BOOK REVIEW OF MY NOVEL 'A PSYCHIC AFFAIR'

This is a review of my novel by misanthropester.com The review on site

A PSYCHIC AFFAIR 
ASTRID BROWN 
THORNED ROSE PUBLICATIONS, 2ND ED.
2018 

♦♦♦ 
3 STARS

Astrid Brown is a professional psychic medium and has used her experience as a touchstone to introduce readers to the details of ‘mediumship’ and how one navigates the psychic realm in real life. Brown chooses to reach readers through writing a paranormal romance, A Psychic Affair, where her characters become psychically connected developing an intimate relationship. 

There are millions of couples like Maryann and John, two persons who don’t live near each other yet are conducting a life deeply engaged with each other. For man and most of us, this takes the form of relationships conducted online or via social media. Brown takes this notion a step further showing how it can happen without a device but with ones mind. The story of this psychically conducted affair gives readers a window into understanding just what kinds of psychic connection there are and how they function. 

In fact, this is how Brown opens her book by giving us Maryann as a teacher who has to negotiate a standard curriculum and the ever present inquiry of her students into her mediumship. In this way, Brown’s novel is also part guide book, which the author herself states as a necessary aside. A Psychic Affair will serve as an introduction of sorts for those readers curious about the paranormal. For skeptics or casual readers, it is unlikely there will be much substance here of note. Yet like the students Maryann teaches early on in the novel, these kind of readers may be surprised if they continue on or decide to put for the effort, “developing psychically is a choice of our own choosing, for we do have free will.” Maryann like Brown is under no obligation to prove to readers anything but as she shows in the novel, she believes she can at any time. 

Readers who long for a different kind of romance and intrigued by paranormal practices will find A Psychic Affair to be subtly endearing and familiar. The relationship of the novel is really no different than many ordinary relationships. There is a time of wariness, of learning about each other, of tension while deciding whether or not to trust, the consultation with friends, and commitment or consummation. What is perhaps the most interesting relationship of the novel is less the long distance relationship and more the one Maryann develops with her student Annie. It is in these interaction readers see an organic explanation of the kind of practices Brown is most interested in.

A Psychic Affair mixes different styles giving us narrative sections of transcriptions of characters’ Instant Messaging, Brown’s own poetry on being psychic between chapters as well as peppered throughout, and italicized portions written in a prose similar to instruction manuals to ground readers in the details and variety paranormal activities. Readers will find Brown’s novel accessible as its messages and experiences can be incorporate into their own understandings of the world. 

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