Remembering an old friend
The long awaited sequel to BEACON CITY CONFIDENTIAL is nearing completion, hopefully to be published in late March. If you'd like to preview the first 80 pages, exactly as they will appear, including the full-color illustrations, click here. This generous sample, courtesy of Adobe InDesign, is not designed for use on telephones. It works best on PC and Mac. Enjoy!!
Nick Charming's Guide to Breaking Hearts in Twelve Easy Steps. My rating 5 out of 5 stars. I've waited anxiously for about a year to see what talented author, Arly Carmack, would treat her fans to next. I expected a sequel to Nineteen, or another book in a similar genre or, at the least, one portraying a world that was cobbled together from similar values. This "shortie" is, therefore, an unexpected treat.
Nick's "Guide" is a diary of events from this own life, cleverly transformed into a guide for other miscreants who wish to emulate his calculated, calibrated, misogynistic and misanthropic M.O. Just in case you wanted to know. Just in case you wanted to try his "shtick" out. It's like reading a recipe book for How Not to Play Nice. But it's not that simple, because the reader--from his vantage point behind the battle lines--can see what the writer of the primer can not. There are moments where one wonders who is playing who. And, at the very least, there are one (possibly two) characters who are playing Mr. Charming for all they can get out of him: one of them is his own mother. And, too, it becomes obvious that a man is a total weakling when the only woman he tries to really please is Mommy. At this point I could launch into a dissertation on how the time for Sociopath Literature is fully upon us. Why not? This is the age of Trump. You can watch the antics play out in the news every day.
As sociopaths go, Mr. Charming, unlike our toxic president, is remarkably self-aware, and that provides so much of the entertainment in his meticulous twelve step program. It's as funny as it is shocking. The epilogue provides a parting zinger that will leave a bittersweet taste on your tongue.
I tip my hat to the author. Writing a good "shortie" is not easy. Every word--and in this case, every directive or instruction--has to work. The author created a perfect relationship bomb on these pages, and it tick-tick-ticks its way, word by word, to a great conclusion.
The End of the World as We Know It by Michael Sandels. My rating: 5 out of 5 stars /// This book is a funny-looking monster drooling creativity on every page. Just the sort of thing I love most in a book when I need a break from more serious, traditional fare. An iceberg of lemon sorbet to cleanse the palate as far as I'm concerned. One could breeze right through it and "get" a third of it, or linger slowly and savor what the author is really saying between the lines. What a project to study this in more depth than I did this first go-round. I am going to set aside a long day at the beach to burn myself inside and out with this. Its discombobulated, disjointed, disrespectful, but never mind--the author, like Don Quijote, charges fearlessly at every one of his targets, no matter what it is. After each chapter, he picks himself up and gets back on his horse. My applause for the author of this delightful madness!
My Friend Nick by Joseph Hood
Good reviews occasionally surface outside the USA, and they don't generally appear on Amazon.com, our major American book-mart. Here's a nice one from author Julie Embleton, who resides in Ireland. She ceaselessly promotes her fellow indie writers on Instagram. A fine writer, highly respected and followed by many, Julie has received many laudatory reviews of her own. You may learn more about her books here.
Let's Get Published, a new website dedicated to helping writers achieve their goals, has awarded my short story The Nostradamus Cookbook with First Prize in its inaugural annual fiction contest. That First Prize is my first prize.