Since childhood, I have been both troubled and fascinated by the animal side of the human being, and the small gap that sometimes separates our so-called civilized world from nature. Where does the animal end and where does the human begin? If I explore this duality, both magnificent and monstrous, through my novels and short stories, it’s perhaps because we are all, to varying degrees, chimeras.
In A Dreadful Beauty, my first novel, a disease transforms humans into real chimeras persecuted by fundamentalists in power. Daughter of a high dignitary, my heroine must flee her family when she contracts this illness. Her metamorphosis will reveal in her qualities of courage and self-denial that her privileged childhood didn’t suggest. She will have to use them to help the Chimeras people and accept (and make the others accept) her hybridity.
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In Flesh and Tears, the protagonist takes in chickens that activists stole from a research center. They will prove as dangerous as the experiments they underwent there, further fragmenting the psyche of the heroine already weakened by depression.
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In my short stories collection, Foreign Hearts, solitudes try to live together, love each other and tear each other apart, in this ideal chimera of complexity that is love.
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Finally, in my futuristic novel, Funny flair, the protagonist has dogs genes grafted to enhance his police work. He literally becomes a bloodhound.
OF FLESH AND TEARS
Following a painful divorce and a stint in a psychiatric hospital, Claire leaves Paris to take over the family farm. With neither support nor experience, she quickly realizes that her fresh start won’t be as easy as she’d anticipated.
She searches for meager comfort in Lucien, a vegan activist, who entrusts her with chickens seized from a research center for her to hide. He even persuades her to participate in his militant group’s radical and dangerous activities. Claire's already fragile equilibrium is thrown into turmoil by the aggression of man and of beast.
First chapters
Very well written and gripping book! You can't put it down, you want to know the end. Suzy on Amazon
A reading that makes you think about the condition of animals, but also about our actions and their consequences. Ingridlalectrice on Amazon
A thriller sprinkled with dark humor that describes, without complacency, but with tenderness, the relationships between men and their beasts.
A DREADFUL BEAUTY
A girl undergoing a terrifying transformation goes on an epic quest to find a refuge from her ruthless father. Nymphosis, a disease that turns Humans into Chimeras, is ravaging the land of Gashom. The More-Than-Pure, determined to protect themselves, have seized power and enacted segregationist laws.
The daughter of a high dignitary, young Neria learns she is afflicted by the very disease her father is determined to eradicate. Forced to surrender her privileges, she must flee her home in the capital and traverse the strange wilds to seek refuge with her fellow kind. Will she have the courage to fight oppression to emancipate the Chimeras from the yoke of the More-Than-Pure?
Motherhood lessons and growing up
I loved how flawed and complex Neria's character was. I loved the chimera vs. more-than-pure. I found myself thinking about how sometimes we don't know who we are until we are growing. We don't know what we will become until we are tested -- this sometimes is a shock to our parents or loved ones. But the people who love us, will stick with us. Florence Chavez on Amazon
Beautifully written, captivating and vivid
The plot is unpredictable and wonderfully woven. Above all, the descriptions are so vivid that I easily found myself wandering in the forest, the tunnels or the bustling city. I heard the sounds, smelt the air, was touching and being touched, all sights laid for me to digest while my feelings ranged from delight to terror. Daphna Orion on Amazon
An exciting fantasy of two worlds divided
LM Rapp wrote a story that was both easy to follow and exciting to read. It holds your attention from the beginning. And as the scenery changes so does the mood. I would recommend this book to young adults who like fantasy. It was a great read. Jengel106 on Amazon
FOREIGN HEARTS
Whether they’re single or in a relationship, whether they have started a family or reject the idea of reproducing, the protagonists of these stories are all confronted with the same tensions and existential questions: how to live one’s life? Whom to share it with? Are these emotions, that overwhelm us, the expression of true love or a misunderstanding with sometimes fatal consequences?
Black, even scathing, humor fortunately comes and helps these Foreign Hearts which, far from being sordid, are delightful in their irony and absurdity. The worst is thus never certain. Love gives the courage to resist, to hope and to transmit. Hearts may remain strangers to each other, but they nevertheless learn to communicate and to build, in their modest and fragile way, a community of destiny.
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Coming soon…
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