The Lost Bookshop: Lost Hope Reignites With Novel Discovery

I’m still in transition these days after moving in late May from a battleground state to an (unfortunately) red county in a traditionally blue enclave that MAGA would dearly love to turn into a fascist cesspool. Hence, I could use all the glimmers of hope I can get to counter a lingering sense of angst, unease, and frustration even as I gaze at picturesque mountaintops, rainbows, and blooming  sage and cacti from much-needed rain in these parts, though I could do without the surprising frequency of thunder and lightning. Not to mention dangerous and deadly flooding that has devastated the nearby village of Ruidoso, as well my once beloved hill country further south in Texas.

Usually I immerse myself in writing my next Other Worldly novel to chase away the blues—and address the fury. But my latest and final story in the series, Alien Origins, is relegated to the periphery of my focus while I continue to adjust to high altitudes, unpack, decorate, and deal with a multitude of contractors whose presence in my house has been nearly constant, and often overwhelming. Though I am grateful for so much work  accomplished on electrical and plumbing needs, as well as on my roof, my yard, and my pool that is no longer plagued with algae. I finally took my first delightful dip on the Fourth of July.

To calm oft frazzled nerves—though fireworks were thankfully not as horrendous here in rural New Mexico as they were for six years in Nevada’s Vegas Valley— I spend several hours reading in bed each evening, necessitating the seeking out of new-to-me authors, and expanding my genre-reading horizons.

Perhaps it was that lingering tinge of melancholy that led me first to Irish author Evie Woods and a treasure of a tome set mostly in Dublin, but also in London. The Lost Bookshop, delightfully dedicated to “all the book lovers,” poses the titillating question, How far will you go to find your story?

It’s a tale awash in gritty and sometimes disturbing reality, but also mystical and magical fantasy that transports you—or at least me as a reader and writer—to lofty ideals. It instills hope in humanity, forged despite demoralizing human atrocities—which we’re seeing far too much of in the United States and in the world.

The Lost Bookshop makes you think, and it makes you dream…

Which is why I was so surprised when I reached the satisfying conclusion and discovered there’s a new possibility for a dream all but abandoned, that of traditionally publishing my Other Worldly series.

On the back burner has always been an overhaul of the first book, Alienable Rights, self-published in January 2020 just after I moved from rural Nevada to North Las Vegas, and just before the COVID pandemic hit. Indeed, I’ve been tweaking it all along, especially because I didn’t use the professional editor employed for subsequent novels, and it shows.

I’d begun drafting Alienable Rights in late 2017 at a time of turmoil in both my personal life and the US political stage. That first novel reflects both, but I’ve felt in subsequent years while drafting and publishing the next six and counting that it needed sprucing up and updates—despite the jarring and disgusting reality that 2025 has basically rendered the years 2016 to 2020 on horrendous repeat.

But that’s also what’s made me realize that the beginning of my otherworldly story is no longer as outdated as it might have been. Yes, it’s all so very depressing, but not necessarily for my publishing endeavors. Because it’s all the more reason why Alienable Rights and indeed my entire Other Worldly series “captures the zeitgeist.”

For those who are not familiar with the term zeitgeist, as I definitely wasn’t, it refers to “general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of a specific era.” As my over-50 female protagonist Rowan Layne would say, ya think? Not to mention boy howdy.

Here’s why hope lit up within me like lightning illuminating the landscape outside my window. First, for the past five years of writing my six subsequent OW novels, I’ve attempted to capture the “spirit of the times,” as zeitgeist is also defined, but have also lamented the reality that anyone in the publishing community would grasp that about a novel involving present-day aliens of the extraterrestrial kind—or was even interested in anything other than entertaining predictable pablum for the masses.

Enter One More Chapter, publisher of The Lost Bookshop. I caveat this by noting that, granted, it might very well be a longshot, but I’m just tickled that there is actually a shot to be taken at http://onemorechapter.com.

A global division of Harper Collins Publishers in London, Dublin, and Glasgow (!), One More Chapter is part of a publishing powerhouse. But here’s the amazing thing I discovered on the very back page of The Lost Bookshop. They are seeking new voices in fiction. Even better, they let you directly submit manuscripts.

Unheard of in the traditional publishing world, or so I thought. I went straight to the One More Chapter website to check them out. That’s when I saw two astounding things. First, their editor “is looking for fiction that captures the zeitgeist”; and second, the process of submitting a novel is for authors without agents.  It practically robs one of breath.

The Lost Bookshop is about three people who discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as those found in the pages of books they love to read. Could it be I was meant to find this book and also uncover this tantalizing tidbit of hope offered by its publisher?

Although One More Chapter’s website currently has a notice that they are “temporarily closed” to submissions, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I might have rushed to submit a revised Alienable Rights before it was fully ready, much like I did when publishing it in 2020.  Which makes the temporary delay seem all the more like a positive sign.

Although Alienable Rights does not include scenes in the United Kingdom, it does initially mention Scotland, where most of the fourth novel, Being Alien published in 2022, takes place, along with scenes in England. Whereupon Rowan Layne returns in subsequent novels, accompanied by a Scottish romantic love interest…or two. Indeed, the first two dozen chapters already drafted in Alien Origins take place in Scotland, with more to be written. Not to mention more yummy characters with delectable Scots brogues.

And if it turns out that One More Chapter doesn’t want to take a chance on starting anew with the first novel in a series that is almost completed, there’s always the next generation stories I have planned and will now be more motivated to pursue. Especially since I just read in Writer’s Market about the surge in popularity of a genre called romantasy, combining elements of romance and fantasy.

Delving into romantasy is something I’ve increasingly done with each OW novel, yet I didn’t plan it that way when I first began Alienable Rights back in 2017.  It’s not like I anticipated Rowan Layne having more than a handful of hunky suitors, but good for her now that she’s turned sixty! And although romantasy has supposedly been most popular in novels for young adults, if you ask me it’s yet another genre ripe for a protagonist who is quite a bit older, say over fifty and feisty? Perhaps all the more reason to retool and republish Alienable Rights. We shall see…

It turns out romantasy as a genre is big on all things fae…including dragons. Ya think I just might have those covered at this point? Boy howdy. Scotland is, after the otherworld.