I’ve been dipping into my indie catalog lately, featuring an excerpt from the books I’ve published since 2013. This week it’s Town Father‘s turn. This might well be the only historical fiction I ever write, unless you consider a novel set in the early 1970s to be historical fiction. Maybe so. But I had never […]
Tag: Town Father
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Dear Reader, do you belong to a book club? Well, here’s a sale for you and your fellow bookies (or book lovers, whatever): Kevin Brennan’s Town Father is on sale for 99 cents but only through Friday so HURRY! And check out Kevin’s post: he has questions that you can use to guide your book club’s discussion!
Starting today and running through Friday, Town Father is on sale at Amazon for 99 cents. I finally landed an EReader News Today slot!
And this gives me the opportunity to suggest that Town Father would make an excellent choice for book clubs. Don’t just take it from me. Author Carrie Rubin (Eating Bull) introduced the book to her club, which just wrapped up their discussion last week.
Carrie had asked if I might want to prepare a few discussion questions for the group to dig into, which I was delighted to do. I might have gone a little overboard with fifteen questions, but consider them a pick n’ choose menu. You can download a pdf here. (Caution: includes spoilers!)
If you’re in a book club and you’re looking for unique historical fiction about a Gold Country village made up of three…
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My dear friends, I’ve been inspired to write a different kind of review for a novel that is currently ON SALE at Amazon. Kevin Brennan’s Town Father: Where Graceful Girls Abound is available for 99 cents this weekend only. I recommend you pick up a copy now and read my review later. But, it’s a free country. Do as you choose.
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Maggie assayed the kitchen table, using her index finger to count the settings. There were only the four of them tonight, but still she wanted to count and be sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. It was her night to “host” the book club she and her cousins had formed. The core of the club included herself and her two cousins, Melissa and Mary. Lately, Randy, Mary’s boyfriend, had been joining them.
Well, he’d been joining them because he was already there, already spending weekends at Mary’s house. Maggie smiled. She was looking forward to hearing Randy’s take on Town Father: Where Graceful Girls Abound, the latest novel by Kevin Brennan. She had thought of him a lot while reading the novel, imagining him as Henry. Strangely, though, she didn’t imagine Mary as Avis, Henry’s love, although she certainly wouldn’t say that during their meeting.
The tea kettle interrupted her meditation with its high-pitched squeal and, as if on cue, Melissa pulled up in the driveway and Mary and Randy came bounding down the stairs together. She cast a side-long glance at Mary as Melissa entered the house and gave them all chilly hugs.
“I feel like my fingers might just break off like icicles, they’re so cold.” Melissa reached for her cup after Maggie poured in the hot tea, using it to warm her hands. “You need to knit me some new mittens, Maggie.”
Maggie smirked. “Maybe for your birthday.”
“That’s in July! I need them now!”
Ignoring Melissa’s feigned histrionics, Mary placed the subject of their discussion in the middle of the table. To read Town Father in time for the meeting, they took advantage of a recent sale and downloaded the Kindle versions. But Maggie, ever the purist, had to have a bound paper copy. Well worth the cost for that cover alone, she thought as she gazed at the colorful illustration. She picked it up.
“Well, shall we begin? Since this was my choice, I’ll start. I really enjoyed this novel. At times it felt like such a fun romp, you know? It’s historical fiction, around the 1880s forward, and I really felt like I was reading a book from that time. Sort of the same way I feel when I read Austen. Brennan really captures the language, the sentiments of that time. What made it even more fascinating is it’s a utopian novel, about an idealized community of only women. I know utopian experiments weren’t unheard of then, but still, they were usually based on a style of living, like agrarianism, not a separation of the sexes. I thought the community of Hestia was idyllic. Can you imagine living somewhere where everyone contributes according to their skill and you have none of the competition that sets people against each other?”
Mary stirred her tea. She could easily imagine Maggie in such a community, knitting up clothing for the citizens and getting food and shelter and acceptance in return. She glanced over at Randy. For her part, she could only consider such a thing if Randy were her Henry and she were his Avis. Otherwise, not a chance.
“I enjoyed it, too.” Randy’s voice cracked slightly, which it usually did when he was the center of the three cousins’ attention. Mary tried to keep her smile to herself. Indeed, he was like Henry, the man who becomes the Town Father, who provides a truly organic service to the community of 300 women, making sure that their community will grow. Like Henry, Randy has a moral backbone that won’t break and yet he’s amenable to new ideas. At first, Henry was appalled by his “duties” as Town Father, but he quickly (maybe too quickly, she thought) came around to see himself and his “contributions” as part of a greater ideal.
“You know,” Mary started, wanting Randy a chance to gather his thoughts since she knew he was a little bit … shy. “You know, I liked it too, although I would have liked Henry to have been stronger, especially when the circus came to town. I mean, he was there with these women through so much, definitely sensitive to the suspicions of the people near to them, but when that circus comes, he practically runs off with his tail between his legs after the first run-in with the ringleader Hazlitt.”
