Fabulous and Brunette: In Between: Stories of the Eververse by Darby Harn - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway

Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host Darby Harn and his new book, “In Between: Stories of the Eververse,” here on FAB!! For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Darby and to increase your chances of winning!!

Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!

In Between:

Stories of the Eververse

by Darby Harn

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GENRE: Speculative Fiction

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BLURB:

Telepathic wolves. Zombie gangsters. Sentient houses. Just another day for Kit Baldwin.

Fifty years after an alien ship crashed in Break Pointe, the only protection in a strange new world is Great Power, a corporation of superhumans. If you can afford them. Most people can’t.

Enter Kit Baldwin, a young woman who helps people to help people. Except her power is the alien’s power, and she may be more of a danger to her city than she is a help.

This collection of stories and novellas follows Kit's journey in a series that's been called 'the next logical step after Watchmen.'

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EXCERPT THREE:

Starter Home

1. Reality

Someone keeps rewriting reality. Mostly it goes like this: one minute I’m talking to Abi about things we’ll never do, like go to New Zealand or just go to bed at the same time and then she disappears along with the rest of what passes for my life these days.

I write this to make some record. A way back.

2. Honestly, It’s Not That Different

Strange things happen around here.

There isn’t any life for me outside of waiting for the next shoe to drop, so I wasn’t too bothered at first. Now it happens all the time. On and off. In and out. Hours. Days. Minutes. Reality like summer floods. The strange always recedes back to a big, three story house on Severin St. American castle. Picture window.

Picture perfect.

Milk trucks inch down the street, lined with ’67 Chevys. Pig-tailed white girls swish in yards with hula-hoops. Boys play stickball in the middle of the street. Cops patrol the neighborhood, and keep black girls from smudging the frosted scenery in midtown.

The cop points back toward the fringes of downtown. “You took a wrong turn back there.”

I zip open my leather jacket. Crimson light illuminates the shock on the cop’s face. “Tell me about it.”

He takes off running. There’s a reason I know when reality changes. My reality is out of sorts, too. TL/DR: if I touch someone, I acquire their energy. Consciousness. They go into the jar of this glowing alien crystal suspended within my chest. Entire universes reside there. Infinite realities. Plus, I’m half-Irish, so.

The doors are always open.

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GUEST POST:

Overcoming Writing Obstacles

The biggest obstacle in writing In Between: Stories of the Eververse and really all of my recent novels has been the fact that I am autistic. Autism provides unique opportunities and benefits in writing and creativity, but I didn’t realize the ways my autism hampered my fiction because I didn’t realize until about five years ago that I was autistic.

I’m 47 years old. I’ve been writing since I was a child. I’ve been actively writing fiction since I was a teenager, but despite my education at the University of Iowa and Trinity College in Dublin, despite consuming every craft book and reading every writer interview I could get my hands on, my craft didn’t develop the way I imagined. My prose tangled in knots. My transitions ran into each other. My stories didn’t mature the way they should.

I only realized this was happening after I discovered I was autistic. This happened after I was forty and had spent over twenty years trying to get published. Though I had some success, my artistic ambitions were frustrated by a parenthetical thinking I didn’t understand. Most people think linearly. I don’t. My thoughts scatter. They branch into infinite branches. I interrupt myself speaking with another thought. I didn’t understand the impact this had on my writing until the last few years.

Not being able to parse my thoughts led to a collision of ideas on the page I didn’t even know was a mess to other people. I couldn’t see it because I couldn’t see it. I did have a sense something was frustrated in my writing, but I didn’t know what. I always wrote very fast, but I would spend years revising a book. In one particular case, over twenty. That book - a space opera I hope to share with readers soon - only recently found any clarity. That took a heavy toll. I wasn’t a good writer. There was something wrong with me.

Only after I learned I was autistic did I understand there is nothing wrong with me. Once I understood the Russian doll nature of my thoughts, I was able to sort them out. I untangled my thoughts and ideas with extreme focus and discipline. This process of hyper vigilance slows down my writing and thinking considerably. In the past, I wrote books in months. Stories in weeks. Now, it’s much slower and deliberate.

The first three books in my speculative fiction superhero Eververse series became a trial run. By book three, I applied a lot of lessons on streamlining my writing. The benefits harvest in this new book, I think. In Between: Stories of the Eververse follows Kit Baldwin as she seeks clarity and understanding in her life. I feel as though I have found a great deal in mine and I think that’s reflected in the writing. These stories are me at my most clear, direct, and unfettered. The process continues, though. I’m writing books four and five of the series now and each book is another step in the direction of gaining greater control and understanding of my art and myself.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Darby Harn studied at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland, as part of the Irish Writing Program. He is the author of the sci-fi superhero novel EVER THE HERO. His short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shimmer, The Coffin Bell and other venues.

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CONNECT WITH DARBY:

Website:

https://darbyharn.com

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Darby-Harn-255976537767428

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/DarbyHarn

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5117603.Darby_Harn

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61045900-in-between

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/3M5nS11

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/38apt7e

Amazon US Paperback:

https://amzn.to/3LVMKZ0

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Between-Stories-Eververse-Darby-Harn-ebook/dp/B09TS177ZS

Amazon CA Paperback:

https://www.amazon.ca/Between-Stories-Eververse-Darby-Harn/dp/1737009749

Book Depository Paperback:

https://www.bookdepository.com/In-Between-Darby-Harn/9781737009740

Books-A-Million Paperback:

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Between/Darby-Harn/9781737009740

Bookshop Paperback:

https://bookshop.org/books/in-between-stories-of-the-eververse/9781737009740

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Darby will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**

This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.