Novel about to be published

Post Reply New Topic

I would like to tell everyone about a novel which is just about to be published. It is called "April's Fools". One of the main characters has Asperger's, although that is not the main focus of the story. I have read it, I think it's a great story, and I think the aspie character is very well-described.

This is the author's introduction:
Magician and teacher Ben April is looking forward to teaching his new class at Lockley College of the Arts, but his students are not all the eager young rising stars he was expecting.

One of them cannot speak English, one has an autistic condition and one suffers from chronic stage fright. There is someone who is confined to a wheelchair and one of them is possibly being stalked.

And who is Meesh?

Paperback novel. RRP: £11.99. Author's price: £9.60. Special pre-order price: £9.00.
Profits from sales of this book will go to King of Hearts Creative Outreach, which serves to build up confidence in children and young people, and is engaged in community development and Christian communication. (For more details on this community outreach project, go to http://www.khcreative.org.uk.)

This novel is still in the production stage at the moment. If anyone is interested in reading a sample of the story, I can put an excerpt from the book onto this thread.

I hope that your novel sells, and that you make a good profit.

Thanks, CockneyRebel. The author will only be getting about 10% of the money made from selling the book, so it's not exactly going to make a fortune. But he knew that when he started the publishing process.

This is an excerpt from April's Fools. I have the author's permission to put this part of the story on the Internet.

“Mark has Asperger’s,” she said. He nodded to acknowledge that he knew what she meant. That explained a lot. Ben was fairly familiar with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. He once had a long conversation with a colleague on the Internet about whether all magicians were autistic in some form or other, because they all focussed their attention on magic, its history, its ‘practice’, and its personalities as if they were important. So he had looked up autism and discovered Asperger’s, an interesting aspect of the autism spectrum, particularly in terms of ‘normal’ relationships. Asperger’s Syndrome was referred to as high-functioning autism. Often, people with Asperger’s have very high IQ’s. They don’t seem to empathise with other people very well, can’t read body language and often take everything literally, meaning there are some jokes they would not understand, they don’t have a grasp of irony and, in general, lack what the psychologists call ‘non-verbal communication skills’. Sometimes, Ben recalled from his research, they can be physically clumsy.
Some went to university, particularly where they were given appropriate support and understanding. Only a small percentage, however, ever held down jobs. Modern social service agencies and disability charities were working to change that. Ben looked at Mark. This young man might achieve greatness, or never achieve in his life, depending on how people like himself treated him. From his stutter and general demeanour, it was possible, Ben realised, that he had already been put down a lot in his life.
“Do you like magic?” he said to Mark.
“Love it. S-since I was little.”
Ben stood up and faced him. Or rather, faced his mop of untidy hair, as Mark’s head was still bowed and his eyes still scanned the ground.
“Look at me,” he said. The girl moved protectively towards the young man, but stopped as Mark raised his head to face his tutor.
“I promise you,” said Ben, slowly and carefully, “that I will not throw you off my course. If you love magic, if you do whatever you can to express that love in the lessons, I will do what I can to help you. I don’t care what you achieve, or what you fail to achieve. I only care that you love magic, and I will do everything in my power to help you get the most out of that love. I will not throw you off the course.”
He wondered if that promise was one he should not have made, but the look on the lad’s face was just a joy to see. He glanced at the dancing girl, oops, he meant at the dancer, and saw that she, too, was beaming.
“I’ve got one class still to sign up to so I can fill my sheet,” she said. “Can I join your magicians, too?” She looked around at the empty classroom. “You got room for one more?”
“You’d be welcome,” he said with a smile, somehow not offended by her reason for wanting to join the class. “Your name?”
“Shelley Hickman,” she said.
“And I’m Mark,” said Mark, his voice a little louder as he found his confidence, “Mark T-Tyler.”
“Ah,” Ben said, “Hickman and Tyler. Not brother and sister, then.”
“No,” said Shelley with a big smile, “we only met this morning. I’m a boarder and Mark lives in the village. I thought he needed a...”
“Champion?” suggested Ben when she paused.
“Friend.”