One year later...

Now a NOOK Book!

One year ago on May 21st, I released my second novel The Fractured Hues of White Light as a paperback original, and now, to celebrate this first year, my little-big novel is now available at Barnes & Noble as an ebook.

I gotta tell ya, it's a lot of work putting together the ebook is a process that I don't want to do again right away, but yet, I'm OCD enough to get a sense of pleasure picking around at the tiniest bits of code to make the reading experience on the Nook to be enjoyable. I spent most of the morning and dipped into the afternoon doing the finishing touches on the files and inputting data and clicking the right buttons to make the "magic" happen - my eyes are blurry and burning and my head is dizzy from looking at a computer screen so closely. As of an hour or so, it went live - so now more readers can love or hate it - it is such a see-saw existence being an author, and I will always welcome the good and bad criticism with grace. It's been a rewarding experience publishing my books, and although the second one hasn't been as well received as the first book (Dusty Waters) I understand as the author and publisher, that books are a subjective business, and not everyone is going to like what I do. John Steinbeck said it best of all:

 "You know just as well as I do that this book is going to catch the same kind of hell that all the others did and for the same reasons. It will not be what anyone expects and so the expecters will not like it. And until it gets to people who don't expect anything and are just willing to go along with the story, no one is likely to like this book." (from Journal of a Novel: the East of Eden Letters, quoted from page 26, March 8, Thursday.)

Good and bad reviews go with the territory. I like to think that readers come to my writing because they are looking for something different, something unexpected, and to make this novel available for the Nook will make it accessible to new readers looking for something new and different - this is a happy day...


Synopsis:

The Fractured Hues of White Light is an emotional journey that explores who we love and why we love them. Mother, father, daughter, siblings, lovers, spouses, and friends; it’s all love in some form. It is a story about Samantha Ryder, a young autistic woman who is an artist; it is because of her handicap that she often fails to articulate her emotions with an appropriate demonstration. Ironically, the ‘normal people’ who surround her are just as incapable of communicating their feelings, creating a sense of isolation full of things left unsaid. Samantha’s uncanny artistic ability is limited to being a novelty after her father encouraged her to create miniatures of the greatest hits of art history for a wealthy clientele. For years, she has filled sketchbooks with drawings that she feels mean nothing, yet they mean everything. Within the abstract scribbles are the portraits of the people who she loves; the quirk of her disability is how she is very aware of the emotions of her loved ones. They love her with unconditional bonds that vary in degrees; her mother Lenore’s maternal nurturing is sorely missed after her death when Sammy was six. Her father, Whitley, is a possessive narcissist, but his heart is always in the right place. Memories of the protective love of her father’s stepson, Guthrie, filtered into her adolescent fantasies. Her half-sister, Helena, exhibits a lackadaisical tolerance and irritable impatience, yet offers a clinging-vine possessiveness in spite of herself. The lingering romantic feelings of her friend and former lover, Sylvester, manifest in his boundless patience; their continued friendship stands firm on a foundation of trust. When Samantha agreed to marry Preston Ackerman, she initially believed that she could learn to love him, but the empty bond between them causes her to emotionally lose ground. As their marriage falls apart, Preston becomes dangerous, forcing her to go on a journey of self-preservation away from the familiar security of home. Her escape threatens to be her undoing.