Today, I’m kicking off the new content for the year with a book feature. I’ll provide a review once I’m done reading it, but I’m so excited about it that I had to share. Plus, I’m part of the blog tour, so it was kind of required. 😉
Isn’t that cover amazing, though? That alone would have captured my interest, so kudos to the cover designer for that gorgeous image.
Since there is a review pending, I’ll save most of my thoughts for now. But I will say that this book has one of the coolest premises I’ve come across. I’m a complete sucker for these kinds of tangled narrative webs, and this one’s both unique and brilliant. It instantly caught my eye and so far, it hasn’t disappointed. But, don’t just take my word for it. Here’s the blurb so you can see for yourself:
When Nigel Walden is fourteen, the UNHAPPENINGS begin. His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.
Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone.
And then he meets Helen.
Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel’s relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen’s life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along.
Equal parts time-travel adventure and tragic love story, Unhappenings is a tale of gravely bad choices, and Nigel’s struggle not to become what he sees in the preview of his worst self.
Does that not sound awesome? You know you want to check it out.
I’ll admit that part of what first attracted me to the story was a vague similarity to my own work, Unmoving. But thankfully, that’s all the similarity is — vague. Aubry has created a story unlike anything I’ve read to date, with a feeling that is much more reminiscent of film. And for that, I applaud him.
UnHappenings officially releases on Jan 8th, but it is available for pre-order. Be sure to add it to your Goodreads list, and I’ll keep you posted on my final recommendation. Though, at this point, it’s certainly looking to be glowing.
About the Author:
Edward Aubry is a graduate of Wesleyan University, with a degree in music composition. Improbably, this preceded a career as a teacher of high school mathematics and creative writing.
Over the last few years, he has gradually transitioned from being a teacher who writes novels on the side to a novelist who teaches to support his family. He is also a poet, his sole published work in that form being the sixteen stanza “The History of Mathematics.”
He now lives in rural Pennsylvania with his wife and three spectacular daughters, where he fills his non-teaching hours spinning tales of time-travel, wise-cracking pixies, and an assortment of other impossible things.
Find Edward Aubry Online:
Nightwolf A.D.E. 