#lit hoe

Hello, Tumblr! It's writersashasong here introducing my debut project, Key Keepers: The Opening -- the first installment in the Key Keepers series! MTV's Teen Wolf meets Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in this ongoing adult horror fantasy series.

While plenty of magic and mayhem awaits throughout this series, the first book, Key Keepers: The Opening, is more psychological, allowing the reader to get acquainted with the unique setting and series characters in their normal world before they're thrust into the world of the supernatural.

The first rule of investigative journalism, Ms. Hawthorne, is that nothing is impossible… You have to believe that, or you will fail every time…

Bedlam, USA. Spring 1988.

Ren Prescott only meant to run away from the weight of her family’s reputation. Dahlia Sinclair only wanted her nightmares to stop. But when the senator’s daughter flees the island in her family’s stolen RV with her infamous rockstar girlfriend, they set in motion a chain of events neither can control.

Tasked with bringing the couple home, private investigator Erik Hawthorne takes his daughter, Faye, on the road, hoping the chase will rebuild a lifetime of lost connection. Faye finally wants the truth about her family. Erik desperately wants redemption. Neither is ready for what they’re about to find.

Their search leads them into the heart of the country, where haunting visions, buried histories, and long-kept secrets converge. When all four paths collide, the border between reality and nightmare shatters… and nothing in their lives will ever be the same.

So many choices have to be made in the recording of a book. Pauses, tone, emphasis, these all form our understanding of a work. And that's without more obvious production choices like abridging, music, or character voices.

I adored the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy but when a friend wanted to play it on a long drive I couldn't stand to listen to it. The actress reading it was British and Lisbeth Salander was so firmly embedded in my mind as Swedish that the dissonance threw me ever time she spoke.

How much these choices effect the work is going to vary from book to book. Modern poetry will lose more and pulp novels will probably lose less. Some children's books are written with the intent of being read aloud.

There are even some books that might be improved by recording. For instance there is a production of Lolita read by Jeromy Irons (yes, HH from the 1997 film) that is so smooth and velvety that it might even make the point of the novel better than the original.

On the other hand take Schindler's List . I listened to it on tape and would probably never have finished it if the story hadn't just blithely carried on without my effort every time the narrative laid me flat with atrocity. But thats sort of the point of the book. Schindler's List is not supposed to be an easy read, it's supposed to make you feel things. It's supposed to require you to acknowledge the extremes of what humans can do to each other and still continue. By listening instead of reading I was not forced to confront that idea in the same way.

Nothing makes readers more divided than discussion of YA novels. Lovers of the genre defend them passionately. More serious lit hoes roll their eyes. Personally these texts don’t tend to speak to me anymore, but I’ve hung out in the genre ghetto long enough to recognize bias when I hear it. If moving beyond just YA or children’s literature is something you’re interested in, here’s some excellent…