Dear Reader…
Luna
decides to write about her terrible experience in a foreign country with an ancient
culture and a deadly history. Not only to tell the world about it, but also to
help herself heal. Can writing help you heal?
Yes, it can. And if you want to know more about it, give
this post a try: Write
To Save Your Life (or, at least, your psyche). It’s one of my inspirations in
writing the book.
Like
Luna, I had brothers who couldn’t be bothered with a sister. So, I read and
drew; then, I wrote to let out steam. I wrote on available pieces of loose paper that sometimes had already been
used, like computer print paper with holey edges that came out of those old
mainframes. I never kept a journal like Luna does. Nor even an ejournal like
that of Lucien’s.
Anyway,
these days, I write stories instead, my characters assuming my thoughts, frustrations,
and joy. Yes, there’s a part in all my characters that reflect a little part of
me. I think it’s inevitable even when you write fantasy or sci fi.
In
The Shade Under the Mango Tree, I pay homage to grandparents. In these times
when both parents often work, it’s not unusual to turn to them for help in
looking after children. My own grandmother figured significantly in my growing-up
years. And, of course, her influence has endured.
Love
is at the core of all my stories. Aren’t they in everyone’s life if you allow
yourself to be vulnerable enough to another? Because love strips you bare to
both hurt and happiness. Love demands surrendering your control. Still, my
novels won’t fit neatly into the romance genre. Because, ultimately, they’re
about life, about our messy, complicated, wonderful lives.
I
write about characters who’re
multicultural or who embrace that idea. This time, I wanted to take the heroine
to a world much older than that of the US and, yet, it might at best be
considered developing. This is reality. And it’s heartbreaking. But also
hopeful and forward-looking, like Mae and Jorani.
I
hope the book speaks to you in some way.
All the best,
Evy Journey
About the Author
Evy Journey, SPR (Self Publishing Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse who, wishes she lives in Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. Armed with a Ph.D., she used to research and help develop mental health programs.
She’s a writer because beautiful prose seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her despite such preoccupations having gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by invoking the spirit of Jane Austen to spin tales of love, loss, and finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue.
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About the Book
After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference. She ends up in place where she gets more than she bargained for.
Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. He has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it. But they don’t stop him. His decision to go on reading changes his life.
Months later, they meet at a bookstore where Luna works and which Lucien frequents. Fascinated by his stories and his adventurous spirit, Luna volunteers for the Peace Corps. Assigned to Cambodia, she lives with a family whose parents are survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide forty years earlier. What she goes through in a rural rice-growing village defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?
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