Carrie Rubin and Audrey Driscoll — Authors Who Deserve More

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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A Timely Read

Carrie Rubin is one of my favorite writer/bloggers.  I’m not sure if the statistics would bear this out, but I feel like she was one of the first writer/blogger I started to follow and who followed back and ever since, it’s been, I hope, a mutually rewarding experience of reading and sharing each others thoughts as expressed through our posts.  So, too, she has published a novel, Seneca Scourge, that was an enjoyable read.  Now comes her second novel.

Eating Bull is Jeremy’s story.  He 15 years old and obese.  As he struggles to deal with his weight and life’s issues — like a surly grandfather who nicknames him Eating Bull, the school bullies who ratchet up their attacks on him, and the stresses that lead him to over-eat — he gets swept up in a lawsuit brought against the food industry.  All while a murderer seems to be stocking the overweight.

Eating Bull is a murder mystery/thriller with plenty of potential suspects and questions along the way.  It’s well-written with characters you want to cheer for, but not necessarily in an uncomplicated way.  Even the heroes have their flaws.  And it passes the key test of such a story … it’s a page-turner, pulling the reader along to the finish.

It also deals with a social issue that continues to grow in this country and I think Carrie pulls it off well.  While one or two of the characters gets preachy and holier-than-thou about the issue of overeating and the food-eating industry’s role in the obesity epidemic, the book itself isn’t preachy.  Those characters who are preachy — well, it fits their character and fits the arc of the story.  It would be somewhat odd to have characters in their roles who weren’t somewhat over the top in their views of the issue.  So, well done, Carrie, well done.

* * * * *

Which leads to why this book is timely for me.  I’m 51 years old and while I’m not obese, I’m about 10-15 pounds above what I’d like to be and I’ve battled that weight for a handful of years now.  I remember back in my 30’s working with a few people who were older than me, who looked enviously at what I consumed and nodded knowingly.  “Don’t worry.  It’ll catch up to you when you’re 40.”  Or 50.  I shuddered at the thought that I would one day have to watch what I ate and swore that I would remain active enough through running and cycling and other activities that I would continue to be able to eat without care for years and years to come.

Well, yeah, maybe not.  I have spoken these words:  “I had a big lunch, I’d prefer something light for dinner.”  My god, what happened to me?  In addition to the inevitability of age, I tore a groin muscle a few years ago and it knocked me back a bit.  My regular exercise routine took a big hit and it’s been a struggle ever since.  For a lot of reasons and because of that, I’ve known I need to change my eating habits.  And, damn, if that’s not ridiculously difficult to do.

Here’s the other thing … I have long said I really have only one ism.  It’s ageism.  I have long struggled with older people.  I’ve struggled the patience needed because they move slower, think slower.  You know, patience is not one of my virtues.  Reading Eating Bull, I realized I’ve been wrong all these years.  I have another ism.  It’s weightism.  While I would never call somebody fatso, or pig, or ridicule them for their weight, I have no patience for people who are excessively overweight.  I’ve struggled to understand “how they can let themselves get that way.”  Why can’t they control their eating?  What is wrong with them?  Don’t they realize what they’re doing to themselves and their families?

And I realized something reading Eating Bull — as Jeremy struggles with those life stresses and finds release in food time and time again — that I am no better and no more in control.  I have my food/drink addictions and let them control me no matter how much I know not to.

For years I have battled to stop drinking soft drinks.  And the battle goes on.  Every morning, I say to myself “No Pepsi today.”  And as the morning progresses, at work this happens and that happens, and rather than having the natural lemonade drink in the fridge, I crave the sweet release of a cold, carbonated, massively over-sugared Pepsi and more often than not, I give in to its siren call.

For a couple of years I have battled to stop drinking beer.  And the battle goes on.  Every morning, I say to myself “No beer today.”  And as morning turns into afternoon and evening approaches, my commitment weakens and by the time I get home, well, a couple of beers later, the evening is done.  The reality is that neither of these things is necessarily fatal to my existence, but I do know that my beer consumption has creeped up over the last couple of years and, given my general lack of physical activity (at least in compared to pre-groin injury), the calories are not helping me.

