Some days life is good to you. You show up to see one of your favorite authors and, due to the extreme heat in Phoenix causing all the sane people to leave for San Diego, you find a cozy circle with only three chairs left. You sit down. Seconds later, the store manager guides Taylor Stevens –herself- to the empty chair next to you. Wow! You spend the next hour in what feels like a roundtable with a great author. How cool is that?
OK, so I’m old and ended up with a crick in my neck from gawking at the beautiful and charming Ms. Stevens on my left elbow, but it was worth it. (Someone pointed out that a porn star shares her name and I almost said, “Wait, I thought you were the porn star. Aw man, I’m at the wrong bookstore!” but I figured she might hit me. So. Next time. When I’m in the back row.) If she comes to your neighborhood, go see her. She’s fun, witty, and has an amazing story about growing up in a cult.
I, too, grew up in a cult, but they were architects. They had that whole international-intellectuals-quoted-in-The-New-York-Times thing going for them. And PBS dropped by several times to make documentaries. Hey, I was a kid — as far as I knew they were just old people yakking about man’s historic struggle to achieve immortality by combining art and engineering during his eternal quest for shelter from a capricious cosmos … or something like that.
If you’ve not read her books, check out my reviews of The Informationist and The Innocent. My review of The Doll* — TBA.
How can you win an autographed copy of her third book, The Doll? All you have to do is write a review of The Meeting on Goodreads! It’s the SHORT first episode of a serialized novel, and it’s FREE on Goodreads**. I will draw one lucky winner from the pool of entrants next Friday. I might even talk my son into doing another ‘masked man’ video to choose the winner. Out of fairness to the early birds who’ve already reviewed it, and to prevent the appearance that I’m a friendless loser, I might toss their names into the ring as well.
Rules: 1) void where prohibited by Amazon; 2) sock-puppets are fine by me as long as you don’t get caught; 3) flattery will get you everywhere but only honesty will let you stay.
The ebook is FREE on Goodreads**. The episode is SHORT. Your chances are HIGH. Life doesn’t get any BETTER than that (unless you sit next to Taylor Stevens in a bookstore).
Peace, Seeley
* I know, I know—based on the algorithms for the first two, I expected the third title to be, “The Indicted MFs” too, but there you have it.
** Click here for Goodreads, see the green bar, right end? Click on DOWNLOAD EBOOK and you’re in. (No, I have no idea how to inject it into your ereader. Find a teenager.)
