The Magic of Miraculum

Steph Post spins a dark, mysterious tale.

Miraculum at Amazon

Steph Post is known for her gritty, rural sagas. Having been a fan since the Hart family tale in A TREE BORN CROOKED, I, like so many others, jump with joy when she delivers a new book. 


I find it impossible not to be drawn in by her authentic and striking way of presenting a story.  Her purposeful way with words and intentional cadence, elements that perfectly illustrate a clear command of her massive talent and be sure, these skills are hard won through years of learning and teaching the art of writing. Immersing herself in the dark mystique of Southern Noir. Watching the world turn.


Her Judah Cannon series, LIGHTWOOD and WALK in the FIRE, is thick with characters living a hard life in north-central Florida, existing hand to mouth, desperate, and willing to do the unthinkable. These stories are packed with crime, violence, and greed, and a family dynamic that will remind you of the best mob tales. Only a writer with true talent can sew all these patches together.

With her latest release, Miraculum, Steph Post delves into magical and fantastical realms while using her Southern Gothic sensibilities for flavor. Post takes us to the Florida of 1922, after the Great War and before the Great Depression. We are introduced to Pontilliar’s Spectacular Star Light Miraculum carnival. 

We meet our main character, Ruby, daughter to the owner of the carnival, the snake charmer whose body is covered with tattoos. Ruby is a tough survivor trying to work past her secrets and lowly life, daring to dream of a life outside the carnival. We come to see what Ruby wants and what she fears. We get close to her.


Soon we meet a tall man by the name of Daniel, a fastidious man in an immaculate black suit who joins the carnival as a chicken-biting geek. He quickly charms the carnival troop, everyone except Ruby. As accidents and calamity befall the carnival Ruby begins to wonder if Daniel is more than he seems and what he may want with her family and friends.


Steph Post brings her characters to life with an extraordinary sense of detail. Her way around dialogue is tight and it is apparent she did her homework in researching the time period and the lifestyle of traveling carnivals. All of your senses are brought into play.You will feel transported.


The same striking aspects of Post’s previous works are present in Miraculum; atmosphere, action, and storyline, but she has followed her imagination and enlarged her world. Under Steph Post’s lyrical knack, Miraculum dances in the weird, creepy, and supernatural. An awesome read, this is a magical book that will leave you enthralled until the last word.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 11

by
Scott D. Parker

This was almost Week 3 redux.

QUIET TIMES

Back in Week 3, I mentioned that there would be down weeks. It happens in just about every profession you can imagine, and it certainly happens in the writing life.

It was Spring Break here in Houston. Fewer people were actually in the office at my day job and the traffic was wonderfully light. Except for Monday when I took the day off, I woke at my usual 4:45 am (getting used to daylight saving time means no 4:30 for this week), exercised, and then wrote. It made for a quieter-than-normal week.

And it was nice.

ANTIQUING FOR RECORDS

On the day off, the family and I traveled north of Houston to Spring and the giant antique store up there. A few years ago when we last went, a book dealer with shelves was there. Well, it's not there anymore, but that was okay. There were about five dealers with hundreds of records.

And we looked through most of them.

I came away with only one LP: Chicago XI, Terry Kath's last. The wife purchased two, while our boy took home four. Yup, the teenager bought more records than his parents combined. Go figure.

It's a funny thing when you have a teenager and he wants a turntable. Now our game room/his fun room has a turntable to go with the stereo system. We can all jam to records while playing video games.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF WHERE YOUR STORY GOES

The new Ben Wade story is inching its way up to novella territory. Novelette for sure. It's up to Chapter 10 and I've got the big finale to finish with the obvious denouement afterwards. What struck me during the process of this story is that it's definitely not like the three Wade novels I've already finished. I mentioned in week 7 this novella is written in third person, not the usual first person POV. That's just a prose choice. What I'm finding interesting is the style. It's a shade darker than the three novels. Things happen that actually move Wade along in his character development.

It also means I'll have to publish Novel #3 first before this story goes out into the world.

Which means I'll need another short story ready for 1 April.

CASTLE IS NOW TEN YEARS OLD

The big news this week was one I actually missed last Saturday.

"Castle," one of my all-time favorite TV shows, turned ten on 9 March. I wrote a lengthy post about it, and received some of my best feedback. I got lots of comments from folks over on my main author blog. It was really nice to revisit all that I love about this show.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Speaking of Castle, out of the blue, a new Richard Castle novel, CRASHING HEAT, was published on Tuesday. I had pre-ordered the audio and started listening on day one. Within seconds, I was back in the groove with Niiki Heat, Jameson Rook, the prose of "Richard Castle," and the narration of Robert Petkoff. He's got a great knack of getting the nuances of Fillion's voice without actually mimicking him.

The Castle novel put APOLLO 8 on the back burner for a couple of days, but I got back to it yesterday. What I enjoy about simultaneously listening/reading both non-fiction and fiction is being able to go back and forth depending on my mood.

In the chapter I listened to yesterday, the mission of Gemini 7 was described. Can you imagine spending two weeks in space inside a capsule little bigger than a Volkswagon? Yeah, I can't either.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK

I saw both Captain Marvel and Bohemian Rhapsody this week. I reviewed them both.


How was your week?

Summer of Noir

By David Nemeth

I'm proud to announce that in this summer I will be organizing four Noir at the Bars to be held at Stoney's Pub in Wilmington Delaware. The Summer of Noir series will be held on four separate nights of May 19th, June 9th, July 21st, and August 18th. These Sunday night Noir at the Bar events will begin at 6 PM and end 8 PM. The Summer of Noir series will give between 24 and 28 different writers an opportunity to read their best short fiction in front of an audience thirsty for dark crime fiction and British beer.

And you guessed it, we are looking for writers to read during the Summer of Noir series. One of the great things about Stoney's Pub in Wilmington, Delaware is that is located just off of I-95 and is about 2 hours from New York City, Washington, DC, and the Delaware beaches. By having the Summer of Noir series on a Sunday night this will hopefully allow non-Delaware writers the opportunity to come and read.

If you're from the Delaware area and you don't know what the whole Noir at the Bar thing is, come out to Stoney's on April 15th when I'll be putting on a Noir at the Bar which is part of Ed Aymar's infamous Noir at the Bar Crawl.  The Wilmington Noir at the Bar, which begins at 7 PM, will be hosted by Meghan Burns and have readings by Jason Beech, Robin Hill-Page Glandenm, Jeff Markowitz, Joanne M Reinbold, Chris Rhatigan, and myself.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm looking for between six and seven readers for all four nights this summer.  Reach out to me via email (david.nemeth@gmail.com) or on Facebook or Twitter. All spots are currently open, so please reach out to me. Stoney's Pub is a great place to bring the family to eat and are very supportive of hosting the Noir at the Bar events.