I am pleased and excited to announce that my dad’s first published novel is now available on Amazon.com. You can also– if you want to help out– go to your local bookstore and ask them to order a copy. Just a little background: my dad has been working on this novel for nearly my entire life. He came up with the idea when I was two years old and we were living for a few months on the Azores. He wanted to write a novel that would capture the magic of the Azores and that would incorporate bits and pieces of family history as well as myths and legends of the Portuguese. If you love magic realism you will love this book. After years and years of writing and submitting and being rejected the book is finally in print. But there is a catch. The press that’s publishing his novel was hit hard by our failing economy and there’s a good chance they won’t last much longer. They only printed out a thousand copies, but if we can sell all of those we can get them to do another printing. I know times are hard, but please if you can, buy a copy. If you can’t, go to your local library and suggest they order a copy. My dad hasn’t even been paid for thisbook and there’s a good chance he won’t be, but if we can drum up enough praise and interest who knows what may happen.
Here is official description of the book:
Alarmed by her father Sebastiao’s unexplained disappearance, Julia Castro travels from California to the family’s ancestral home in the Azores and finds the mid-Atlantic islands abuzz with tales of ghost ships, seductive sirens and witchcraft. The mystery deepens when a drowned man’s body is discovered on a mountainside and an unknown island emerges from the sea. As she pursues the search for her father, Julia gradually succumbs to the bewitching allure of the Azores–and to Nicolau, a fellow musician–eventually discovering a place where dreams lie just beyond the horizon, shrouded in mist. History, legend, poetry and myth are seamlessly interwoven as the novel explores relationships between personal and cultural identity, fate and self-determination, reality and illusion. The novel is a lyrical evocation of a locale and a people, rendered with wonderful respect for Azorean tradition.
And here are some lovely blurbs:
“A story of mystery and magic–magical appearances and mysterious disappearances, mysterious women and magical islands–beautifully and lyrically told.” –Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
“After Ulysses founded Lisbon as legend has it, he sailed off into forbidden waters and landed on the isle that held the fountain of Purgatory as Dante had it. Might this have been the Azores? The Undiscovered Island could confirm the fact, as all of Portuguese history, so legendary as it is, comes to a kind of culmination on these isles. Time is of no avail as its end and passage convene in this novel in what is a romp of detective story, epic, and family quest. What a great read!” –Gregory Rabassa, translator of One Hundred Years of Solitude
And here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Undiscovered-Island-Darrell-Kastin/dp/1933227230
So my dears, I beg you to go forth and support your fellow authors and artists if you can. And if you really want to help some more please tell everyone you know who you think might be interested in the book. If you can spare the time maybe even posting something about it on twitter or facebook or your own blogs. Or write a review if you decide to read it. That would be such a tremendous help and I will love you forever. 🙂 Thanks for listening.
Oh and if you want to read an excerpt you can do so at my dad’s website www.darrellkastin.com
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