Reyna Favis's Blog, page 7
November 4, 2017
Book Club Guides for Introverts and Others
Hosting book clubs can be challenging, especially when you get past the general overview of the plot and characters. To help support those brave souls who organize book discussion events, two guides have been created for Soul Search and Soul Scent. The guides each contain twenty thought-provoking questions that will prompt readers to consider the “what if’s” and their personal take on the story’s events. Armed with copies of these guides, your book group discussion is sure to be a success.
Book Club Questions for Soul Search: A Zackie Story
Book Club Questions for Soul Scent: A Zackie Story
The original plan was to offer the guides for free, but unfortunately, Amazon will not allow me to provide the guides for less than $0.99 on their site. And it’s tough getting word out that these guides are available without the reach of the mighty Zon. Keep an eye on my website for additional book club questions or you can contact me directly at RLFavis@gmail.com. Also note that the guides are free on Kindle Unlimited.
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If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please also visit my author’s website at www.reynafavis.com.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, are available for purchase on Amazon.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before November 30th.
October 30, 2017
Introverts and Ancestors On All Hallows’ Eve
All Hallows’ Eve, Samhain or Halloween…take your choice. This day and this season mark a liminal time, when the veil between this world and the next grows thin. While restless spirits from history are routine inhabitants of Fia’s world in Soul Search and Soul Scent, for us, it is only on this one night of the year that the souls of the ancestors are said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.
As an introvert, I generally have enough on my plate at this time of year, mentally rehearsing responses to extant relatives who will show up during the upcoming holiday season. Now, consider having to defend your religious views (or lack thereof) and your political leanings to someone removed from you by not just one generation, but maybe multiple human life cycles. The generation gap could become a generation (grand) canyon.
For example, what if a distant relative from the medieval era were to demand hospitality at your table? Really, what connects you, other than a little bit of DNA? Oh, sure, you might be awestruck and interested for a few minutes, but then politics would enter the discussion… “A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.” Dude! I did NOT vote for the guy. “Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows. Thine face is not worth sunburning. More of your conversation would infect my brain.” Oh yeah? Well…well… yo’ momma!
The conversation would eventually degenerate further, with this ancestral person questioning even the most basic things in your life. For instance, why do you and your modern ilk walk with such uncommon ungainliness?
According to some schools of thought (see the video created by Germany’s History Park Bärnau), people from the Middle Ages walked differently than we modern folk. The difference in gait compared to contemporary people is attributed to the types of footwear worn, modern people having more protection due to thicker soles. While modern people walk with a heel first strike on a surface, medieval people would step more gingerly, with the ball of the foot striking first in order to better protect the foot from damage. This would lead to a more elegant and graceful gait compared to our current clodhopper, heel-stomping motion.
While a difference in ambulation makes intuitive sense to me, before giving in on this point to my rude and possibly inebriated medieval ancestor, it’s worth checking with an expert to see if there is any physical evidence to support this notion. (In a previous post, I learned that if you ask a reasonable question and if you can make them laugh, experts may sometimes answer the odd email for the sake of public outreach.) Dr. Eleanor Standley, Associate Professor of Later Medieval Archaeology at Oxford University and Curator of Medieval Archaeology at the Ashmolean Museum, has a research focus on everyday items used in the Middle Ages. I asked her whether there are patterns of wear in medieval footwear that are consistent with a difference in gait. She was kind enough to answer my email:
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“Certainly on medieval shoes the leather sole is relatively thin, compared with some modern footwear, and there is evidence of cobblers’ repairs to soles of shoes found in the archaeological record – but sometimes it is difficult to identify with certainty any resoling. Pattens, however, would also have been worn.
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Wear on shoe remains is found showing ‘normal’ walking: the back of heel touching the ground first, and the foot rolling forward to the ball of the foot, and then finally the toe pressing into the ground, as you continue the movement. But there are examples found with wear patterns suggesting a shuffling gait or walking more on the toes, or striking the ground with a flat foot.”
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So, ha! Thou cream faced loon, there is evidence for equally ungraceful footfalls for people from both your time and mine. But if you truly want to find fault with modern people, lets talk about the Millenials – it’s kind of a spectator sport these days – because these people have some serious problems… “Agreed, thou lump of foul deformity, their sin’s not accidental, but a trade!”
