September 22, 2014
The best part of Twitter is being able to chat with people and get to know them. And so it has been with my buddy Hans Hirschi, who I first met through Triberr. (Can I be involved in any more social media that start with the letter T?)
I don’t think I knew Hans when he put out his first six books, but I’m here now, and glad of it. Let’s get busy. Hans, what song makes you think of your book, The Fallen Angels of Karnataka?
Eagle, by ABBA
This was not an easy question to answer and and I’ve been tossing and turning over this for a long time, as the story of the book is not very “pop” or “rock” even. I’ve contemplated pieces from Mozart’s Requiem (too somber as it is) to Beethoven’s Fifth (too majestic and pompous) to glamrock (too duh!) before I finally settled on a song.I ended up settling on this particular song from my favorite musical group (yeah, I am THAT old), because the lyrics do speak to some of the core beliefs expressed in the book, and lyrics are as important to a good song as the cover is to a good book. Fallen Angels obviously can’t fly, but the question the book raises is what it takes to make them fly again, and the eagle from the song does “high, high, what a feeling to fly over mountains and forests and seas, and to go anywhere that I please”, a symbol of hope and – above all – freedom. And it is the freedom that our fallen angels need more than anything else to be able to soar and fly once again.
But the eagle also symbolizes Haakon, who’s traveled far, who’s seen the world, who’s got great stories to tell.. Listen och enjoy one of my favorite songs from Sweden’s greatest music export ever, and enjoy a corny 70s music video!
A corny 70s  music video… Oh, and you wonder why I have grown to love Hans? His sense of humor is right up my alley.
So what’s the book about?
In an isolated mountain town in Norway, Haakon dreams of traveling the world, pursuing adventure, seeing great places, finding love. His very first trip to London with friends from university offers much promise, yet soon after tragedy strikes. Still young, and mourning the loss of his lover, Haakon is not ready to give up on his dream, so when a rich Englishman offers him the chance to join him on a tour of the world, Haakon takes it, daring to believe that his dream is finally coming true…but at what price?
The Fallen Angels of Karnataka is a novel filled with adventure, life’s hard-learned lessons, loss, despicable evil, and finally, love and redemption.
“A remarkable story that will have readers hooked until the end.” – Denny Patterson, Vital VOICE Magazine
You know you need a copy. I sure do!
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June 23, 2014
What was it? Last week that I put out a call for reviewers for my buddy Faith Cotter’s new short works. As I said then, Faith is a buddy from the Boy Scouts, a woman I bonded with over writing, archery, and the difficulties of being a female Boy Scout. Â She’s good people, and I’m proud to know her.
And as I said, I’m pleased as anything that she’s joining us in the publishing world. Be good to her. Buy her stuff. Read it, leave a few words of review. Or contact her for a review copy.
Remember, reviews help sell books.
So… off the soapbox and onto the important stuff.
Faith, what song makes you think of your story?
Blinding by Florence and the Machine
I first heard Blinding three years ago and the minute I heard it and really dug into the lyrics, I knew that there was something about this song that was very strongly connected to what I write about—the ghost that haunts all my stories, if you will.
Though Clara is a fictional, it is inspired by the first elementary school I attended, with its dark hallways and ornate staircases and nuns in old-fashioned habits. Writing this story was the first time I realized that my memory, as tangible as those years are even now, could play tricks on me. (I was utterly convinced we had a series of taxidermied animals on the way to the principal’s office and I was fascinated by them: a bit of decay amongst people with so much time ahead of them. Old classmates, now grown up, say otherwise.)
As for the story itself, and how it connects with this song: Yes, this is a story about two young girls. But I know that if I am going to write a story that centers around children, there needs to be something else there, something that children can see and something that old folk like me (aka adults) can see as well. I wrote Clara as a story heavy with familiar and unfamiliar motifs and themes in the hope that different readers will interpret those themes differently, based on their lived experiences. For some, it will be political; for others, maybe they will feel nostalgic. For me, this story is really about waking up. It’s about shaking off sleep and standing up and taking off. And through the use of the song’s motifs and archetypes as familiar to us as our childhood school days, Blinding encapsulates Clara so well. And that’s all I want to say about it.
The rest, reader, is up to you.
So… if Faith is old, what does that make me? Decrepit?
Ahh… well, on to the book description:
Catholic school kid Clara Cooper wants to go home. She has some unfinished business to attend to, and really needs God to give her attempt at truancy a bit of heavenly aid. When she fails to convince the nurses, the principal, and her mama that she is sick enough to leave school, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Over the course of her small adventure, she makes friends with an old bear and fellow truant Nhi Nguyen, and discovers that there are lessons that can never be taught within the confines of the towering school that makes up her world.
It reminds me of my own Mannequin… a young girl, learning lessons of life. Pick both stories up and see what you think. Do they compare?
Here’s the buy links:
(more retailers to follow!)
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