What’s even worse, however, is my inability to eat healthier.  A few months ago, I set out to eat healthier lunches at work.  Salads, crackers with hummus, carrots, a piece or two of string cheese.  Something better than the pizzas, burgers, Mexican food, and the like that filled my weekly lunch menu.  But, you know …

A couple of weeks ago, I made carne asada for tacos one Sunday night.  There was left over meat, so I used it to make a healthy salad for lunch the next day.  I dutifully packed it up and put it in the fridge at work.  Where it sat for the entire week as those lunch time cravings took over.  Just as Jeremy in Eating Bull did, I found release and satisfaction in the greasy goodness of a cheeseburger, in the spicy bite of tacos and chips and salsa.  All sandwiched between sips — no, gulps — of the sweat, carbonated beauty of an ice-cold Pepsi.

It’s really kind of amazing how food does this to a person.  When I was a kid, my mom packed lunches for us — they always consisted of either a bologna sandwich or a PB&J sandwich, a fruit, and a couple of cookies or a hostess product.  Because of that sweet treat at the end of every lunch, it took me decades to kick the sweet craving that came after every meal.

And why is it that, when under stress, when dissatisfied with life’s events, we find comfort in the greasiest, fattiest, sugariest (is that a word?), most high calorie foods there are?

All I know is this … when I’m at work, and the morning has gone to hell, which it all too frequently does these days, and I’m thinking about lunch, there is a big blinking sign that says “Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi!!!!”  And below those words are an image of the greasiest, cheesiest double cheeseburger you can possibly imagine.  That salad in the fridge, the tub of hummus with the crackers?  Nah … absolutely will not provide me with what I feel I need in that moment.  And all too frequently, it is the craving that gets sated.

So, yeah, I get it now.  Jeremy’s inner battles as described in Eating Bull are spot on and describe what many people experience, even if they aren’t obese.  Battles.  Daily battles.

 

If I Only I Could Bottle This

From a fellow blogger, writer, author … who has managed to get a deal from a small publisher focused on e-books … via her Twitter feed.

Am reading ‘Weed Therapy’ by @MkPaxson. It captures the restless angst that comes with a stagnant life brilliantly

I thanked her for the kind words and she replied…

You’re welcome. You have such talent. I predict you’ll be a well-known author name someday. Have you thought of seeking an agent?

Well, yes, and I’ve never got past the query letter.  I don’t know how to crack the code.  And the thing is that I know that everything I’ve got coming is better than One Night in Bridgeport or Weed Therapy.

I’m still baffled by the idea that somebody might think I have talent.  Accepting compliments has never been my strong suit, but I’m working on it.  What I really need to do is figure out how to translate those compliments into a larger audience.  What I really need to do is figure out how to get this stuff … OUT THERE!

Thank you, Carrie Rubin.  Your kind words have made for a much happier Tuesday evening than might otherwise have happened.  And if you haven’t checked out Ms. Rubin’s first novel, The Seneca Scourge, you should.  There’s a lot more talent out there.

.

 

 

The Seneca Scourge — Yikes!!

You’ve got your deadly flu bug spreading death across the globe.  You’ve got your attractive medical researcher trying to figure out what’s up with the handsome new virologist who’s sneaking around, doing strange things — but is, well, alluring.  There’s the orderly who doesn’t seem trustworthy and the boyfriend who is soon to be an ex-boyfriend constantly getting in the middle of things and misinterpreting so much.  And, well, I feel a sneeze coming on, my throat’s a little scratchy, and I’m feeling a might clammy.

But, what I can tell you is that on a day I took off from work with the idea that I was going to make some progress on a couple of different projects, I found myself reading the final 60% of The Seneca Scourge by Carrie Rubin.  It’s a medical mystery with a science fiction twist (which, to be honest, is not my favorite part of the story).  It’s got enough medical jargon to be smart but not enough for the reader’s eyes to glaze over.  And, well, when I found myself wanting to read it and get to the end and those other things I was going to today kept getting pushed back, it tells you something about the page-turning nature of the book.

Well done, Ms. Rubin.

Friday Follies

I’m reading The Seneca Scourge by Carrie Rubin.  It’s about an influenza epidemic that is going to end the human race as we know it … maybe.  Not far enough yet to know for sure, but I know this.  As I’m reading it, I’m getting a scratchy throat, runny nose.  I’m feeling headachy and … well, thanks a whole heck of a lot, Carrie.

 

In other news, have I mentioned that I’m going to the Giants playoff game tomorrow.  🙂