In the recently published book “Hold Your Light” Wayne Bien’s protagonist Rodney Blake narrates a series of stories about himself growing up as a weird little kid (which is what his parents’ thought of him) who didn’t play sports like his bother, but preferred to stay in his room and read, listen to records and think about David and some of the other boys in his class at Hayward Military Academy. His parents hated the music and were always telling him to turn it down. But thinking about other boys is something they hated so much that after being sent to boarding school he was not allowed to come home as long as he was what his parents called “queer.”
The day Rodney’s parent’s sent him away he remembers hearing his family’s maid Sophie singing that song, the one she called “Hold Your Light.” And as always when she got to the part where they sang people’s names she looked right at him and sang, “Hold your light brother Rodney hold your light.” He didn’t know how she knew but he figured the hold your light part had something to do with the reason his parents were sending him away.
In the pages that follow Rodney overcomes a weight problem that was keeping him from doing the one thing he excelled at, riding horses; a sport where he finds his two mothers (his riding teacher and her partner) who raise him as their son. All the while he is influenced by a series of mystical acts preformed by a spirit, who Rodney sees as Sophie, guiding him to “Hold Your Light” on a journey of joys and sorrows in acceptance of his sexuality and the development of his equestrian abilities.
My second book is about a boy who has Asperger's Syndrome and is bullied to the point to where he shoots up his school. I have divided the excerpts from it into three parts: Before, during and after the shooting.
In this eccentric tale set in a small town in northern India, Pawan Mishra masterfully weaves ingenuity and sarcasm in a manner thats simultaneously hilarious and tragic.
Helios is an award winning novel about a brilliant inventor of new technology, a fallen CEO seeking redemption, and an idealistic youth who comes of age in corporate America.
