Time Capsule links

Time Capsule links

E-book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TM1624X

Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Capsule-Marshall-Scott-Shields/dp/0998871834/

Time Capsule available as an e-book

Time Capsule is now available as both a paperback and an e-book. To order an e-book, click here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TM1624X

It's a book!

I'm thrilled to announce that paperback copies of Time Capsule are now available for sale on Amazon.com. Fifteen years after I started writing it, it's finally an actual book--the first of four I have written so far.

To order a copy, go to Amazon.com and search for "Books by Marshall Scott Shields" or click on the following link:

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Capsule-Marshall-Scott-Shields/dp/0998871834/

An e-book version will be available in a few days. I'll post a follow-up at that time.

I hope you'll enjoy my book and tell your friends about it. Thanks.

Back cover design

An excerpt from Time Capsule – Rob and Jennie

      After watching Jennie for several minutes, Rob walked over toward the keg to get a beer, and looked back in time to see Jennie discreetly pouring hers over the edge of the balcony. Then, he watched out of the corner of his eye as she wandered through the crowd, taking a purposefully slow and circuitous route to the keg, supposedly to get a refill. 

      When she got close enough to hear him, Rob turned to look at her and said, “Say, I noticed you over by the railing a minute or so ago and watched you dump out half of your beer. What happened? Did a bug fly in there or is that some kind of ‘glass half full’ thing with you?” She blushed a little and looked back at him, smiling like a little girl who got caught stealing cookies. He noticed that her eyes were a spectacular shade of light gray. Against her tan face, they seemed to shine like tiny Christmas lights in a darkened room. She was even more beautiful up close. Her skin was smooth and perfect, accenting a nicely squared chin, and for a second Rob swore his breathing stopped.

An excerpt from Time Capsule - Jack

    Now, in the coffin quiet of the morning, the bedroom looked and sounded like every other bedroom in every other house on every other street in the Westchester Acres “plan” where Jack and Maggie lived. The room smelled of new carpet and Lemon Pledge and some kind of air freshener plugged into an outlet behind the door. As Jack’s eyes began to clear, it occurred to him that everything in the room was basically the same color–some variation of beige. Sometimes, Jack felt like he was trapped inside a loaf of whole wheat bread.

An excerpt from Time Capsule - Morgan

     The dream was a replay of what Morgan considered to be the worst day of his life. It happened over and over again, like Morgan’s personal “Groundhog Day” but without the music by Sonny and Cher. Alcohol could dull Morgan’s senses and even some of his pain, but it could never kill the dream. As he lay in bed trying to shake the memory out of his throbbing head, he had no way of knowing that in just a few hours, everything in his life was going to change, and not for the better. He couldn’t know that unlike his dreams, which drifted into and out of his sleep and then went away for a while, today was actually going to become the worst day of his life…and it was going to happen long before the sun went down again.

An excerpt from Time Capsule - Julianne

      Julianne Bradshaw sat in her flowered wallpaper kitchen, crying. She was covered neck to toe in a pink flannel nightgown dotted with green and yellow flowers and a pair of fuzzy pink slippers that made her feet look as if small animals had nested there. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was twisted and tangled and hung around her head like an angry mop. Crumpled white tissues lay all around her on the countertop and on the floor.

      The room smelled of burnt toast and strong coffee that had sat too long in the pot. Julianne smelled of yesterday’s lavender shampoo and today’s morning breath, and her face cream blended with stale tears, making her look much older than she really was. Julianne had been blessed with a beautiful face and body. She was tall and trim with classic features and high cheekbones, but no one who saw her this morning would say she was pretty.

      Her old boss would say she looked “rode hard and put away wet.”

      She sat on a high bar stool painted black with a wheat-colored wicker seat, leaning on her elbows on the black Formica table where she took all of her meals alone. Both hands were wrapped around a large white coffee mug with a radio station’s call letters printed on one side and the slogan, “Rock ’Til You Drop” on the other. The coffee inside was the color of creek mud and it was stone cold.

      Julianne looked out the window at the rising sun beginning to illuminate her barren back yard. She had a few small trees out there–saplings, really–but little else, and she thought the grass might need to be cut. Her eyes involuntarily wandered beyond her own house to the well-trimmed back yards of neighbors’ houses lined in neat rows up and down the curving street, where swing sets, above-ground swimming pools, trampolines and a scattering of plastic toys littered the yards.

      In a couple of days, when school let out, the neighborhood would be filled with the sounds of children laughing and playing, parents talking and yelling, lawnmowers and weed whackers growling and dogs barking, and the air would fill with the aroma of charcoal smoke, swimming pool chemicals, blooming flowers and freshly cut grass.

      She started crying again.

Time Capsule first out of the gate

Time Capsule, the first novel by former journalist Marshall Scott Shields, is scheduled for publication in late June or early July.

It's a fiction mystery involving newspaper reporters Rob and Jennie Covington who, while planting a tree in their own backyard, unearth a time capsule buried by middle school students nearly 40 years before. Opening the box unlocks a mystery that Rob and Jennie pursue to a stunning and unexpected conclusion.

Along the way, readers will also encounter three individuals who share dark secrets from their childhood that haunt them even as adults, and whose lives become intertwined in a way that none of them could have ever seen coming. 

Time Capsule is an easy-reading, fast-moving mystery that is full of twists and surprises. With clean, clever and conversational writing, the author weaves a story of secrets and lies, instincts and doubts, mystery and murder—all revolving around a cryptic clue unearthed by accident 62 years before its time.

Time Capsule will have readers eagerly awaiting the next Covington Mystery and other books by Marshall Scott Shields. 

Thanks for visiting, and be sure to check here often for updates on Time Capsule and the other Shields books.