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Image attribution: Holger Motzkau 2010, Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons (cc-by-sa-3.0)
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If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please also visit my author’s website at www.reynafavis.com.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, are available for purchase on Amazon.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before November 30th.
October 17, 2017
October 13, 2017
Liquid Friday with author Reyna Favis
Reblogging on the Introvert Broadcasting Network
This week we are featuring fantasy/supernatural suspense author Reyna Favis and her novel Soul Scent: A Zackie Story.
But before we venture into the Halloween spirit of her supernatural world, lets enjoy a drink that Reyna personally recommends:
The Drink: Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster
I first encountered this drink reading Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and I was smitten. It was described as “like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped ’round a large gold brick.” It has also been described in the novel as “the alcoholic equivalent to a mugging; expensive and bad for the head.” Yum.
Ingredients and Instructions:
Fill a 28-oz. hurricane glass with crushed ice. Add the following in 
order:
1 oz. Everclear® (The ice should sizzle.)
1 oz. Bacardi® 151
1 oz. apricot-flavored brandy
1 oz. triple sec
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. orange…
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September 30, 2017
The Introvert “On Living”
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Kerry Egan, author of On Living, is a Harvard Divinity School-educated hospice chaplain. When one of her patients asked if she could tell the patient’s story, so that others could learn from her life, Egan carefully considered the consequences of taking on such a project. For hospice patients, this was the final gift that these people could leave behind as they departed this life, so the responsibility of getting their stories right weighed heavily. This project required Egan to do justice to illuminating entire human lives, armed only with her words. Far from just passively bearing witness to a life coming to an end, she was actively compassionate, performing an empathetic, philosophical analysis of the central themes and conflicts in their lives. By listening with an ear tuned toward mercy, she allowed these people to unburden themselves of long-held secrets, guilt, unfulfilled dreams and unfinished efforts.
Introverts might do well in the role of hospital chaplain. It is one of the few professions where the art of listening is cultivated and refined as a virtue and acknowledged as a rare human achievement. Speaking, when necessary, must be thoughtful and focused on encouraging a deeper response from the patient. The patients are out of time and it is paramount that time is not wasted on empty platitudes or social banalities. With this perspective in mind, if we consider a typical day, those of us dying a little more slowly waste an unconscionable amount of time in unproductive chatter, given our short, short human lives.
How differently might we behave and interact if we were all more acutely and minutely aware of our own mortality? At first glance, you’d think that this recognition would improve matters, leading people to act more kindly towards their fellow humans, recognizing that the person before them is fragile and temporary. But here’s the paradox: this same recognition also leads to depraved acts of selfishness, justified because time is limited, there may be no tomorrow and whatever gives us comfort, pleasure and feeds the ego in the moment is all that matters. And before we launch into a religious discussion, let’s just admit that belief in an afterlife appears to have no real influence on behavior. Based on this introvert’s lifetime of detailed observation, the average person who would self-identify as either a believer or non-believer could reside in either behavioral camp.
While not your average person, one Catholic nun has done the experiment of keeping the thought of impending death intimately close at hand. Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble decided to follow the long-standing Christian tradition of displaying a visual reminder of personal mortality (a.k.a. memento mori, the Latin Phrase for “Remember that you will die”). The sister placed a ceramic skull on her desk and then applied the more recent tradition of tweeting about it using #mementomori. My favorite tweet, “Decided to start a skull collection but remembered I’m going to die,” was followed by a large amount of tweets concerned with preparing for the end, finding loopholes to avoid death that were consistent with her religious beliefs, and advocating that we devote more time to thinking about eternity than the ephemeral. Sister Theresa Aletheia claims that this meditation on mortality has changed her life.
Memento mori played a role in the lives of people from the Medieval era to the Victorian era. Death imagery and symbols of time running out were depicted on funerary and other forms of art, such as portraits and woodcuts, and also on personal timepieces and public clocks, as well as incorporated into jewelry. Frequently, the reminder of personal mortality was combined with the remembrance of those who had passed on. By the mid-nineteenth century, photography had been embraced by this movement and grieving families captured images of the recently deceased – a final portrait of the departed loved one. In the newest Zackie Story, Soul Sign (coming soon), the story opens with the discovery of some memento mori photographs found during the restoration of the Roseberry Homestead. Since I write by the seat of my pants, I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next. With Kerry Egan’s book forcing me to think about the potential for unfinished efforts, I’ll try to write quickly.
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If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please also visit my author’s website at www.reynafavis.com.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, are available for purchase on Amazon.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before October 31st.
