World Between by E.J. Bouinatchova
(Upcoming in Spring 2017 from Open Books Publishing)
Childhood is a world between fantasy and reality, where dreams can come true - and so can nightmares.
Liza Jane Crowley has an idyllic life growing up in an old Maine farmhouse, where the world seems full of amazing things. Her imagination knows no bounds: her best friend is an invisible fairy and she dances with a skeleton in the barn. The strange and wondrous are commonplace.
As she grows older, she begins to lose her grip on reality. If her fantasy world feels more real than her everyday life, then who’s to say it isn’t? And if it is real… There are terrible things in the world of dreams, and once you notice them, they notice you. No one understands that Liza’s coming-of-age isn’t a time of hopscotch and dollhouses; it’s a struggle to keep possession of her soul.
World Between is a haunting journey through a dreamland, with all its wonders and terrors. Definitely not a tale for children, this story will remind readers of their innermost fears and raise the question: Do children really have vivid imaginations, or can they see things to which adults are blind?
(Upcoming in Spring 2017 from Open Books Publishing)
Childhood is a world between fantasy and reality, where dreams can come true - and so can nightmares.
Liza Jane Crowley has an idyllic life growing up in an old Maine farmhouse, where the world seems full of amazing things. Her imagination knows no bounds: her best friend is an invisible fairy and she dances with a skeleton in the barn. The strange and wondrous are commonplace.
As she grows older, she begins to lose her grip on reality. If her fantasy world feels more real than her everyday life, then who’s to say it isn’t? And if it is real… There are terrible things in the world of dreams, and once you notice them, they notice you. No one understands that Liza’s coming-of-age isn’t a time of hopscotch and dollhouses; it’s a struggle to keep possession of her soul.
World Between is a haunting journey through a dreamland, with all its wonders and terrors. Definitely not a tale for children, this story will remind readers of their innermost fears and raise the question: Do children really have vivid imaginations, or can they see things to which adults are blind?
Before we're grown we accept life, death, and mystery with an openness that is hard for most adults. In World Between you will follow a young girl's journey through a daily life that is filled with frustrations, and a dream life that is both mesmerizing and terrifying.
Excerpt:
Liza had seen some scary places in the first ten years of her life. The dark crawlspace with the foul smelling earth under the family barn. The places in the woods where the trees were all dead for no reason. Dirty city streets that seemed to echo with soullessness. But she’d never seen anything as scary as the dirt floored basement of Twenty West.
She did not for the life of her understand how a building as pristine as the bone white Twenty West could be built over top of something as filthy as this ramshackle, dirt floored maze of a foundation. It was lit by a very few bare bulbs and had only rickety, open backed stairs leading up to its various exits. It mirrored the long, narrow hallways of the upstairs but they were even narrower down below, with odd little walk-in storage closets on one side and small, grey-lit rooms on the other. So if you did venture down to walk the dirt floored hall you had no protection: black mouths opened at you from both sides.
Excerpt:
Liza had seen some scary places in the first ten years of her life. The dark crawlspace with the foul smelling earth under the family barn. The places in the woods where the trees were all dead for no reason. Dirty city streets that seemed to echo with soullessness. But she’d never seen anything as scary as the dirt floored basement of Twenty West.
She did not for the life of her understand how a building as pristine as the bone white Twenty West could be built over top of something as filthy as this ramshackle, dirt floored maze of a foundation. It was lit by a very few bare bulbs and had only rickety, open backed stairs leading up to its various exits. It mirrored the long, narrow hallways of the upstairs but they were even narrower down below, with odd little walk-in storage closets on one side and small, grey-lit rooms on the other. So if you did venture down to walk the dirt floored hall you had no protection: black mouths opened at you from both sides.
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From the author: the story behind World Between:
I've taken to calling this book fantasy-reality fusion. It's based on the real places of my childhood - as well as the real dreams and nightmares. I'm pretty sure a Jungian analyst would have a field day: these are the actual symbols and expressions of my subconscious mind. The rest of the tale is a blend of the real, surreal, and imagined. Some events are true. Some characters are tributes to real people. But most of the people you meet here are based on Greek and Roman mythology, and much of the background is filled with archetypes from Tarot and other spiritual traditions. In short, I had a symbological field day. |