An urban fantasy with a touch of satire.
In an old house in a deserted, burned-down village, a young woman called Verla lives alone. Year after year she stays there while the world changes around her, no one else ever stepping foot in the village, the people in the nearby towns leaving her well alone. Verla is used to it. It’s the way things have to be.
Until Ben, a bored teenager visiting the area with his family, barges into her life and demands to know her story. He’s strangely drawn to the house and its reclusive occupant, and when he finds out her terrible secret he’s only more determined to help.
But Ben is dealing with forces he never even imagined existed. As he spirals deeper and deeper into the bureaucratic world of Heaven and Hell that Verla is part of, he realizes that it’s going to take more than just an appointment at the local office of the underworld if he and Verla plan to face down her devilish foe and give her a final chance at freedom.
GUEST POST
Satire as a funny weapon
We all love to laugh, right? And there’s so much to make us giggle nowadays, from sitcoms on TV to stand up comedians to those home-video shows that consist entirely of people falling over.
It’s even better when that humour has a deeper meaning designed to draw attention to the absurdity of what us humans do, say or think. Because we, as humans, are bloody ridiculous most of the time. Everything from our politics to our pop culture is dripping with ludicrous acts, words and meanings. The only problem is, usually we don’t realize it. We accept the reality that we’ve been presented with, until like a frog in boiling water, we just shrug and accept that this is the way things are.
And that’s where satire comes in. Using humor to exaggerate and play on a reality draws attention to the absurdity of it all. Jane Austen did it to 18th-century British society. George Orwell did it to Russian politics. Mel Brooks did it to everything he could get his hands on.
Making people realize and ponder society’s shortcomings - and that of their own - is a powerful thing, and can lead to a reconsideration of what we have begun to think of as normal. It may even affect change. In this way, satire can indeed be thought of as a funny weapon.
Humans are bizarre, fickle creatures. But as long as we’re able to laugh at ourselves, and use that humour to consider a deeper meaning, then I think we’ll be okay.
NOTE FROM KATY: Sorry if this sounds a bit too college-essay-like. If you want something different, just let me know. I didn’t focus on my own book as I know that satirising religion is pretty controversial.
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I write books in a couple of different genres: urban fantasy and chick lit/romance. When I’m not writing books I write for lifestyle magazines and corporate websites, and I blog about gaming over at warpkey.org.
I like movies, video games, cheese, shoes and my husband. I’m technically an adult but most of the time I feel like I’m just pretending to be one.
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