August 30, 2017
Survive the Zombie Apocalypse with the Introvert
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I have not read nearly enough young adult dystopian novels to do this post justice. But I do love zombies, so maybe that will make up for it. Zombies became an item of interest for me that night in college when the student union showed Dawn of the Dead in one of the large lecture halls. There was one scene where a character was surrounded and in a seemingly inescapable situation. Raising the gun to his head, it looked like he was about to end it all. In a sudden change of heart, he blasted his way out into a suicide run, bound for the life-saving helicopter. I’ll never forget how the audience erupted in cheers when he chose to go down fighting, to die trying. Of course, he makes it out alive to die another day, but the emotional reaction from the crowd was not centered on his survival – it was all about the nobility of the struggle.
Struggling to survive is something that Fia, the main character in Soul Search and Soul Scent, has deep expertise. While zombies are not her particular problem, she is under constant assault by grasping, needy earthbound spirits, as well as the economic hardships faced by new adults. The novels follow her journey from neophyte to competence in both the unseen and mundane worlds. To quote the Beatles, Fia gets by with a little help from her friends. Whether it’s to solve the mystery of why a spirit cannot move on to the afterlife or if she needs help making this month’s rent, Fia’s friends are there to see her through.
Friendships aside, the struggle to survive in a hazardous environment might give us introverts the societal permission we need to hole-up away from the madding crowds. One solution to a zombie infestation is an off-grid, UFO-style floating home. Near as I can tell, zombie’s can’t swim, so the homeowner could evade the voracious dead by languidly cruising about the ocean at a top speed of 4 mph. The zombie survivor would power both their locomotion and their home needs through 430 square feet of solar panels mounted on the closable lid atop the structure and through above- and below-deck wind and water turbines. Sea water would be converted to fresh water by an on-board generator, and could either be ingested or shared with a vegetable garden located on the deck that surrounds the structure. This food supply could easily be supplemented by fishing. Food, water and shelter, all in one convenient, self-contained little structure. This floating idyll is a beautiful thing, but based on my particular circumstances, one downside I can foresee is the constant smell of wet dog that would infuse my small, small living space. I suppose a person could get used to anything, so don’t let this dishearten you. If you’re interested in adopting this lifestyle in the absence a zombie apocalypse, the manufacturing company is currently seeking investors to build the first working prototype.
An alternative to a life at sea is a doomsday shelter. These structures are for those who seek a quiet, upper class bunker community to while away the post-apocalyptic years. Unlike the UFO home, these bunker communities are already in existence and, if you happen to belong to a high-net-worth family, you too can buy space at Vivos xPoint, billed as the largest private shelter community on earth. But lest you dive in and start contacting realtors, I should highlight that these communities are not introvert-friendly. The bunker community houses up to 5,000 people and the individual shelters are 26 feet in width and either 60 feet or 80 feet in length, enough for an estimated ten people and a year’s worth of supplies. Alone-time would be really hard to come by. That said, one real advantage of these bunker homes is that if we’ve guessed wrong and the apocalypse does not take the form of flesh-eating zombies, but instead comes to us in the form of a nuclear holocaust, these shelters are rated to be able to withstand a 500,000-pound blast.
I’m crossing my fingers for zombies making an appearance at the end times. This is mainly because the Homeland Security website Ready.gov warns that following a nuclear blast, you should wash your hair with shampoo, but not use conditioner. Conditioner can bind radioactive material to your hair and increase your exposure. If you go to my author website, you’ll see that I have crazy long hair, the kind that chokes dogs and breaks vacuum cleaners. I cannot do without conditioner for any length of time because of the risk of developing a terminal case of rat’s nest. It would be the height of irony to die of suffocation brought on by a rat’s nest, while the rest of the world succumbs to radiation poisoning. Uncool. Just very uncool.
Regardless of how the world ends and whether we wave to each other from crowded bunkers or floating UFO homes, know that I will come to your rescue in an emergency. Should the toilet in your shelter fail, I stand ready with my lame superpower to assist.
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If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please also visit my author’s website at www.reynafavis.com.
Soul Search and Soul Scent, novels of supernatural suspense, are available for purchase on Amazon.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before September 30th.
August 22, 2017
SOUL SEARCH upcoming deals
New to the series? Now’s your chance to catch up.
