with in the real world.
The reader is in for a riveting, enlightening, fascinating and amazing journey through the pages of “Chasing the Wind.”
By
Lena Winfrey Seder
In “Chasing the Wind,” Norma Beishir and Collin Beishir chase the reader with a hurricane of adventure. They introduce us to two main characters: Lynne (an archaeologist with a modern Christian view) and Connor (aka Andrew a geneticist who is low in faith), and they appear on the surface to be as different as night and day. We get to follow their exciting adventure across the world as we are introduced to some interesting minor characters. We watch as Lynne and Connor grow together as if they had known each other all of their lives. We drop into their destiny and travel with them.
Beishir is a master storyteller who controls suspense and employs all the great ingredients that cook up this political, religious suspense thriller. Beishir leads us through a maze of plots and subplots that lead us to surprising discoveries. Beishir has an amazing ability to elaborately describe psychological motivations of the characters while painting their passion and drawing out their ambitions. Heroes are true heroes (like Connor who transforms before our eyes) that have human flaws while villains are super-villains (like the assassin Caine and Dante with his cult-like global cartel); we are allowed a peek at their abusive childhoods that is a key to their motivations and what makes them tick. We get to taste their evil and insanity.
Beishir entranced me from the beginning and hypnotized me until the end. The quick pace and intense mood of the novel with colorful and humorous dialogue made the story hard to put down. We find ourselves cheering for Lynne and Connor as they face some formidable obstacles. We are left pondering so many engaging issues as well as realizing this novel could really reflect so much of reality, especially in today’s modern world of genetics and technology. Beishir raises ethical issues that we are still struggling with in the real world.
The reader is in for a riveting, enlightening, fascinating and amazing journey through the pages of “Chasing the Wind.”
January 28, 2014
I don't enjoy reading spiritual books nor do I enjoy reading multiple viewpoints in first person. However, to a reader who isn't as prejudiced, this will be an enjoyable read.
There's a love story mingled with the adventure. A beautiful archeologist meets a mysterious man who offers to pay for the continuance of her dig that's about to be defunded. On condition he can work on it with her. It's obvious he's running from something.
She's skeptical but takes the money because she's sure the archeologists before her got the site of Noah's ark wrong and she's going to prove it.
Naturally, as she and the stranger are thrown together at the dig, they develop feelings for each other. Then she finds out the truth: he's a scientist wanted by the authorities in a horse cloning scheme. Of course, that isn't all the cloning that's going on. There's even talk about cloning Jesus from the Shroud of Turin.
Then the people looking for the scientist locate him...
An interesting read.
There's a love story mingled with the adventure. A beautiful archeologist meets a mysterious man who offers to pay for the continuance of her dig that's about to be defunded. On condition he can work on it with her. It's obvious he's running from something.
She's skeptical but takes the money because she's sure the archeologists before her got the site of Noah's ark wrong and she's going to prove it.
Naturally, as she and the stranger are thrown together at the dig, they develop feelings for each other. Then she finds out the truth: he's a scientist wanted by the authorities in a horse cloning scheme. Of course, that isn't all the cloning that's going on. There's even talk about cloning Jesus from the Shroud of Turin.
Then the people looking for the scientist locate him...
An interesting read.
July 13, 2011
Great romance with a combination of science and spirituality.
June 15, 2012
Awesome book with a great plot. Very exciting! Don't start reading it late at night because you won't want to go to sleep!
November 6, 2012
Mah... Litle bit pretentious.. A new Messiah is coming... But... he's not convinced he's a messiah; the woman he falls in love is more believer than him... To simplicistic.
July 19, 2016
Transformative
Would you believe if God's messenger returned today and he was your true love? Or would you believe it was madness? Read this thrilling love story and find out.
Would you believe if God's messenger returned today and he was your true love? Or would you believe it was madness? Read this thrilling love story and find out.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews