Tag: Steampunk

Indie Spotlight and New Release: 19 Doors by Rob Roy O’Keefe #Release Day

BonnieReadsAndWrites14 Comments

It’s Release Day for 19 Doors, a short story collection featuring a wide variety of genres. A book description, purchase link, and author bio are all below. I will provide a review at a later date.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

From the author of Small Stories: A Perfectly Absurd Novel, shortlisted by the Chanticleer International Book Awards, 19 Doors ranges far and wide, diving into magical realism and science fiction, then adding a dash of steampunk and surrealism for extra flavor. The collection ricochets from the poignant to the comically absurd, each short story a work of imaginative fiction.

• A community remembers the lives they have yet to live.
• An intergalactic tour bus arrives in Hollywood … Montana.
• A shopping network super-fan relives every infomercial scenario he watches.
• The first sentient being in the universe applies for a job as a sous chef.
• A preternatural wind comes to collect a long-owed debt.

Through 19 Doors, we are immersed in the unraveling lives of characters who are just like us and nothing like us. Whether they succeed or succumb, conform or rebel, we are treated to a compilation of stories that are frequently fraught, often fun, and always fantastic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

**The author’s bios are so funny that I found two and added them both:

The story of Rob Roy O’Keefe’s birth goes that he was born in the same Irish cottage as his grandfather and in the same year, which led to a time paradox so cataclysmic that he would never finish th–Fortunately, the truth is much different. Turns out he was not born in a cottage or in Ireland, but in a Howard Johnson’s in Bayonne, which may explain his lifelong habit of ending each day with 28 flavors of ice cream.

In his twenties, he went through a period of crisis and self-doubt upon learning he was not named after a Scottish folk hero, but rather a mixed drink featuring scotch whisky and sweet vermouth. Years of counseling eventually enabled him to resume his place in society. That, and the realization that his siblings, Mojito, Daiquiri, and Gimlet, had it much worse than he did.

Rob made his way in the world as the inventor of several nonexistent colors and is living a life of leisure thanks to the royalty checks he receives for creating the descriptive names found on garden hose nozzles. His favorite is “Mist.”

________________________________________________________________________

Rob Roy O’Keefe was raised in the Antarctic by a colony of emperor penguins, which explains both his love of fish and his intense anxiety when in the company of sea lions. At the age of 12 he left to go on walkabout, but upon learning that Australia was over 3,000 miles away, he took the more expedient route from Cape Melville, Antarctica to South America’s Cape Horn.

He wandered north through the Andes, accumulated an abundance of practical knowledge, such as how to convince a hungry condor that you are not carrion. He eventually stumbled upon the hut of an Incan shaman who took him on as an apprentice. After a decade of immersion into the mysteries of the unseen world, Rob departed, fully prepared for his eventual success in the fields of pizza delivery, local politics, and brand consulting.

Today, Rob resides in New England’s Merrimack Valley, where he lives in a tree house made of Good Humor popsicle sticks held together by the discarded dreams of retired sailors.

PURCHASE LINK

*Click on the cover below for the link to Amazon.

Historical Fiction

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I’ve been busily reading novels for the May edition of Historical Novels Review, so I haven’t been posting as much. However, I’m finally all done and I wanted to share the names and covers of some of the novels I’ve reviewed. The reviews will be posted in May. Also I found this cool photo of a steampunk lady I had to share above. For those who don’t know, Steampunk combines history or alternative history, science fiction, and 19th Century steam engine technology. It makes for some cool fiction (and cool pictures). There are some who say Steampunk is not historical fiction, but I say the 19th century steam technology and often the Victorian or Wild West setting make it a subgenre of Historical Fiction. Others say it’s Science Fiction. I say it’s a cool combination. What do you think?

But today I’m sharing some of the books I’ve reviewed, just covers and descriptions because I can’t post the reviews yet. (None of them are Steampunk. I just thought the picture above was awesome.)

Here are the three novels that I liked the best, along with their Amazon book descriptions:

OPHIE’S GHOSTS: Historical Fiction/Magical Realism

Ophelia Harrison used to live in a small house in the Georgia countryside. But that was before the night in November 1922, and the cruel act that took her home and her father from her. Which was the same night that Ophie learned she can see ghosts. 

Now Ophie and her mother are living in Pittsburgh with relatives they barely know. In the hopes of earning enough money to get their own place, Mama has gotten Ophie a job as a maid in the same old manor house where she works. 

Daffodil Manor, like the wealthy Caruthers family who owns it, is haunted by memories and prejudices of the past—and, as Ophie discovers, ghosts as well. Ghosts who have their own loves and hatreds and desires, ghosts who have wronged others and ghosts who have themselves been wronged. And as Ophie forms a friendship with one spirit whose life ended suddenly and unjustly, she wonders if she might be able to help—even as she comes to realize that Daffodil Manor may hold more secrets than she bargained for.

THE FAR AWAY GIRL: Coming of Age Historical Fiction

Georgetown, Guyana 1970. Seven-year-old Rita has always known she was responsible for the death of her beautiful mother Cassie. Her absent-minded father allows her to run wild in her ramshackle white wooden house by the sea, and surrounded by her army of stray pets, most of the time she can banish her mother’s death to the back of her mind.

But then her new stepmother Chandra arrives and the house empties of love and laughter. Rita’s pets are removed, her freedom curtailed, and before long, there’s a new baby sister on the way. There’s no room for Rita anymore.

Desperate to fill up the emptiness inside her, Rita begins to talk to the only photo she has of her dead mother, a poor farmer’s daughter from the remote Guyanese rainforest. Determined to find the truth about her mother, Rita travels to find her mother’s family in an unfamiliar land of shimmering creeks and towering vines. She finds comfort in the loving arms of her grandmother among the flowering shrubs and trees groaning with fruit. But when she discovers the terrible bruising secret that her father kept hidden from her, will she ever be able to feel happiness again?

SHADOWS OF LIONS: Historical Fiction/Psychological Thriller

Catherine Kensington is in the midst of high society Regency era. She is an unmarried heiress with accomplishment, wit, and grace. But very few are aware she has recently returned from Africa in a desperate attempt to escape her murderous mother who sits far too close on the chaise. No one suspects Lady Kensington of violence, however, not even Catherine’s soul mate Captain Ashmore. Sarah Hope also sits among them dizzily longing for intrigue and adventure but is soon overwhelmed when she unwittingly throws herself into the midst of the Kensington’s trouble. And Mebalwe stands alert in the corner, but he is no ordinary serving man, he is an African warrior, sent to protect Catherine from all that threatens to kill her.

If any of the above books look interesting to you, check them out. I’m back to my normal reading schedule and will be posting again soon. Sorry for the delay.