After enduring the loss of his wife and surviving a near fatal accident at work, Stanhope Ellis decides he’s ready for a change of scenery. Unfortunately, the people he meets in his new locale are dropping like flies, and he might be the reason.
Welcome to one of the October 4th stops on the blog tour for Mortal Weather by KP McCarthy with iRead Book Tours (schedule linked.) Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
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Author Guest Post
Literary Dog-O-Rama
A new Life Magazine devoted to dogs jumped into our grocery cart today–just as a lot of great dogs jumped into our lives over the years. I wrote about them in the Captain Coherence piece, “Love and the Mountain Mutt (+ Blondie and Nani).” We’ve been so involved with dogs that I could hardly keep them out of MORTAL WEATHER. The dogs in the novel are not placeholders or furniture or props but real beings, with carefully considered expectations and desires. For that reason, I can’t flange out all their quirks here. But let’s consider the names and origins of the dogs in the primary pack.
Stanhope’s dog through childhood, Trudy, was patterned after Pokey, our duty-bound border collie, and named for her true-blue nature. A ball-obsessed retriever was drawn from Oscar, a great golden clown who took good care of our friends Andre and John. His name, Skitch, was the nickname of our best friend in that neighborhood, who died of cancer years ago. Molly the collie is a synthesis of the many smiling collies we’ve known. Caprice, the surfing dharma dog, has a name to suit the capricious nature of life and death. Kevin is a Rhodesian ridgeback who needed a weird name to suit his wise listening and goofy wisdom. Caprice and Kevin are both akin to Annie Bananie, a huge, boisterous hound who visited often when I was writing the novel. Lester the lonesome Weimaraner obtained his poignant moniker from my sister Debbie’s soulful companion. Pax is a serene white greyhound, the essence of peace.
If you love dogs, you may well love MORTAL WEATHER. Just bear in mind that this is a literary novel that asks something of the reader. But, like all dogs, it gives back a whole lot more.
Pokey Porter
About the Book
Mortal Weather
by KP McCarthy
Published 26 September 2023
Top Reads Publishing, LLC
Genre: Literary Fiction
Page Count: 316
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
After enduring the loss of his wife and surviving a near fatal accident at work, Stanhope Ellis decides he’s ready for a change of scenery. Unfortunately, the people he meets in his new locale are dropping like flies, and he might be the reason.
As he struggles with whether he’s Death Man or a cosmic witness, he meets a wise nurse, Gayathri Das, who helps him navigate the emotional minefield. But will she die, like the others?
Fondness for each of the characters is easy to come by, which is a hazard in a story where death comes calling so often. Each character’s tale is filled with glimpses of ourselves and everyone we’ve ever loved, compelling the reader to hear them out, maybe for the last time. It’s a dizzying entanglement of friendship, grief, and perseverance from which there is no rush to be free. At once comforting and urgent, this book will fill your cup, break your heart, and put it back together, winking all the way.
A brilliant and memorable debut novel, Mortal Weather is an existential adventure — a timely, joyous examination of life and death with an against-all-odds love story at its core. The recurring themes read as a mystery, the characters are alive and memorable, and the writing is fluid and engaging. Here are all of our voices, asking all of our questions about the essence of life in trying times.
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About the Author
Among other things, Kevin Patrick McCarthy has been a geothermal geologist, a technical writer, a critic, and a screenwriter. His humor, essays, poetry, and fiction have been widely recognized. “Enough Sky,” the epigraph for Mortal Weather, was Commended by The Poetry Society (UK) in 2014. He is a fourth-generation Coloradoan who now lives in the Pacific with his wife Tricia, and their dog, Nani.
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Giveaway Alert!
Win signed hard-copy of K.P. McCarthy’s MORTAL WEATHER, plus a MORTAL WEATHER mug! (one winner) (USA only) (ends Oct 23)
MORTAL WEATHER Book Tour GiveawayDisclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Many thanks for the spotlight. Looks great! KPMc
Sounds like a good book.