Authorpreneur Dashboard – Amber Michelle Cook
Defense Mechanisms
Science Fiction & Fantasy
What if your deja vu was really flashes of a life running parallel to your own? An imaginative child, Janey left childhood far behind as soon as older children and adults began to tease her for it, much to the disappointment of her younger brother. On her thirtieth birthday, the first Pulse hits and drives them to seek shelter at his favorite hangout – a one-of-a-kind indoor playland for grown-ups called the Imaginarium. When the place is attacked by urban looters, she becomes an unwilling 'defender of imagination.' Raised within the confines of Tanglewood, a workshop-residence formed from the awakening of a grove of silver birch, Ozanne fled her family's unrelenting expectations for a life of frivolity and vanity at Court. Upon the passing of a Wave that obstructs all but personal Glamour, she races back with her brother to protect it from the Foe, though certain she has little to offer. Why then does he persist in looking to her to protect them? DEFENSE MECHANISMS is a contemporary fairy tale of finding realistic, modern-day happy endings when the ways we learn to protect ourselves from other people's emotional bullying keep us from being who we really are and finding our place in life.
Book Bubbles from Defense Mechanisms
Inspired by one of my favorite places in the world
The setting of this story was inspired by the City Museum in St. Louis, MO. I’ve only been there once (so far), but the place is vividly alive in my mind, and just the thought of it lights me up every time I think of it. What is it? It’s a converted old industrial building filled with found objects turned into wildly imaginative, highly creative things to see and places to go and objects to play with. It’s not one thing, it’s many. There are so many unexpected, delightful rooms, halls and other places in that one four story building, you feel like it’s its own little world. Though open to children, the adults love it every bit as much. Since I’m a big advocate for grown-up wonder, play and fun, it was inevitable that one of my stories would be set in a place inspired by the City Museum. Welcome to the Imaginarium.
A defender of imagination
As a child, you're encouraged and expected to imagine and pretend, then one day you're not allowed to anymore. If you don't stop doing it, you'll be teased, harassed and then bullied until you either do stop or become branded something bad and lesser. Is using your imagination and fantasy for innocent amusement and entertainment really such a crime? Somehow using them to imagine murders, abuse, tragedy, romance and pornography is acceptable as an adult, but not to use them for play, fun and refreshment. What if you took back what had been taken away from you by that emotional (and maybe physical) bullying? Don't deny who you really are.
What the Faeries Left Behind
Science Fiction & Fantasy
After coming home from a monotonous office job to the apartment where she lives alone, thirty-something Abigail Watson is having a tough day in a hard week in a rotten month, and don’t even get her started on the year. Until that night when something wonderfully impossible shows up at her door and rings the bell insistently. You’re not supposed to answer the door late at night to strangers who come knocking unannounced, right? Right. But Abigail does. Because how can you be scared of someone with translucent wings like those of a dragonfly? WHAT THE FAERIES LEFT BEHIND is an urban fairy tale ‘antidote’ to those times when the dullness and drudgery of grown-up life seems inescapable, and to the misconception that wonder and play are just for children.
Book Bubbles from What the Faeries Left Behind
Permission to be yourself granted
What if you found out you were a changeling? That you'd been born in the Faerie Realm and were switched at birth with a human baby to grow up human. And now they've come to reclaim you? What would you do and who could you be if you no longer had to worry about fitting in? With all the incredible pressure we face to be like everyone else and put up certain appearances, what would it take to give you permission to be yourself?
FCI
I write stories of deep, meaningful fun. Some of life and growth is pain, but it's not the only way. So my books are about adults finding themselves with the help of fantasy, creativity and imagination, and by allowing more fun, play and wonder into their lives. Be a responsible adult by all means, but don't let the role of serious, respectable grown-up keep you from the gifts of FCI, all of which help you pursue your dreams, enjoy life, and make better connections with your loved ones.
An urban fairy tale for adults
Grown-ups need fairy tales, too. As I talk about in my blog Caution: Adults Playing, helpful people try so hard to make sure we grow up responsible and productive adults, that a lot of the enjoyment and refreshment we get from wonder and play is cut out of our lives exactly when we need it most – to help counteract the daily grind that's part of most grown up lives, and the accumulated disappointment that can lead to bitterness. But it's never too late to let them back in.
