Moon Spirit received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Fred Gracely.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Moon Spirit, October 13th, 2024
What’s the book’s first line?
MAX BERGER awoke dripping with sweat on the cold brown linoleum floor beneath his cot in the adolescent boy’s dormitory of Helpren Municipal Orphanage.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Standing atop the rusty green dumpster behind his orphanage on the night of a full harvest moon, a lonely, abandoned teenage boy meets the beautiful, mysterious moon spirit girl who’s been haunting his dreams. When he reluctantly agrees to guard the magical Orb she’s fleeing with, the mischievous and powerful object turns his world upside down.
It leads him down a dangerous path filled with moon-worshipping cults, flying lizard warriors, devious shadow spirits, and the looming threat of an ancient goddess known as The Destroyer.
He ends up caught between the chance to finally have a family and trying to save the world, and during an epic quest to return the orb, he ultimately discovers that he must unravel the mysterious truth of his own past in order to save the future.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
For me, the inspiration to write a story is always a character. My crazy, overactive imagination dreams up some poor sole with a terrible plight, and the book becomes the materialization. Moon Spirit was a little different. The inspiration was a duet–an intriguing teenage boy who was mysteriously abandoned and a beautiful but tragically confused moon spirit girl fleeing evil forces she doesn’t even understand. Together, they discover a tale of treachery a thousand years old that holds the keys to saving the world and understanding how they are deeply connected.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Depends on what they hope to get out of reading a book. Me? I like to sweat some tense moments, laugh, get creeped out, maybe cry, clench my fists in anger, and ultimately feel like I went on a grand, epic adventure with wonderful characters I’ll never forget. I think Moon Spirit offers that experience.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Since this book is written from multiple points of view, there are two main characters in a way. Max, suffers from near-total amnesia after an accident with a taxi and is desperate to restart his life (nobody came for him at the hospital, so he is all alone in the world). And, Sarina, a charming but often confused moon spirit girl who is the story’s unreliable narrator (she is nearly always confused about everything going on around her).
Max reminds me a little of Marty (Michael J. Fox) in “Back to the Future”, but I don’t think there is anyone like Sarina. She’s made of moonbeams.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
One thing I would do differently is not focus too much on trying to sell my first book. Instead, I should have quickly moved on to writing the second book in the series instead. It’s hard to sell books, and it’s especially hard to sell books as an author with only one book.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
The day after you publish your first book as an indie author, you will hear a knock on your door. When you answer it, there will be a dude standing there with a big box. “What’s in the box?” you’ll ask. “Hats,” he’ll reply. “I didn’t order any hats,” you’ll say. “Oh, but you did,” he’ll respond with an evil grin. “These are the hats you have to wear now that your an author.”
Being an indie means you have to do lots of things besides writing. I’ve become a graphic designer, a movie producer, a public relations expert, a social media content producer, an advertising executive, and an entertainer (reading to schools and at libraries). But it also means there is no one breathing down your neck to put out a book before it’s ready. I’ve blown every deadline I’ve ever set for releasing a book, but I’ve also released three IR Approved and BookLife Editor’s Pick novels. I think this is the thing about being an indie I like best! I would HATE to have to wrap up a book before I felt it was as good as it could be.