I’m participating in a Goodreads Giveaway – 5 signed books will go to a few lucky winners. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/250619-soul-search-a-zackie-story
I’ll also be running a Kindle Countdown deal from Aug. 24 – 31. SOUL SEARCH will be $0.99 for these days only. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZBO66R
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August 20, 2017
Soul Scent Available On Amazon
July 31, 2017
The Introvert and the Vampire Agenda
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Remember when I broke my front teeth and considered joining a vampire coven? After reading Ancient Enemies, I have reconsidered this option because of the highly developed level of political intrigue running rampant in covens. If I ever become a vampire, I intend to fly solo to better soothe my introverted nature. I’m pretty sure Rich would be able to put up with the new lifestyle. He’s so far managed to accept the writer’s life and the strange dinner conversations this breeds, so he’d probably barely notice if I took things one step further. He’d do especially well with the blood drinking, since he rarely comments anymore when I consume something from the refrigerator that is long past its due date. It’s unclear where the Greg Diet would rank blood drinking according to the Bullock nutrition equation, but maybe consuming a sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables could allay any negative effects. However, I am almost certain that including non-blood meals would rank me as a poor vampire.
Perhaps there is a place for those who assume the mantle of lord of the night, but who lack the charisma and unnatural grace bestowed on these creatures by Bram Stoker, Ann Rice and Stephenie Meyer. I’ve always been a big fan of the Seanachai’s “The Vampire in the Attic” and I would probably be undead at about the same level of proficiency – on the skids, feeding off inebriated college students and singing along drunkenly to bad 70’s music while squatting in someone’s attic. (N.B.: The music choice is probably where Rich would draw the line.) Unfortunately, after a full review of the current literature, the Seanachai’s vampire appears to be the exception. If Brian McKinley’s vampires are any indication, there is a strong selective pressure to look cool if you want to join the ranks of the undead, and that includes a wardrobe that displays a heavy goth influence. As a writer, I have become extremely fond of wearing sweats in the colder months and t-shirts and shorts when the weather heats up. Besides the politics, the dresscode more than anything else holds me back from the nosferatu lifestyle.
Fashion statements aside, what I like about Ancient Enemies are the spurts of humor, sometimes even giving the reader a chuckle at the expense of the vampire mythos. The most compelling reason to read the story are the main characters, Avery and Caroline. They are imperfect and this makes them highly relatable. Sure, fledgling Avery is equipped with some degree of vampire competence and a burgeoning psychic ability that he works hard to improve – in the same breath, he has an eating disorder and is struggling to come into his own as a recently created vampire. Caroline is Avery’s maker and she is in way over her head as the acting Hegemon of North America. Keeping up with the games and machinations of the much older and politically savvy vampires is a drain on her psyche and a soul-sucking experience, even for the undead. Caroline is forced to camouflage herself in power suits and confident body language to survive this environment.
Both characters are riddled with insecurities and self-doubt. But hey, who wouldn’t be insecure, living in a world where power-hungry Hegemons rule through dark influence and unvarnished violence? Where assignations frequently lead to assassinations? Where everyone’s motives are suspect and infiltrating neighboring powers is a way of life? Reading the story is like being at the court of the Medici’s or eating dinner with upper management. Beneath the thin veneer of civilized discourse lies a savage intent for personal advancement. It makes you want to check your tolerance for iocane powder.
I have given some thought as to how the psychopomp in Soul Search would respond to these vampires. Given her ennui for all things mortal, she would cast a weary eye at these quasi-immortals and wonder at their continued facination for the games of the living. In their defense, the extant vampires are quite young, having been around for only a portion of the time that humans have existed, so perhaps this behavior is understandable. For them, the amusements gained through iterative power struggles and domination have not yet gone stale. In contrast, because life and death go hand in hand, psychopomps have existed since the first self-replicating molecules evolved to a level of sufficient complexity to become aware of their own passing. Such a long tenure of existence leaves little that is still amusing…but, a well-placed bag of flaming dog poo, just where these vampires will emerge when the sun goes down, this might even now elicit a chuffing, canine giggle. What can I say? Our psychopomp is a complex creature, a mixed bag of sophistication and a lowbrow sense of humor. I’ve found there is very little that I can do about that. Apologies in advance to the affected vampires.
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If you would like to comment on anything in these posts, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please also visit my author’s website at www.reynafavis.com.
