Authors I Apppreciate

I have been an avid reader of fiction all of my life. Every author writes in order to be read–stands to reason doesn’t it? And yet I have found that publishers of fiction are the biggest impediment to aspiring writers due to their often impersonal and cutthroat manner. Most writers can tell you about the scores of negative responses (or non-responses) from editors and publishers. Too often their minds are made up as to what they are looking for…and often they don’t see very well-read! Most seem to want another Harry Potter or the like, i.e. a money-spinner and not a provocative voice. In any case, as much as my busy retired life in France will allow me, I have decided to share names and works of authors I like to read.

I am going to start with the author I have mostly recently discovered (thanks to his sister!). His name is Drew Bridges. Click on his name to learn more about him and his works. Below is his most recent novel along with my review on Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Bierce Is Dead and Well…Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2022

Whether or not you are familiar with works of “Fierce Bierce,” his amanuensis, Drew Bridges, will clue you in to his life and personality. True to Bridges’ professional life of working with troubled minds/souls, he brings his experience with the inner workings of hurting humanity to front and centre as various persons, including Bierce and his thinly disguised Buddhist friend, “Sid,” get involved in the ‘lives’ of both the dead and the living. If you care at all about your fellow human beings, you will find yourself drawn into this interesting romp through the afterlife as each person seeks ‘resolution’ with who they were and now are. Or, if you are simply drawn to a good murder mystery, you’ll get that as well. Lots of good twists and turns to keep you on your mental toes. This novel is both thoughtful and entertaining.

The ghost of Ambrose Bierce, American writer and civil war Union soldier, has been displaced from the home he had been haunting. Enlisting the aid of a “haunting agent,” he finds a new residence that has the requisite dark history and terrible secret that makes it appropriate for haunting. Here he meets new spirits who reside in this version of the afterlife, a middle place between life and the ultimate destination.

Against his intentions, Bierce becomes caught up in the unsolved mystery of his new haunt. In partnership with an old friend, a Buddhist priest named “Sid” who has inhabited the spirit world for 25 centuries, he reluctantly involves himself in the matters of still living people. Bierce and his friend also become aware of the presence of mysterious “others” who are spirits who never held human form. Bierce, Sid, and other new spirit friends ultimately find themselves as part of a quest to save a human life, rescue another spirit from oblivious, and discover the identity of the “others.”
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