All that’s left standing of Auraria, Georgia’s once booming town is Woody’s Store.

Only 350 people are residents in the vicinity today, whereas during the gold rush of 1829. 25,000 people clambered over each other in their quest to be rich.  In the 100+ years from 1829 to 1939, six million dollars in gold were dug out of the ground. Over 500 gold mines were registered in north Georgia at one time.

In the year, 2010, two realtors, Maria Sebastian and Bonnie Keen, made their way through solid woods to explore a property they’d just listed, where one of them had the misfortune to fall through an air vent into a goldmine that had been abandoned some 100 years earlier.

Since a mineshaft is approximately as dark as the inside of a cow, that realtor didn’t notice the remains of a man who had been left there to disintegrate over a ten year period.

The day after the mishap, the body was discovered sitting there quietly, wearing the realtor’s ex-husband’s coat.

Auraria Dead is a fictional story set in a true location with a past.

The cast of main characters include:  Blonde, 5’8” tall, 125 pounds, 40 something years old, Maria Sebastian loves land. She’s curious about its history, is sensitive to what has happened on it over the millions of years the earth has existed. She thinks she may be falling in love with an ex-cop, ex-Navy Seal who recently lost his wife to cancer. She’s survived a misanthropic ex-husband whom she escaped fifteen years ago when she left him in Arizona in order to make a new beginning in Georgia.

Bonnie Keen is the reluctant and mistrusted partner Maria must deal with in order to keep peace in her office as well as a potential income from the sale of the property. 70-something years old, 5’2” tall, portly and two-faced, Bonnie has a reputation of cheating realtors and clients in her everyday profession. Stay tuned...

Melody Scott was born in San Diego, California but raised in Riverside, California, a town near Los Angeles. She graduated from California Polytechnic College in Pomona, California, and was employed by The Press Enterprise newspapers for six years.

After marrying and moving to Cumming, Georgia, she became enamored of the land and obtained her Georgia Real Estate license in 1978. Buying and selling, moving and investing became a way of life until she was drawn to write novels about the land, the history of which still holds a mystique for her.

Melody has had several short stories published in various magazines such as Confection, The Lyric, Promises to Keep, Woman, Horizon Magazine, and The North Georgia Star. Her acrylic paintings, wall murals and watercolors are becoming known among the art community. 

Today she is a licensed Realtor and belongs to her local Board of Realtors, the Chamber of Commerce, two writing groups, a book club, Sisters In Crime, and Southeastern Mystery Writers of America.

She’s managed to remain married to the same saint of a husband and now has two adult children and three grandchildren traipsing the same land about which she writes.