Guest Post & Excerpt With Author Donna Del Oro

Welcome readers! Today awardw inning author Donna Del Oro is here with a fabulous gust post and excerpt that takes us deeper into the making of The Delphi Bloodline . Grab a cuppa something good and sit back for an interesting read!

Welcome Ms. Del Oro!

The Delphi Bloodline

Donna Del Oro

Available at

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Back of the Book

Athena Butler is the modern-day descendant of an ancient bloodline of gifted clairvoyants. She’s trying to live a “normal” life as an artist, but with the disappearance of her mother and other notable psychics, she finds herself dragged into danger. She, too, is a target.
Kas Skoros, the son of a psychic, is a Guardian, one of a secret society whose task is protecting the Delphi bloodline. He rushes to rescue Athena and uncover the mastermind behind the kidnapping plot.
Athena and Kas stay one step ahead with Athena’s psychic abilities and Kas’s training in law enforcement. When they seek refuge at the Skoros compound in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the FBI convinces them that the only way to stop the kidnappers and trap the mastermind is for Athena to offer herself as bait.

Behind THE DELPHI BLOODLINE: My ESP Workshop

By Donna Del Oro

Twenty-plus years ago, I became obsessed with exploring the facts and fictions of ESP phenomena. My cousin, a practicing clairvoyant, had inspired me to delve into the whole realm of parapsychology, or study of psychic phenomena. Highly skeptical about the whole business, I nonetheless signed up for a weekend ESP workshop, given by a Czech physicist who once worked for the Moscow Institute for Psychic Research. The workshop took place in a classroom at a local community college (Foothill College) in my Silicon Valley town of Los Altos Hills.

There were eleven of us, all total strangers—nine women and two men. The first day, Saturday, the Czech physicist lectured on the history of ESP and the various forms and types of ESP: Clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, precognition, telepathy, psychometry, psychokinesis, remote viewing and channeling. The study of psychic phenomena is called “parapsychology”.  Psi (pronounced “sigh”) is the study of psychic phenomena from a psychological perspective. The Journal of Parapsychology defines psi as “a general term to identify a person’s extrasensory-motor communication with the environment.”  Psi is a letter of the Greek alphabet and the first letter of the Greek word, “psyche”, which literally means “breath” in Greek and refers to the human soul. Basically, having ESP means that you are able to perceive someone’s thoughts, situation, or issues in life without using one of your five ordinary senses.

The Czech physicist leading our ESP Workshop claimed to be a former skeptic, himself, and a dedicated non-believer who, after working in the experimental testing labs of the Moscow Institute, became a convert. He had seen incontrovertible proof, in his opinion, that ESP existed in gifted intuitives. These intuitives were able to consciously apply knowledge they had accessed and processed in an unconscious, unexplainable manner, and that science could not explain. 

Yet.

He ended that first day of the workshop with instructions to return on Sunday with a notebook and an inanimate object that had emotional significance to each one of us.  The next day, the same eleven of us brought our own individual objects, which we all carried concealed in plain brown paper bags. Each of us put our paper bag into a cardboard box behind the physicist’s podium. Later, each of us approached the box and withdrew a paper bag that was not our own. After everyone had at his/her desk his chosen bag, he then told us to open the bag, take out the stranger’s object and hold it in our hands.  Then he timed us. For the next fifteen minutes, we were to meditate on the object and write down any visions, words or impressions that came to our minds. We were not to censor anything, no matter how strange, puzzling or nonsensical the vision, word or impression seemed.

At the end of the timed period, he went from person to person and asked us to identify the owner of the object and to read aloud our visions, words or impressions. We did. What followed was truly astonishing and something I will never forget as long as I live. Nine out of the eleven of us correctly identified the owners of the objects. Eight out of eleven of us had made several—at least three to four--correct associations and revelations about the object, its owner and facts about the owner.

For example, I correctly identified the owner of the object I held—a macramé type of belt. I’d had visions of a shelf full of potted succulents and cactus plants. A red-brick apartment building, the kind you find in the Eastern U.S.  Those two associations fit. The woman said she had a collection of cacti in pots and that she’d recently moved from Philadelphia, where she’d lived in a red-brick apartment building. There was also a scene of a little boy on a bike, which the woman could not place or relate to in any way. Who knows? Maybe it did later.

Well, the fact that I’d gotten three out of four correct got my attention. After that experiment, I became a believer. Other experiences followed, too, including two precognitive dreams. Many years later, the idea for THE DELPHI BLOODLINE manifested itself and I ran with it. Researching and writing that novel was one of the most enjoyable and most satisfying experiences of my life.

Snippet Reading

Chapter One Pyramid Valley, Nevada Thursday AM Athena Butler’s eyes blinked open and she sat up. Coming back from The Flow was always jolting. Emerging from the stream of spirits was like a water skier lurching out of the water, pulled by a strong, invisible force. The mind caught up later to the body as if it required a rough snap to break free. Likewise, to go there was like jumping out of a plane and feeling the air rush to your face, your limbs weightless and wobbly. Most of the time, it was a joy to enter this world of unseen spirits. Athena welcomed her visits, especially at night when she found herself invariably alone. When she was a child, she’d often emerge from The Flow with a fearful whimper and a cry. She’d wept and wanted to stay in The Flow. Now, at twenty-six, Athena had grown accustomed to her mental flights. They were no longer fear-inducing for she understood their purpose. But her exits were still mind-wrenching and she often lay in bed, disoriented. This morning, fear clutched her heart and she could barely breathe. With a trembling hand, she reached for her phone. Breathless, she raked her other hand through her hair and kicked her legs over the side of the bed. She punched her mother’s mobile numbers. It was nine o’clock East Coast time. “Thank God, Mama! Where are you?” “I’m in Baltimore, near the--.” “Mama, I had a dream about you. A Flow Dream. The spirits—they want me to warn you! Whatever you’re doing right now, get off the streets. Go home and lock the door. Call the police!” Her heart felt like a ticking bomb in her chest. Athena could barely speak. But her mother knew her and understood her Flow dreams. They were seldom wrong though sometimes a little off in timing. Today, a threat was imminent. She knew it. “Slow down, Thena. Take a deep breath and tell me slowly about your dream. I don’t doubt you but we must be able to interpret it correctly. You know how these Flow Dreams are. Sometimes the symbolism is strange and difficult to interpret.” “Okay--just go home and lock the door. Now, Mama!”



About the author:
Donna Del Oro spent her childhood in two places, Silicon Valley, CA and the countryside of East Texas, as her father tried several job opportunities. Finally settling in Silicon Valley, she grew up in a bilingual, bicultural world--Spanish on her mother's side and English on her father's. Comfortable in both worlds, she decided upon retiring from teaching to write about her Hispanic side. Four women's fiction books resulted and a series about professional singers, their careers and love lives. Retired and devoting much of her abundant free time to exercise, writing, singing and her grandson, Donna has finally reached a point in life that totally satisfies he. Life is good and she has no complaints, just a lot of gratitude for her many blessings.

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