“But, I think that’s totally in keeping with his character,” Randy said. “He’s a very introspective man and also inclined to blame himself when things go wrong. Remember, he had had his heart broken before.”
Mary blushed as Randy continued, his eyes first directly on her. But as he talked, he looked around, making eye contact with Melissa and Maggie, both of whom seemed to be hanging on his every word.
“I saw a lot of myself in Henry, to be honest. I’d had my heart broken and there was a time when I thought I should just leave, go on some adventure, go somewhere and start over.” He glanced over at Mary and smiled. “Of course, I’m glad now that I didn’t, but, for Henry, it’s exactly what he needed to do. And he’s a man of honor throughout. But he’s naïve, too, not very worldly. It’s almost like he has to leave Hestia to fully realize the importance of Hestia’s mission and to realize how much the community needs him and he needs them.”
Melissa leaned forward, her fingers now comfortably thawed enough for her to tear apart an iced vanilla scone. “I loved the comedy of the novel, too. It was light, not heavy-handed at all, but it was there. Henry was perfect for that. How do you write a novel like this, for today’s audience, without a diffusion of humor, with Henry as the vehicle? I mean, wouldn’t a community like Hestia be like every man’s fantasy? But in other hands, such a novel would deteriorate into something like 50 Shades of Sepia. You need a gullible, good-hearted, and moral gentleman like Henry to keep it from doing that.”
“True.” Randy reached for a slice of banana bread as he spoke. “But he, the author, Brennan, does show what the “average” man would think about Hestia, how debased the women are in the eyes of someone who doesn’t understand. Remember when Henry’s own son returns? That was a heartrending part.”
“Oh, yes, that was genius!” Maggie almost spilled the tea she was pouring into Melissa’s cup. “I was really on the edge of my chair with that section of the novel. And, you’re right, it was a sad part,because you really felt the integrity of Hestia was being threatened, not just by the son who refused to believe in it, but by the fact that it happened at all. It was only because they exiled Paige, one of their own. Well, and that occurred because of the circus … .”
“You can’t keep the world out entirely. And you can’t control what goes on outside in that world.” Randy put his cup down. “You know, the ending surprised me. It was a soft landing, if you know what I mean. The community had had enough drama and at the end, it was time for Henry and Avis to take stock. And it’s interesting because while Henry was definitely in lockstep with the program once he got over the shock, all the time you could feel that he really just wanted to be with one woman. And because of that, well … .” Randy felt Mary’s knee rub against his and he let his voice fade.
“Well.” Maggie sat up straight and Melissa stifled a laugh. Her cousin took her role at these meetings so seriously, she thought. “Well,” Maggie started again. “Shall we vote? I give Town Father 5 stars for originality, humor, and that beautiful cover!”
They all laughed and then, in almost perfect unison, Melissa, Mary and Randy said “Five stars!” and clinked their teacups together.
As the cousins proceeded to dig further into the scones and banana bread that Maggie had baked, Randy sat back and gazed at them. In a way he felt like he might be in his own little Hestia, but he would keep that to himself.***
Well, dear friends, if you’ve read this far, I hope my little review has convinced that you must have a copy of Town Father for yourself. Remember, it’s on sale this weekend only at Amazon.
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What could be better for Valentine’s Day weekend than a novel by Kevin Brennan for only 99 cents! That’s his latest novel, Town Father! The sale starts Friday and lasts through the weekend.

Y’all are the first to hear that, starting Friday, Town Father will be on sale for a mere 99 pennies. The sale runs all weekend and will be listed on EReader News Today on Saturday, so if you’re thinking of buying please snag your copy to help propel TF up the Amazon charts. Think of it as lighting a little bottle rocket.
Don’t worry. I’ll remind you on Friday … and Saturday … and Sunday.
Also, if you missed the announcement yesterday, do check out my new editing service, dubbed Indie-Scribable. The first three intrepid writers to hire me will get a special rate (even lower than those quoted on the website), but all of my clients will receive an ebook of Town Father, Occasional Soulmates, or Yesterday Road at the end of the project.
I’ve set up a new Twitter account for the business — @_IndieScribable
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I’ve been lurking offline of late, infrequently skating by a few blogs or Facebook status updates or tweets. I’ve several reasons for my grayish absence, and only a few of them may redeem me. Guess which.
Reasons for being absent from social media:
- In a pre-holiday funk, which seems to always come around this time of year
- Post-NaNoWriMo funk which coincides with pre-holiday funk
- Reading
- Workplace funk, which is not unusual (pretty much my steady state) but this month particularly funky since my coworkers and I have been scheduled to move back to the building they moved us from two years ago. There may be something positive about this when it’s all said and done, but the process puts me into a funk.
- Major funk because the office move is scheduled for the days between Christmas and New Year, when I had scheduled time off. So instead I will go to work for at least for the time it takes to ensure that my furniture is moved and reassembled properly.
- Christmas shopping online
- Knitting
- Combing my cats for fleas (damn you, global warming!)
- Heat and humidity putting me into an itchy funk
- Facebook funk because, well, facebook.
So you could say I’m in a funk, but I’ve managed to be somewhat productive with reading, shopping and knitting.
