Doorways – A Cozy, Rural Fantasy

About The Book

When his estranged grandfather dies, William Hanlon, the last surviving member of an old West Virginia clan, returns to the family estate to settle his affairs, only to discover that his family were not just community leaders, but also the guardians of an ancient doorway between the human and fae worlds. To accept that responsibility, William must embrace all the things his grandfather hid from him, forge new connections with the people he’d been cut off from, and rebuild a community and a tradition of guardians that had nearly died out in his family’s last generation.

And maybe find a boyfriend. Surely that’s not asking too much?

Details

The link to the book on Amazon is here: https://a.co/d/6mc2xUs

Have a look at this book cover, y’all, it’s fricken amazing!

Mousam Banerjee is the artist. I sent him a description of what I was looking for, along with reference photos, and he vastly exceeded my expectations. This blows my mind. I can only hope that the book is as good as the cover, or I may be sued for false advertising!

(It’s just an eBook for now. Amazon has a special Kindle publishing thing where if you list the eBook with them for the first 90 days — no other formats there, and no eBook presence on other sites, they like you more. I gather that’s important. I’ll probably see about a physical book later.)

For those of my [friends/family-members/acquaintances] who make it to this page, I want to be clear, here: I am not trying to push this book on anyone. No “If you were really my [friend/family-member/acquaintance], you’d read my book!”. As I'll describe later, *I* like the book — I laughed, I cried, it’s a part of me now — but I’m really publishing it because my brain seems to think it’s the last step of the process, and won’t let me move on otherwise. Stupid brain.

But, still…. My friend Jenni was very insistent that I not do my usual self-deprecating thing and tell you all the reasons that you shouldn’t read it. I suppose she has a point. ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄

So, what I’ll do instead is give you a few descriptors, and you can decide if it’s something you’d be interested in or not, and no harm no foul either way.

• It’s a cozy novel. It’s mostly about people figuring out both their lives and some weird, magical stuff that happens to intersect with their lives. There’s more time spent discussing food than there is discussing anything threatening.
  
  
• There’s not a whole lot of stress involved: there are maybe 3 places that resemble fight scenes and they’re over *real* fast. It is not a desperate quest to defeat Dark Forces™️ and put the One True Heir on the throne. If you need a driving conflict to enjoy a book, this probably isn't for you.
  
  
• There are some pretty funny bits, if I do say so myself. And, to be clear: I do. I mean, I used to write technical documents for work that people found entertaining — you know how hard that is? (Spoiler: it’s hard.) I wrote a travel blog for a while that my friends thought was funny and this is kind of more of the same. Like if I had traveled to West Virginia instead of Chiang Mai, and wrote about a doorway to the Elflands that I found there. If you never read my blog, well, you’ll have to take my word for it. Good stuff. 😁👍
  
  
• There’s some emotional, personal growth stuff. Please, for the sweet love of gods, don’t assume it’s about me. Like, my main character starts off as the last surviving member of his family, while most of my relatives are still alive. I did *not* kill y’all off in some weird, fictional, wish fulfillment, really, I didn’t! 😇
  
  
• There is queer romance running through the whole thing. Don’t worry, it’s not a kissing book. Ok, there are a couple of kisses, but nothing you wouldn’t have seen on network TV circa 1975. It’s entirely G-rated, nothing stronger than some innuendo. I don’t think I could stop laughing long enough to write erotica. So, if erotica (or, gasp!, queer erotica) is the sort of thing that would worry you, never fear. (Unless simply knowing that queer relationships exist is the sort of thing that worries you, in which case: be afraid. Be very afraid.)
  
  
• It’s a long book, not gonna lie. If this were 1990 and I’d found an agent and a publisher, they’d have probably made me split it into two books, cause it’s almost exactly 2 books long and has a plot division neatly in the middle. I’m hoping it will feel like, “Cool, there’s a lot of it,” rather than “Gods, isn’t it over yet?” but that’s really in your hands, not mine. If anyone pays cash for it, at least they’ll be getting high word count per dollar. That’s what people look for, right? Right?!

Speaking of paying: This blog post is meant for friends and family, and I have zero interest in trying to convince y’all to shell out real money for my little artistic endeavors. So I’m going to be sending you folks a Dropbox link where you can get the book in your choice of formats, if you’re so inclined. I have discovered that every eBook system (Kindle, Kobo, B&N, Apple, etc) has a slightly different way of displaying ePub books, so pick the one that best suits your needs. For example, with Amazon, you can pick the “Doorways-Kindle.epub” file, download it, and email it to your Amazon Kindle address, and then it will show up in your Kindle and you can read it without buying it.

For the rest of y’all: it’s on Kindle Unlimited, so it’s free there if you have that. I have to keep it there exclusively for 3 months, according to their rules, but then I can post it elsewhere too. Your call what you want to do with that.

And, finally: I will not be asking *any* of you if you’ve read it. There’s zero pressure. Read it if you like, and I hope you enjoy it! If you don’t, no worries, I won’t be offended. (Even if it’s somehow objectively good, cozy novels aren’t to everyone’s tastes. No harm, no foul.).

If you do find you liked it, and want to leave a nice Amazon review, I wouldn’t say no! In fact… I would say yes! But, please don’t say that you know me. “I used to change his diapers, and he’s grown up to be such a talented boy!” is not a winning review strategy, sad to say.

And if you read it and don’t like it… I’m not sure. I was going to write, “Just don’t tell me!” But, ya know, whatevs. Crush my dreams, I don’t mind. <sniffle> I can take it!

I will still love you! ❤️

(Mostly.)