K.D. Dowdall's Blog, page 60

New Release

 

Anna and Garrett are ordinary teens growing up in a small farming community in Connecticut in 1960. One day they find themselves as suspects in the horrific killing of a young girl named Sarah Smith. Anna and Garrett happened upon the ravaged body of the young girl while hiking through their beloved and possibly haunted forest. They are more than witnesses to the crime scene as suspicion falls heavily on Garrett. Garrett is not your average teen.  He is considered strange by almost everyone in town.  Anna and Garrett decide to prove their innocence by conducting their own investigation that puts them dead center in the real murderer’s sights.  There are dark secrets and malevolent forces in their old colonial town that have lay hidden since the year 1680—until now!  Together, Anna and Garrett search for clues to find the killer as the ghosts of the past collide with the present evil.  They both realize it will be up to them to fight the evil that has taken over their loved ones and their community.

New Release – October 26 2016

A Vessel – Is That What a Woman Is?

A Young Woman Speaks Out…

“Just thinking…. There are instances in which women are dehumanized while simultaneously being super-womanized which are indicative of impossible expectations placed on women by outside forces. Which means that a woman gains by virtue of what she is to others not by virtue of what she really is. I was remembering a poem, “Nazareth”, by Rosario Castellanos, in which she confronts the age old symbol of a vessel as a symbol of what a woman should be. A vessel is an object which serves whatever purpose is given to it. A vessel only gains value by being able to successfully hold and maintain that which is put into it. Vessels can also be filled with expectations.

“Like all vessels, fragile. Like all vessels, too small for the destiny poured into it”.

Why is it that we expect more from women than men? Why is it when a man shatters a vessel, so many run to his rescue, clean up, and make excuses while we blame women and hold them accountable when their’s shatter and offer no such support? I’m just going to leave this here.”

Whoever this young woman is, she is brilliant. In a few words she has stated the plight that woman world wide have born since the triad of religions that see women only has vessels, inasmuch, to hold them accountable for mankind’s failure to be civilized.

 

 

New Release of Garrett’s Bones – October 2016

What if your soulmate was really the spirit of a  Native American Indian that has come back to make amends for wrongs done to his people and taken over the body of Garrett, Anna’s longtime  friend that she had fallen in love with. Garrett and Anna appear to be ordinary teens growing up in a colonial farming community in New England in 1962. One day they find themselves as suspects in the horrific killing of a young girl named Sarah Smith.  They decide to prove their innocence by conducting their own investigation that puts them dead center in the real murderer’s sights. Yet, there are dark secrets and malevolent forces in their pre-revolutionary Salmon Brook Settlement that have lain hidden since 1680 A.D, until now!  Garrett and Anna begin to realize that everyone in their community is threatened and it is up to them to fight the evil that has taken over their loved ones and their community.

 

Touched The Caress of Fate

Touched: The Caress of Fate, is a strange take on a teenage love story, but I liked it anyway. Instead of graphic sex there are earnest and heartfelt feelings, pages of feelings, well done, I thought - but then again, I am a romantic at heart. The sense of the story premise, is a first love, a true love, a sense of a soul connection that takes the main characters by surprise, an unwanted surprise, at first. The teenage girl is innocent, pure, inasmuch as she had never dated, yet her feelings are so strong, despite her own reservations and concerns, concerns that are also fearful. There are interesting biblical passages, such as a hatred of witches portrayed as evil incarnate figures (a myth of course), Greek gods and goddess stories that I found interesting and quite telling as a back drop to the story. All in all, the novel is a rather contemporary Christian take on good and evil and a true love that defies both.

Story of a Secret Heart

Story of a Secret Heart (Kindle Edition)
This is a story of a secret heart surviving a long term relationship when one part of that relationship walks away because of another secret relationship in the most mean-spirited of departures. This profoundly engaging story keeps the reader turning the pages with the survivor at first nose-diving into an abyss of misery as she starts partying, drinking too much and sleeping around, sometimes with nefarious men that could put her in very real danger.
We are not surprised by her actions, because we can understand how a broken heart tries to compensate for the wretchedness in body and soul dealing with infidelity, being discarded, and the innocent youthfulness that comes with believing in someone that destroys one’s sense of trust and love.
On the other hand, this story is funny, charming, adventurous, and bravely put forth in the most heart-warming way. I laughed until I cried at some of the funniest circumstances this naive girl found herself caught up in. I highly recommend this novel for any girl who has experienced heartbreak and the way to becoming whole, wiser, and happier.