Soul Search is available for purchase on Amazon. The sequel, Soul Scent, is currently in the hands of the first round of beta readers. I hope to have it published by August, but this is highly dependent on beta reader feedback. If you follow my Facebook author page , you’ll see the very latest on this new book.
If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the three bars at the upper right. The next full post will be available on or before August 31st.
June 30, 2017
We Are A Queer Lot
”There is nowt as queer as folk”
It is an old addage, originating from the north of England, that pretty much sums up people.
We are a strange lot and no mistake, we evolved from apes millions of years ago… and yet we are still monkeying around to this very day!
My family background is a strange one to say the least, as I soon realised while researching my debut book. One half Irish, the other half English and whatever is left over`s Scottish?
I know this doesn`t add up, and yes I was always crap when it came to maths at school.
So you see, few could possibly be more qualified to write an article such as this than myself.
”If the cap fits, wear it”
Yet another witticism from northern England, and had the philosopher Socrates been born in the area I´m sure he would have been even wiser still.
Alas I´m afraid he missed out on this key element in his illustrious life. And even if he is, to this day, reverred by academics as the fountain of all knowledge which I´m sure he was. To the less sophisticated such as myself, he was just another wise old Greek in saggy underpants.
But why are we so strange, I ask myself? Is it individualism, the need to stand out from the crowd, or could it be something else? Genetics? Or is there a strange alien chromosome in our DNA struggling to come to terms with life on Earth?
Now I have never submitted my DNA for analysis, the mere thought of somebody poking their cotton swab around in my mouth and removing the tasty remnants from my previous meal does not exactly endear me to the notion. You see after a good meal I can happily chew for hours on the bits that stick between my teeth and philosophise about life… just like I am now.
” Many a mickle makes a muckle”
A Scottish addage praising the virtues of the covetous.
Now the further north you travel it seems the wiser people become, so it`ll come as no surprise when I say the Scots are undoubtedly amongst the wisest in the British Isles. But wise as they may be, they are equally as strange as the rest of us.
The tightfisted Scot has down the ages been the butt of many a joke. Yes, they are what I would call careful with money, but of all the Scots that I have met I do sincerely believe they have had a raw deal.
I readily admit that I too am careful when it comes to money… whether that makes me tightfisted or just part Scottish is hard to say.
Nope, I have yet to meet a Scot who locked himself in the gents toilets whenever it was his turn to buy a round at the bar.
”Make haste slowly” A Welsh proverb
Now Wales is a beautiful country, its rugged landscape evokes images of a mystical past. On a sunny day I can think of few places on the planet where I would rather be. Sat on a hilltop watching the clouds rolling along the peaks of Mt. Snowdon. Or strolling along the beach when the tide is out, staring out across the Irish Sea and watching the oil tankers glide by.
It is indeed an idyllic land, where life trundles along at a leisurely pace and the sound of Welsh male choirs frightens pregnant sheep into premature labour.
They are a strange race the Welsh, but in a Celtic kind of way, if you follow my meaning. Fiercely proud of their heritage, it would take a brave Englishman to venture deep into southern Wales, and it be advisable, were that the case, he learned the Welsh language a.s.a.p. For in those parts it is English that is the foreign language, and like a parody of the TV series Little Britain, he would soon find himself being the only ”Brit in the village”.
”People are strange”, as Jim Morrison of The Doors once sang, but did you know Morrison is an Irish name?
“Well begun, is half done” An Irish proverb
The Irish are a strange lot, with a language and culture that dates back to God knows when.
The English and the Irish have always been reluctant bedfellows. Each as wary of the other breaking wind between the sheets of diplomacy and bringing an, at times, uneasy relationship to an end.
But for all the Irish jokes we churn out in England, nothing can prepare one for the reality. For the Irish are the funniest of folk, in possession of the most disarming wit imaginable.
If intoxication be the fountain of eternal knowledge, the Irish have it by the barrel load, don`t take my word for it – go there and pull yourself a pint of it.
Yes people are strange, and here in the UK I guess we are undoubtedly stranger than most. But on reflection, the biggest export The Empire gave the world was its culture… and not least its stranger than life customs.
So I guess ”Britannia still Rules the Waves”… in a queer sort of way.
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I hope you enjoyed my eccentric trip around the UK and if you did, well you might also like my debut book A Minger`s Tale – Beginnings which is available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minger-s-Tale-Beginnings-R-B-N-Bookmark-ebook/dp/B01DJAXURM
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