Meet Kona Authors at Words and Wine Event

Kona Stories courtesy photo.

Meet some of Kona’s favorite authors during the monthly Words and Wine Event at Kona Stories Book Store on Feb. 7. The event is free to the public and will include complimentary pupus and wine.  

February’s featured authors will be Frankie Bow, Bryan Furer and J.D. Buddemeyer.

This event runs from 6 to 8 p.m. with a casual meet and greet followed by a more formal book presentation and Q&A with each author. Dress is casual aloha wear.  

For more information call Brenda or Joy at (808) 324-0350.

Frankie Bow

Kona author Frankie Bow. Photo courtesy of Kona Stories Book Store.

Like Molly Barda, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining.

In addition to writing murder mysteries, she publishes in scholarly journals under her real name. Her experience with academic publishing has taught her to take nothing personally.

The Professor Molly Mysteries are the first campus crime stories set in Hawaiʻi, and the perfect gift for mystery lovers, Hawaiʻi kama’aina and expatriates, disillusioned academics, and anyone who has ever had to attend a team-building retreat.  These mysteries reflect small town life, big academic egos, corruption, revenge, and a touch of romance.

Kona author Bryan Furer. Photo courtesy of Kona Stories Book Store.

Bryan Furer is a film industry professional for over forty years. He wrote, acted, and directed homemade monster movies when he was a kid.  As fate would have it he became a make-up artist. He studied with some of the best make-up artists in the film industry: John Chambers, Dick Smith and Keester Sweeney to name a few. He became the first if not the only local make-up Department Head in the state of Hawaiʻi. He was elected president of the Film and Video Association of Hawaiʻi (FAVAH) for two consecutive terms. Bryan said, “Make-up was a wonderful thirty year distraction, from my true love writing.” After moving to the island of Hawaiʻi Bryan phased out of the daily grind of make-up and perused his writing career.  He was able to use the wealth of knowledge that he gained from the film industry in his writing and has written several scripts, some of which have been optioned. He has now written two books based on his screenplays and writes under his pen name Elias Blackthorne.  Five Steps to Sheep is available in bookstores now. 

In Five Steps to Sheep you will meet Ansell who has a problems – he is addicted to the one thing that has kept his marriage alive all these years… Drinking human blood.

Ansell is a vampire as is his wife Catherine. The couple has seen happier days but like any couple that has been together for centuries, tensions grow. Catherine is upset with Ansell for a variety of reasons; a destroyed portrait and publishing an all-revealing novel about vampires. But the most shocking, is that Ansell wants to conquer his addiction, give up the bloodlust, and move to a far off island and write novels. This not only upset Catherine but others of their kind. 

Dauntless, Ansell arranges to sell the contents of his castle, including himself, to Brenden, an unsuspecting antique dealer, part time social worker and Ansell’s only living relative who happens to reside in Hawaiʻi.  When Brenden discovers Ansell’s vampire lifestyle, Brenden offers to help him beat his addiction with a “five step” program for vampires, which Brenden has concocted.

But the craving for human blood is strong and Ansell must use all his powers not to succumb. When people show up dead Ansell is suspected. Now he must prove his innocence and expose the true culprit, reconcile with his wife and break free of the bloodlust.  And with the help of Brenden’s “five steps”… he just might do it.

Kona author J.D. Buddemeyer. Photo courtesy of Kona Stories Book Store.

J.D. Buddemeyer has been living in Hawaiʻi since September 2008 when his wife decided she was tired of braving the frozen wilderness that was their childhood home of southern Maine. After meeting in High School at age fifteen, and now both thirty one, they have been together for more than half their lives. Shortly after graduating college they sold everything they owned and moved to Oahu, where Buddemeyer had never been before and knew absolutely no one. After being picked up at the airport by their very friendly realtor, whom they had only met by phone, they went straight to Waianae where they called Makaha home for the next five years.

As his family began to expand, they migrated to the Big Island in 2013 in search of a permanent home. He now lives in Puna with his wife, two kids, and many various household pets. The idea of a magical wish-granting quill had been lingering in his subconscious since college, but it wasn’t really taken seriously until a series of unforeseen events during the spring of 2015, caused him to have an abundance of time and a need for a mental escape.

Thus the land of Sarin was discovered in the book The Quill of Sarin. The question “What would you wish for, if you could have anything, but only got one?” was asked of several friends and acquaintances and the possibilities became endless.  Only in Sarin do dreams become reality, but you only get one…When the townsfolk of this small farming community were bestowed a magical artifact nearly 700 years ago, they first thought it a hoax. A Quill that can make any wish come true? Ridiculous! But they soon realized it was a gift. A miracle in fact, that needed to be honored, protected, and cherished.  

Every child in Sarin is eligible to register for their wish at the Mayor’s office on their fifth birthday. As long as they’re not forced into sacrificing it for someone else, they will eventually have the right to enter the Acropolis, bow before the Torrinn, and make their wish come true. 

Buddemeyer set a goal to “create a world that was inspired by magic, but not overrun with it. The concept of limiting the wishes granted and adding the element of time (15 years or so to receive your wish), forces the characters to deeply think about the one wish they truly desire.”

The story is centered around three main characters: twenty year old Rory, who is next in line to traverse the Oak Tree Tunnel and enter the Acropolis; Taiya, the wise, yet young prodigy who leads the Alaria Court… the hated rival of the evil Drenin Council; and her brother Meril, who has spent twenty two exhaustive years as the current Torrinn and caretaker of the Quill. 

Rory has always known what he wanted to wish for, ever since he was a little boy…everyone is town has known. In fifteen years he has never changed his mind, never questioned it, never doubted once. But when he finally takes that step into the Workshop, to kneel before the wish maker, he could never have imagined how much his life was about to change.