Some good news is my husband and I have entered the 21st century and finally bought iPhones. Granted, they are iPhone 5S but we got them at a steep discount, and we’re still using a pay-as-you-go plan (no two-year contracts for us). Interestingly, this came about because my husband was recently prescribed hearing aids which are bluetoothed enabled. With a iPhone app, he can listen to podcasts through his hearing aids. Finally, we found a good reason for him to buy an effing iPhone. (I have to bite my tongue because, although I’ve wanted one for a long time, I never would have gotten such a good deal as what my husband found us.)
Now I’m scheduled to get new hearing aids (after 10 years of running my old ones into the ground). At the moment I’m wearing a demo pair. Unfortunately the brand is different from my husband’s. With mine, I would need to buy an accessory ($$) to “link” my hearing aids with my iPhone. That’s disappointing but since the hearing aids are quite small compared to the ones I used to wear, I can actually wear earbuds at the same time. Ah, modern technology.
And by the way, my husband says people can now stop thanking him for his military service. His hearing aids are coming to him free, courtesy of the VA.
Okay, enough of the funky personal stuff.
In reading the Sunday NY Times, two articles stood out for me (as a writer) …
- From Fashion’s Gaze Turned to Joan Didion in 2015: “I think she very early on carefully crafted an image for herself and understood that personal style was all part of the package of being a writer.” And the article goes on to note that these days, people fascinated with Ms. Didion’s style might know nothing of her writing. Is that okay? A good thing? A bad thing? Inconsequential? What if you have no style?
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From Garth Risk Hallberg, the Literary Wunderkind of 2015: the take-home message seems to be that hype does not always equal success. Yes, more than 30,000 copies of the book have sold, BUT, according to the Wall Street Journal, the novel “would need to sell about 75,000 hardcovers, 75,000 paperbacks and 150,000 e-books to break even.” Would I want this to be my introduction into the literary world? My book touted as being the “Great American Novel,” before the tome (900-plus pages) is even out, and then seeing my Amazon ratings hover around 3 stars? Would I be laughing all the way to the bank, or worried that my lack of expected success will result in a dropped contract and an undesired lengthy tenure as a writing professor? (Nothing against writing professors. I just imagine most of them would prefer to make their living solely off their writing.)
I continue to muse about these and other issues relevant to the world of publishing, and, no doubt, such musing does nothing to alleviate my funky moodiness (or moody funkiness, whichever you prefer). My friend, Kevin Brennan, got me off on a good rant with one of his posts about the economics of writing. Read it and weep if you think all you need to do is pour blood, sweat, tears, and some $$ into your work and the fame (even modest fame) will come. It’s a crowded field, and failed bets for the Great American Novel only make it harder.
And speaking of Kevin Brennan, part of the reading I’ve been engaging in was Town Father, his latest novel. And I’ve posted a traditional review, which you can read here. Yes, you have to go to Amazon to read it because, you know, you’ll want to buy the book.
Now, see, given the funk I’m in, I was thinking I probably shouldn’t post at all until after the holidays. Just call me “Debbie Downer.”
To make it up to you, here’s one of my favorite holiday songs sung by one of my favorite singers. Have a very Merry Christmas, everyone, and a Happy New Year. See you all in 2016 (hopefully, with bells on).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwP_sseBfr0
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Kevin Brennan’s latest novel, Town Father, is NOW available on Amazon! And the best part is, it is available in paperback with an gorgeous cover! Sigh, eye candy for readers :) Don’t waste time. Go get yourself a copy. I’m on my way now :)
Unexpectedly, Town Father has shown up on Amazon and can be purchased in paperback today. I thought for sure it would take two or three days to appear, but CreateSpace and Amazon have become remarkably efficient. Like all Death Stars.
But all the better! You can get your own copy of this fine edition right away.
And my goodness, but doesn’t it look scrumptious? I know, I’m biased, but I think Max Scratchmann outdid himself on the cover image and interior. It’s a real beauty. Matter of fact, if I were to smuggle a copy into a bookstore and plop it on the front fiction table, nobody could possibly tell that it wasn’t published by one of the top traditional houses. One thing I’m thinking of doing, marketing-wise, is to send copies to some of the better-known indie stores out there with a pitch…
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Check out this great cover and blurb for Kevin Brennan’s forthcoming new novel!
Click image for a free pdf of Chapter 1In advance of the paperback’s release, I thought you might like a little look-see at Max Scratchmann’s remarkable cover for Town Father, Or, Where Graceful Girls Abound, along with a bit of teaser text.
Be sure to tell all your friends. Don’t forget, word of mouth is literature’s best lubricant.
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A Town of Nothing But Fallen Women?
Utopia or Ill-fated Experiment?
Scandal in the Foothills!
Three hundred independent-minded women in 1880s California have embarked on an impossible journey: to establish a town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada composed exclusively of women. The only way for the singular town of Hestia to succeed, though, is for a second generation of residents to come along, and the women imagine there must be, somewhere in the country, a benign and willing gentleman who can help them. In short…
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