Yes, it's been a while. Over the past six months, I've begun to wonder whether I'm just too old to be marketing self-published books in this crazy world we're living in. But maybe "old" isn't the right word; I think I'm just too "old-fashioned," still clinging to the way things used to be -- before the Internet and cell phones and social media. You know, back when the word "friend" meant someone you met for coffee instead of someone who "shared" your most recent post on Facebook!
MIRROR VISION, which I'm releasing in July, is actually the first novel I wrote. I began it in 2001, when I was teaching English at Queen Anne School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. I wrote during breaks between classes, and at home on the weekends, and over the summer months between school years. By the time QAS closed in June of 2011, I had about 200 pages written. In the first year of my retirement, I finished MIRROR VISION and began writing FINDING ERIN CAMPBELL.
So, why did I release ERIN first, and save MIRROR VISION until 2016? I'm not totally sure. ERIN and BEAUTIFUL LIES are both contemporary novels, more realistic in the traditional sense. MIRROR VISION is set in a slightly alternate reality (perhaps a few years in the future, when things are happening that aren't happening now). There's a touch of sci-fi in this story -- no space ships or aliens, but other things that might not quite be possible today.
The story centers on two seventeen-year-old girls. Kay grew up in a "self-contained living environment" at Replications, Inc., without any access to the real world. She has never seen the sky, or birds, or cars, or books, or movies. She's never been to school or solved an algebra problem. And she has absolutely no idea that there is such a thing as the "opposite sex." Kate Marcellus, on the other hand, grew up in suburban California, daughter of a wealthy computer magnate and his socialite wife. But Mrs. Marcellus isn't pleased with her sullen, disagreeable daughter, who wears the wrong clothes, eats too many candy bars, and hangs around with a low-class boy driving an unsuitable car.
When Mrs. Marcellus insists on activating the "substitution clause" in her contract with Replications, Inc., Kay and Kate find themselves taken from everything they've ever known and thrown into worlds neither of them knew existed. Kay must learn the truth about the place she has always called Home, and Kate must face the reality of her mother's ultimate betrayal.
MIRROR VISION is a very different novel from ERIN or BEAUTIFUL LIES. I hope you'll want to read it. I'll post more when it's available on Amazon. Until then, thanks for hanging in there with me.