A Book Review: Eternity by Maggie Shayne

Eternity, by Maggie Shayne, winner of The Best Paranormal Romance’s Reviewers Best Award,  is one of the great paranormal Romance novels, if the not the best on the topic of witches, that I have read, in a very long time. A wonderfully intriguing story to capture your imagination, great characters that you feel for, hope for, and wish that everything in the end will work out. It is a beautiful romantic love story, in the best terms, sensual, but not erotic. I loved it and plan to read the other two books in this series.

GONE by S. C. King – A Book Review

Gone, by S. C. King, begins as a missing person dilemma  that becomes a series of dark complications as two sisters deal with a secret involving crime and murder. There complicated lives become unwound, unbound, and their terrible secret leads to other dark revelations. The novel, Gone, is complex with dark secrets, some by intentions, others by sheer fate. It is a crime story, with a detective that surely gets in over his head. I must add that I found myself lost in the mix a few times and in order to make sense of it, a slow careful reading is necessary. This novel is for those readers who love a complex series of actions that create mysteries that one never expected and neither did the author.

Welcome to My Author Page

About Being a Writer of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Supernatural Fiction

When I decided to write fantasy fiction, instead of just dreaming about it, I decided the best place to start would be with Stephen King. Who better to learn from than a master fiction writer?  I purchased Stephen King’s book, “A Memoir of the Craft – On Writing” in the year 2011, read it several times, highlighted tantalizing concepts, and tabbed dozens of pages until I had outlined the entire book.

However, I soon realized that reading about writing, noting every conceivable point of interest does not necessarily create a master fiction writer or even a mediocre fiction writer.  I stopped reading books on writing and just started reading books of every description: classical, historical, philosophical, and archeological fiction, and all the genres.

I happily read dozens of books—good, I thought, now I can start writing the fantasy mysteries I was dying to put to paper. Yet, I hesitated, the fear I had lived with for so long came back to haunt me.  Even though I looked at the world through fantasy colored glasses, I had a terrible fear of ineptitude.  I was the student who couldn’t spell, never learned phonics, and a homonym is what? Regardless, I somehow managed to get a Bachelor’s, a Master’s, and even a PhD.  I was a competent mimic.

So, what did Stephen King teach me? Stephen King taught me how to trust my instincts when he wrote, “stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.”  “Stories”, writes King, “are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.”  Stephen taught me to lean heavily on my intuition, my inner sense of things without the mimicking and sense of ineptitude.

Then one day as I was watching a funny little mouse scurrying through the woods, I had an epiphany that opened my eyes to the truth. I knew I had always walked through this world wearing fantasy colored glasses where every nook and cranny was rich with fantastical possibilities—like magical stones, talking trees, whispering air, mumbling water, and things, like humans, who walked the earth. I was a writer. I have now written two fantasy novels, numerous short stories, and I am working on my third novel. (Oh, yes, lest I forget. That funny little mouse became my first short story: Bella, the Winter Mouse.)

****Stephen King’s seminal work on writing sits on my writing desk as my constant reminder that fiction writing is a journey, a fantastical foray into the unknown.

 

 

THE STARLING

THE STARLING
The dystopia novel, The Starling, is an exceptionally exciting foray into a world, our world; that may exist in the future. The author, Kathy Lauren Miller, uses real scientific possibilities that are actually on the drawing board of technological advances as we speak. She carefully crafts two characters, like Jamie, a young girl in an emotional crisis and, by a twist of fate, is transported through time to earth’s dystopian future where humans are dominated by a malevolent AI and various degrees of terrifying humanoids. Jamie is used as bait to draw out free humans who live like Outliers on the hidden fringes of society. A secret alliance inside this dystopian world alters the internal program of a guardian humanoid, Quinn, sent to watch Jamie. What happens between them creates in its path a different way of thinking and hope for the future. I highly recommend this intensely satisfying novel of dystopia.