I am fortunate to have a small following of fans.  For me a fan is a person who has read both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  I even have a few fans that don’t want to purchase my books on Amazon but purchase them directly from me because it’s more personal and of course I always write something in the cover and sign it.  Please understand, I don’t have many that fall into this restricted definition of a fan.  Of those that are fans, I listen to them when they comment on each book.

Two of my fans have made the exact same, surprising comment.  They feel that Out of Darkness concentrates too much on Ian’s love life.  One fan thought that Ian was too amorous and that Irish men don’t behave that way (this fan is 100% Irish male).  Another fan said there was just too much sex in the book.

Really?  Too much sex?  Trust me; this book is not 50 Shades of Grey. 

I did want to show how a middle age man can fall deeply in love with a woman of the same age and how their life experiences mold the unique love they develop.  Certainly one aspect of a love relationship is physical intimacy and I didn’t want to avoid that in my book.  To be honest, I don’t like writing sex scenes.  I once took a class at UW Madison Continuing Education on how to write a sex scene in a novel.  It’s not about body parts; it’s about intimacy, sharing, innocence, vulnerability, laughter, joy, etc. etc.

I also wanted to demonstrate in Out of Darkness that having an honest, open, empathetic love relationship was healing and helps Ian fight his depression.  Love brings balance and a new perspective into Ian’s life.

 It’s not about the sex but good sex is a part of any healthy, balanced, loving, relationship.  What is most curious to me is that these comments came from men.  Who would have guessed?           

An author friend of mine, Valerie Biel, recently started a book club called Books with Beers in a Columbus.  Her idea was to support both local business and local authors.  The book club is held at the Hydro Street Brewing Company on a Thursday evening of each month.  Each month a local author is invited to make a presentation and sign books.  The pub owners agree to sell books and give the entire proceeds to the author.  That’s right – the pub owners don’t take a consignment cut.  Pub owners, Aaron and Sandye appreciate the business on a Thursday night and don’t feel the need to take a cut from book sales. 

Valerie presented at the first event in May, which is right, because she is the marketing genius behind the whole idea.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend because of a theater commitment.  I attended the event in June with author Silvia Acevedo.  There were 15 attending, larger than any book store presentation I’ve made.  The discussion was lively and it was an entertaining evening.

I was invited to leave books for sale in July prior to my presentation on August 6th.   As I was putting together the display following Silvia’s event a woman at the bar bought both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness.  When I asked her name in order to autograph the books she explained they weren’t for her but a friend who likes Irish history.  This is a pub in Columbus, Wisconsin.

This past weekend I received an e-mail from Valerie, they sold out of books and needed more.  I rushed another allotment of books to the pub on Monday.  I have now sold more books at the Hydro Street Brewing Company than the total number of books I have on consignment at three independent book stores.

Ya gotta love Wisconsin.  Please support my friends:  www.valeriebiel.com and www.hydrostreetbrew.com.

Most sources advise independent authors to make our books available in e-book format at the same time the trade paperback is published.  I’ve been successful in ignoring that advice for more than 18 months.  I’ve reached Create Space where my books have been published and for $75 they will reformat the book and make it available on Amazon.  The only downside is that is the only platform that accepts the create space format, Smashwords for instance, uses a different file format.

I acknowledge the logic of making my books available in every format imaginable in an effort to appeal to both physical book readers and e-book readers.  As a newbie author the lure of having a physical book to promote is intoxicating.  I just didn’t have the energy to pursue whatever was needed to transform my first book into an e-book on various platforms.

I’ve worked with Christine Keleny of CK Books to publish the second in the Murphy series novels, Out of Darkness.  Christine asked if I wanted to publish both a trade paperback and an e-book.  I explained that I hadn’t made Murphy’s Troubles available yet in e-book format.  I asked if she thought it was worthwhile to publish Out of Darkness in both formats at the same time.

Christine was appalled that Murphy’s Troubles wasn’t an e-book and insisted that Out of Darkness should be published in both formats at the same time.  Sensing my reluctance Christine offered to undertake the work and quoted an exceptionally reasonable price.  It would take me the next six months to learn how to change file formats and I’m not at all interested in technical work like that.  I accepted Christine’s offer.

In a matter of days Christine sent me files to publish both Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness on Amazon and Smashwords.  I confess that I don’t understand how to use Smashwords to attract readers.  I’ve given myself the job of learning Smashwords marketing this year. 

Thanks to Christine I’m now thoroughly modern.  To contact Christine to learn about her business and her writing go to www.ckbookspublishing.com.  For my books go to www.Amazon.com/author/rexowens or www.smashwords.com.

