Category: Books

I completed my 10th short story over the weekend, and it felt great when I typed THE END. With each story, the tension builds, and I hope that by the conclusion of the book, the reader is left surprised by the ending.

I’m now in the process of editing the short stories. Given that they take place in the same world, I’m paying attention to the details, making sure that they’re consistent and that they interconnect.

Writing 10 short stories back to back was a challenge. With a novel, I can just continue the storyline and keep moving forward with the same characters, but with 10 different stories, I’m creating a new storyline and a new set of characters each time. Most of the stories in the collection take place in the same town, with some of the characters appearing in other stories.

It’s been a goal of mine to create a short story collection, since I’ve been a fan of reading short stories for years. I remember reading Isaac Asimov’s Robot Visions years ago, and being hooked by each story, which delved into the laws of robotics–putting the laws to the test.

I’m also a fan of Shirley Jackson, who is well known for her short story The Lottery, amongst other stories. Her short stories take you to a different state of mind where things are out of kilter. Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson are other writers whose short stories I enjoy. It’s amazing how short stories can take you to a different place and time–the impression they can leave on you.

In other news, if you haven’t pre-ordered Kitewell yet, you can do so at Amazon. I’m excited to release it on Saturday, May 30th, 2020. Although it is a YA story, all readers can enjoy the story.

I plan on releasing the paperback version around the same time as the ebook. I’m very happy with how everything turned out with the book. In the Afterword of Kitewell, I describe my struggles writing the book, and how I eventually came to complete it.

As I work on my 10 short story collection, I recently finished the 8th story. The stories are interconnected, so I’ve been keeping track of details to keep them consistent and tied together. The overall storyline is linear, and although most of the stories involve a new set of characters, the background scenario has an influence on each story.

It’s been quite a challenge to plot and finish each story, since it is kind of like writing mini-episodes for a series. But I do like how each story gives you a facet of what’s going on and how the larger picture is affecting the characters. The story becomes more apocalyptic toward the end, but it is hopeful as well.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Kitewell

by Fallton Havenstonne

Giveaway ends May 30, 2020.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway

My newest novel, Kitewell, will be released on May 30th on Amazon. The giveaway on Goodreads will run from May 11th – May 30th. A print copy of the novel is forthcoming.

I’ve completed editing my newest novel, which I plan to release either in May or June of this year. It is a YA novel with plenty of magic in it. It was a 3 year journey to complete, and in the book, I have included an afterword that explains the process.

I’ve started another project which will be a collection of short stories. It’s more in the vein of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone–stories about the bizarre, with strange twists and turns. I’ve started one story already and am wrapping it up.

I’ve been wanting to write a collection of short stories for awhile. But instead of having distinct stories with no relation to each other, these stories will interconnect, though they will only be related because of a worldly event that has occurred.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, is a fun and engaging ride through the world of Narnia as seen through the eyes of its characters. The story is about four kids: Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter, who are staying in a house of a professor in England during the air raids of WWII.

While playing hide and seek, Lucy hides in a wardrobe. As she reaches into the recesses of the wardrobe, she discovers a world of snow and forest. She meets a faun, Tumnus, who takes her to his place for some rest. But later, Tumnus admits that he kept there so that the white witch could find her. He also tells her that the witch has made it winter in Narnia, but Christmas never arrives.

Tumnus decides to help Lucy escape before the witch finds her. When Lucy returns to her world, she realizes that hardly any time has elapsed since she was gone. When she tells the other kids what she saw, no one believes her.

Later in the story, she and Edmund enter Narnia separately. He encounters the white witch, and she offers him Turkish Delights to win him to her side. He has aspirations of becoming a king there, but only if he brings the other kids to the witch.

After they leave Narnia, Edmund tells the other kids that Lucy made all of this up. But they end up going to Narnia altogether, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Father Christmas, Aslan, and other characters.

The story is a fun and fast read. There is lots of adventure with gripping tension as we discover how the witch is using Edmund. Like The Magician’s Nephew, the story is humorous and has great illustrations by Pauline Baynes.

The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S. Lewis, is a fun story about two kids (Digory and Polly) that find magical rings in Digory’s uncle’s study (Uncle Andrew). The rings allow the two kids to teleport between worlds.

They first end up in a wood area with pools where they can choose which worlds they decide to teleport to. The rings have an order to them as well (yellow to enter, green to leave).

They decide to take a chance and explore a random world. Upon entering, they discover the ruins of a kingdom. They run into the witch Jadis, after Digory rings a bell which awakens her. They learn of a war that had transpired in her world, and her plans to escape to rule another world using her magic.

The kids must stop her, and in the process, they bring people from their world along to Narnia incidentally. There, we’re introduced to Aslan, the lion, and he awakens other animals that can speak. There is a biblical reference to the forbidden fruit. Digory must make a choice whether to bring the apple back to save his mother despite Aslan’s warning.

The story is easy to read and has funny humor in it as well. The end of the book is a precursor to the next book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It also establishes a quality about the wardrobe in the next book.

I also enjoyed the illustrations in the book by Pauline Baynes. They’re colorful and complement the book’s magical storyline.

I’ve been working hard on a new novel that’s coming out soon. It’s a YA/urban fantasy novel with magic and lots of mystery.

I made it a goal this year to complete 4 novels, and I’m getting close to finishing number 3. The 4th novel is still up in the air, but I know I’d like to take a break after novel number 3 and complete number 4 later on this year. If you haven’t checked out Rogue Experiment or The Birnbaum Case, please check those out. They’re out on Amazon as well as iBooks.

Sometimes I am just interested in so many books that it’s hard to focus on one. I might try to read a little a bit of each book, but one book usually ends up winning my attention. Especially with longer books, it’s a commitment to follow through and get to the end. I feel that if I slip away into another story while I’m in the middle of one book, I’ll start forgetting the details of the last book, and it would be harder to return to it later.

One analogy is movies. It would be like watching a movie, pausing it a quarter of a way through, watching another movie, pausing it a quarter of the way through, then switching to the first. The momentum is gone. It’s not the same experience. The focus has been disrupted.

I end up reading one book at a time anyway. It’s one of those things where you have to make a wishlist and prioritize what you want to read first.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Birnbaum Case

by Fallton Havenstonne

Giveaway ends March 23, 2020.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway

Enter for a chance to win one ebook copy of The Birnbaum Case. The giveaway ends on March 23rd.