Audrey Driscoll is a blogger/writer who has followed my blog for some time. I have always appreciated her likes and occasional comments, but I only recently returned the favor and started following her blog a few months ago. It’s the kind of writer’s blog I appreciate. Most of the time you don’t even realize she has pursued publishing efforts because much of her blog is dedicated to her other pursuits.
A few weeks ago Berthold Gambrel posted a review of one of Audrey’s books, The Friendship of Mortals. Interestingly, Berthold learned of Audrey from my blog, likely because of a comment she left there that he then followed down the WordPress trail. His review inspired me to read The Friendship of Mortals. And I don’t know why. I’ve never read Lovecraft and haven’t the foggiest idea about his (her?) books and stories, although I’ve heard the name occasionally over the years.
Actually, I do know why. I wanted to show some support for a fellow writer and I hoped for a good story to go along with it.
So, I downloaded the Kindle version of The Friendship of Mortals and spent the next few weeks reading it. I’m ashamed it took me so long to read it because it was a book I could have easily read in a few days or a week in my earlier years. It was that good. I really didn’t want to put it down. But these days, my reading time is limited to the few minutes I can keep my eyes open when I head upstairs at the end of the day, and some occasional opportunities on weekends. Sitting and reading for a couple of hours is a rare occurrence.
Regular readers know that I don’t write typical book reviews. That, in my mind, requires more work than I’m willing to put into reading a book. To do so would, potentially, destroy the joy I experience when I read a good book, and I don’t want to risk losing that joy — a thing that has stayed with me for much of my 53 years on this planet.
The Friendship of Mortals is a well-written tale. I don’t know if it is true to Lovecraft, although Berthold certainly thinks so. What I do know is that I really enjoyed the story and believe Audrey Driscoll deserves more attention than she gets for her writing. The Friendship of Mortals is a book that in a different, better world would be traditionally published and would find an audience. More people should be buying and reading it. If you want more details, you should read Berthold’s review — he’s much better at these things than I.
As the days rolled on and I worked towards the end of Audrey’s book, I knew that I had to finish the book to move on to the next one. The Bone Curse was a-coming, just in time for our trip to Sedona.
I’ve been following and reading Carrie Rubin for years now. The Bone Curse is her third book. She writes medical thrillers and The Bone Curse promised a stretching of her boundaries. A trip, not just through medical mysteries, but also a bit into the supernatural and mysterious world of the vodou religion. After reading her first two books — The Seneca Scourge and Eating Bull — and continuing to read her blog and following her on Twitter, Carrie has become an author I want to keep reading. I want to see how she grows as a writer and what she comes up with next.
It’s an odd thing. There are very few times I’ve viewed writers in this way — wanting to see how they grow. But I think that’s one of the things that e-books and all of the ways books can get published these days has done. Much like Spotify and streaming services have opened many doors for musicians I would have never heard of under the old regime, publishing has been blown wide open as a result of the internet and technology. Carrie is an author I likely would have never heard of in the “old days,” but through social media and less traditional publishing routes, I did.
Carrie very clearly cares about her craft and the quality of what she puts out into the universe. Each of her books has shown her growth as a writer as she spins more complex tales. I can’t wait to see what comes next, but first … The Bone Curse.
The book arrived in the mail a couple of days before we left for Sedona. I took four books with me on the trip, but I knew which book would be first. I started reading The Bone Curse while we waited to board our plane. After the 90 minute flight was over, I was 100 pages in and I wouldn’t have minded hurtling through the rest of the book to the end.
But I was on vacation and we were pretty busy over the next few days. Always, in the back of my mind was the thought “when would I get to pick the book up again.” The Bone Curse is just absolutely relentless. There is no break, no time to relax. Carrie’s ability to just keep moving the action forward, to keep ratcheting up the tension, is displayed from beginning to end in The Bone Curse. If you want a taut, well-written medical/supernatural thriller that will demand your attention and commitment, pick up her book and get started.
It’s interesting, Audrey’s The Friendship of Mortals is a bit different. It’s a bit slower. In my Amazon review of the book, I compared it to baseball. There’s a bit of leisure to it, a bit of poetry. To carry the sports analogy a bit further — Carrie’s The Bone Curse is like an NHL playoff game that’s gone to overtime.
Both Audrey Driscoll and Carrie Rubin are the types of writers who deserve more attention than they’re getting. These ladies are incredibly talented. They are committed to their craft and they write stories that deserve a much larger audience than they are getting. It’s great that the technology-driven explosion of publishing has given them a platform. Now, it’s time for their platforms to expand.
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