Out of Darkness

Rex Owens, author

CKBooks, publisher

Historical fiction, 400 pages

9780983298489, $14.95

Four of four stars

Reviewed by Inkspots Reviews

Complex relationships and human frailties compliment a rich, multilayered cultural, geographical, and political backdrop in Out of Darkness, the second book in Rex Owens’ Murphy series, a deeply rewarding and enlightening exploration of tenuous 1990s peace efforts in Ireland.

Owens brings back Ian Murphy, the conflicted and hard-drinking, yet vulnerable novelist from 2013’s Murphy’s Troubles. He’s joined by a mixed cadre of some familiar and many delightful new characters.

The story picks up in May 1998, soon after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and following a referendum in which citizens of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland vote to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, and call for an end to decades of violence, including the disarming of paramilitary groups.

Murphy’s abrupt flip-flop in Murphy’s Troubles, from being the longtime author of a secret training manual for the Irish Republican Army to helping to write the Good Friday Agreement, has left him reviled on both sides of the political aisle.

“Because of my work on the Peace Accord, I was considered a hero,” Murphy muses in the first few pages of Out of Darkness.  Yet, “the Provisional IRA announced months ago that I was a traitor for betraying the Cause, which we Irish had shed blood over for the past thirty years. Was it possible for one man to be both?”

But those political issues diminish in importance – at least temporarily -- when Murphy meets Mairin McCarthy, a librarian at University College Cork, where he lectures on Irish literature, history and culture when he’s not writing best-selling novels.

With Mairin at his side, Murphy begins to battle long-neglected demons, including alcoholism and depression. He begins to step away from the reclusiveness that had defined his adult life, and begins to think about his future path, that might include writing his memoir. At the same time, he relishes a closer relationship with his sister and niece, who have relocated from Belfast to Cork.

All of that is potentially shattered, however, when Murphy is asked to perform one more, critical act of service toward peace that would require him to move to Belfast. How he responds to the request could profoundly affect not only the lives of those living in Northern Ireland, but also his own personal destiny and his relationship with Mairin.

Owens demonstrates a masterful command of Irish political history, which while fictionalized is thickly intertwined with real events, such as the August 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland, by the separatist group the Real IRA. The Omagh bomb killed 29 people and injured more than 200 others.

As masterfully, the author strikes a fine line between simplifying the politics enough to hold the interest of those not intimately familiar with them, while infusing enough to hold the interest of those with a deeper passion and understanding.  

The author also, masterfully, breaks up the politics and related intrigue via an abundant, continual interjection of personal, cultural and geographical color, most notably heavy regional references to food and drink, particularly distinguishing between northern and southern Irish tastes.

There are also soul-searching, scenic mountain and seaside hikes, questions about religious redemption, romantic getaways, lots of malt whiskey drinking and exploration of the demons released by Murphy’s incessant consumption of it, hand-mixed pipe tobacco smoked by peat fires, and an understanding of mature love that finally envelops Murphy at the age of forty-eight.

Finally, there are insights that will be most meaningful to fellow writers. “The Peace Accord was my first nonfiction writing, and it would be my last. I lived in a world of fiction that I created, with only the characters I breathed life into keeping my company,” Murphy muses. “My relationship with all my characters we intimate. I understood their history, their motives, what they cared about.”

Like a first-rate Irish stew, Out of Darkness blends all the ingredients necessary for a great politically-inspired novel steeped in danger and intrigue, while also charting one man’s deeply introspective journey toward personal peace. 

With that perfect mix, the Murphy series just keeps getting better.

-Inkspots Reviews 

I will be discussing the Murphy book series; MURPHY’S TROUBLES and recently published OUT OF DARKNESS at the following locations as the listed dates.  At each event I will discuss the books, do a reading from each book, sell and autograph books.

Tuesday      July 14, 2015   1:00 p.m.

Madison Senior Center

330 West Mifflin Street

Madison, WI

Thursday   August 6, 2015  7:00 p.m.

Hydro Street Brewing Co.

152 W. James Street

Columbus, WI

Wednesday September 16, 2015  8:00 a.m.

Colonial Club

301 Blankheim Lane

Sun Prairie, WI

Wednesday September 23, 2015  6:30 p.m.

Sun Prairie Public Library

1350 Linnerud Dr.

Sun Prairie, WI

Friday, Saturday, Sunday  October 9, 10 & 11

Irish Book and Music Festival

Irish American Heritage Center

4626 N. Knox

Chicago, Ill.

Thursday, December 3, 2015  6:30 p.m.

Beans n Cream Coffee House

345 Cannery Square

Sun Prairie, WI