After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference. She ends up in place where she gets more than she bargained for.
Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. He has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it. But they don’t stop him. His decision to go on reading changes his life.
Months later, they meet at a bookstore where Luna works and which Lucien frequents. Fascinated by his stories and his adventurous spirit, Luna volunteers for the Peace Corps. Assigned to Cambodia, she lives with a family whose parents are survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide forty years earlier. What she goes through in a rural rice-growing village defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?
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Prologue
Ov’s thin upper body
is slumped over his crossed legs, his forehead resting on the platform. His
brown, wiry arms lie limp, the right one extended forward, hand dangling over
the edge of the platform. Dried blood is splattered on his head, and on the
collar, right shoulder, and back of his old short-sleeved white shirt.
It seems fitting that he
died where he used to spend most of his time when he wasn’t on the rice
fields—sitting on a corner of the bamboo platform in the ceiling-high open
space under the house. It’s where you get refreshing breezes most afternoons,
after a long day of work.
The policeman
looks down at Ov’s body as if he’s unsure what to do next. He lays down his
camera and the gun in a plastic bag at one end of the platform untainted by
splatters of gelled blood.
He steps closer
to the body, anchors himself with one knee on top of the platform, and bends
over the body. Hooking his arms underneath Ov’s shoulders and upper arms, he
pulls the body up, and carefully lays it on its back. He straightens the legs.
He steps off the
platform. Stands still for a few seconds to catch his breath. He turns to us
and says, “It’s clear what has happened. I have all the pictures I need.”
He points to his
camera, maybe to make sure we understand. We have watched him in silence, three
zombies still in shock. Me, standing across the bamboo platform from him. Mae and
Jorani sitting, tense and quiet, on the hammock to my left.
Is that it? Done
already? I want to ask him: Will he have the body taken away for an
autopsy? I suppose that’s what is routinely done everywhere in cases like
this. But I don’t know enough Khmer.
As if he sensed
my unspoken question, he glances at me. A quick glance that comes with a frown.
He seems perplexed and chooses to ignore me.
He addresses the
three of us, like a captain addressing his troop. “You can clean up.”
The lingering
frown on his brow softens into sympathy. He’s gazing at Jorani, whose mournful
eyes remain downcast. He looks away and turns toward Mae. Pressing his hands
together, he bows to her. A deeper one than the first he gave her when she and
Jorani arrived.
He utters Khmer words
too many and too fast for me to understand. From the furrowed brow and the look
in his eyes, I assume they are words of sympathy. He bows a third time, and
turns to go back to where he placed the gun and camera. He picks them up and walks
away.
For a moment or two, I stare
at the figure of the policeman walking away.
Then I turn to Jorani. Call him back. Don’t we have questions? I can
ask and you can translate, if you prefer. But seeing her and Mae sitting as
still and silent as rocks, hands on their laps, and eyes glazed as if to block
out what’s in front of them, the words get trapped in my brain. Their bodies,
rigid just moments before, have gone slack, as if to say: What else can anyone
do? What’s done cannot be undone. All that’s left is to clean up, as the
policeman said. Get on with our lives.
Welcome
to the blog! The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the
whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to
begin your book this way?
Why begin
this way? To entice readers, of course. But also to give them some kind of
framework in which to understand and interpret the story. There’s something ominous
in this scene. And it suggests a lot not only about what might have happened,
but also about the setting and the characters. I hope all that amps up the
sense of anticipation. My choice also shows what is the most important theme—to
me, at least. The novel has an overarching theme and three or four sub-themes.
I don’t
often write in a linear way, with events happening chronologically. I’m aware
this frustrates some readers, especially romance readers, not so much mystery
readers who’re often presented a crime scene instead of someone preparing to .commit
the crime.
In the
course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page
changed and for what reasons?
Good
question to ask me because I agonized about the beginning from the time I
finished my first draft. It seems I changed it countless times. One of my developmental
editors thought I should focus on the heroine’s (Luna) journal and begin with a
scene where the heroine’s grandmother explains why it is important for her to
write one. It was better than the first beginnings I played with, but I still
wasn’t too happy with it. I knew Luna’s growth is what’s most important to me and
the final defining experience in achieving a higher level of maturity is her
years in a foreign country with a deadly past is
Was there
ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed
something on the first page?
The book,
by the time of this blog tour, has just been launched. Not enough time yet for
reflection, much less of regrets. Anyway, right now, this is the best beginning
of all the ones I’ve thought of or tried.
What
advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page
is?
Your book cover and book blurb are like your calling card. They could attract someone to pick up the book and, maybe open it to read the first few pages. But will they like what they read and be eager to buy it and keep on reading.
Evy Journey, SPR (Self Publishing Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse who, wishes she lives in Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. Armed with a Ph.D., she used to research and help develop mental health programs.
She’s a writer because beautiful prose seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her despite such preoccupations having gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by invoking the spirit of Jane Austen to spin tales of love, loss, and finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue.
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