Introduction to ‘Ghosts of Time’ by Flynn Keahi
After a three year break, the Moon Cried Blood series is finally back on track! “Ghosts in Time,” the sixth book in the Moon Cried Blood series, is slated for release on January 21, 2017. By way of apology for taking the series off track, Flynn Keahi, the star of the Somnalia Series that has occupied valuable real estate in this author’s mind since 2014 has volunteered to write the introduction to the long-awaited latest installment in the Leticia Gordon chronicles.
Introduction to “Ghosts in Time” by Flynn Keahi
In Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White’s character Wilbur says, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” I’m not sure any character can be best friends with his author, but each of us is as dependent upon the skills of our own author for life as Wilbur was on the talents of his Charlotte. That makes it a very close relationship indeed, that of author to character.
In my first story, Happiness and Other Diseases, I had to rely upon my Charlotte, Charlotte Metaxas, a little lady called Happiness, to rescue me. By the time I got to the end of the book, I knew that I needed a different kind of Charlotte altogether – or, perhaps, not completely different, come to think of it. I needed our author Sumiko Saulson to pull me out of the mess I was in.
But how can we trust authors? They write us into horrible situations, just to pull us out of them later. If they wanted to, they could just write easy lives for us. I try to make sense of it all. I tell myself all of my trials and tribulations have purpose and meaning. Yet, I find myself resenting all of the terrible ordeals I’ve been through.
In The Moon Cried Blood series, thirteen year old Tisha Gordon is the protagonist. Like me, she is faced with supernatural perils she must confront and overcome to achieve anything like an ordinary life. Unlike me, she is a powerful witch armed with the tools she needs to battle evil on her own. I always have to call on someone more powerful like Charlotte for aide. It makes me feel like Wilbur sometimes – helpless and useless. It’s probably bad for my self-esteem, but what can I do? I was written this way.
I can’t relate to Tisha, but I can relate to her mother, Joy Gordon. Like me, Joy had a history of mental illness. Like me, she desperately wanted a family, but her bipolar disorder always got in the way. Like me, she has a daughter she absolutely adores. And like me, she seems to attract drama for no particular reason.
In Ghosts of Time, we learn a lot more about Joy Gordon, an adoptee who has finally been reunited with her birth family after many years. If you thought Joy was crazy, wait until you meet her batshit insane half-sister Alita.
Hold up. It gets weirder. Alita’s mother is Joy’s birthmother, Victoria… but, spoiler alert! Her dad is Joy’s ex-husband, Mark. That makes her Tisha’s auntie AND her half-sister. Alita is her own niece’s sister. What the actual hell is wrong with Mark Gordon anyway? Let’s not even get started.
Me, Flynn Keahi… hanging out with Dooky/Boo and Sumiko Saulson.
Reading The Moon Cried Blood series is like watching a soap-opera about a teenage witch. Reading the series is like watching the Jerry Springer show – it makes me feel much better about my own dysfunctional, messed up life.
Is that wrong? Does it make me a bad person? I don’t know. Ask my writer. She seems to know everything. Just joking, and please don’t tell her I said that. I finally got her to let me chill out for a while, and I don’t want any more horrible things happening in my life.
As for Tisha, this is Young Adult fiction, not adult horror like Somnalia. She should be okay, right? Right?
Well, probably. Although you never know, young adult fiction is getting pretty brutal these days, what with the human sacrifices in the Hunger Games and all that kind of mess. Good thing for Tisha she lives in the 70s.
Flynn Keahi
Oakland, January 2017
Flynn Keahi is a fictional character who is the central protagonist in Happiness and Other Diseases and at the heart of the rest of the Somnali series.
Sumiko Saulson 