[li]My new novel, Heart’s Desire, is being released to the public today, and my editor asked me for a Daring Self Review to be published in every newspapers. In modesty, I ought to have said no, but she is a most persuasive lady, and here I find myself, writing this pathetic attempt to increase my sales.
[li]Some of you may be acquainted with my previous works. My first short story, "The Mystery of the Stone Lady" is a traditional detective story, loosely based on my personal experience in the trade; it was not widely acclaimed, what I can understand, but some of my most devoted admirers have catalogued it as my "most darkly angst story". I must disagree with that.
[li]My second short story was titled "Beyond the Zeas". It told a traditional story of a passion murder, in the non traditional setting of a fictional eastern continent I crafted through assembling details of distant shores told by zailors in Wolfstack Dock taverns.
[li]My third composition is, oddly, a light satirical drama "A matter of Death or Soul". It is still shown periodically in Veilgarden theatres, and finds its most enthusiastic audience among clerics and devils.
[li]My first novel, and the work that consecrated me as an author, was "Risen London: A Tale of the Future". Consider by many a Revolutionary manifesto for the middle classes, tells the story of a secret society of scientists and engineers who conspire to overthrow the will of the Masters of the Bazaar through the invention of a system of giant pulls and levers that eventually, and after much conflict with the neddy men, is used to bring London back to the Surface.
[li]Heart’ s Desire is at the same time a completely new turn in my career and a development of the topics I have been dealing with in my previous work. It tells the story of Lord Coldbert, a rich dilettante who falls in love with the idea of Love itself during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose. He moves form lover to lover, but he is not satisfied with them, and he decides to stake his very soul in a game of cards with devils, Masters and other dreadful characters. The reward: the Love of his True Soulmate. He actually wins the game, and the next day he meets the most amazing woman in a society party. She has all Lady Coldbert ever dreamt of: beauty, wits, humour, will… They fall in love madly with each other and inn less than a month they celebrate the most expensive wedding in Saint Fiacre, ministered by the Archbishop himself. [li] But during the honeymoon the recent Lady Coldbert gets sick with a mysterious aliment.
[li]From here we witness the descent into despair of Lord Coldbert. In order to keep his loved one alive, he dilapidates his riches in medicines and doctors. He is eventually forced to obtain a job, and finally to sell his soul to the agents of Hell. But is for nothing, and the story ends with the death of Lady Coldbert and the lonely despair of an impoverished and desperate Lord Colbert.
[li]Is this a story of Gloom and Despair? Many readers will no doubtlessly be asking themselves and Yours Truly this question. I try to think that this not the case. Despite the grief and the sadness and the misery, there is also Hope in the story. It is just hidden behind the tragedy, in the every day stories of the secondary characters, like Lord Colbert’s friend, Mr. Look, who struggle to find and keep their love alive . So the novel becomes a cautionary tale about the easy shortcuts that are so often found in our lives.
[li]But That is my opinion. And you, my lovely readers, are hastily urged by my agent, and politely requested by me, to approach your nearest bookstore and purchase my latest novel: "Heart’s Desire: a Neathy Romance".