Radiant Shimmering Light

October 29, 2018
Can you be your authentic self and make a living? Selecky (The Cake Is for the Party) plants that question at the heart of her page-turning debut, which revolves around two cousins who reconnect after a 20-year estrangement. Lillian Quick, 40, an unmarried virgin, lives hand-to-mouth following her passion as a pet portrait artist with a special talent: she envisions animals’ auras and includes them in her paintings. Her cousin, Florence Novak, persevered through an abusive childhood and recreated herself as Eleven Novak, the woman behind The Ascendency, a feminine empowerment brand that promises to turn enrollees into financially successful, spiritually evolved entrepreneurs—especially if they promote the program and/or the select items that Eleven endorses. Eleven recruits her cousin to join the movement and Lillian gains some career traction, but what catapults her to internet fame is a webzine confession about losing her virginity to an unnamed Ascendency-affiliated meditation guru, who hid his committed relationship from her. The author explores the power and distraction of social media, the paths to creativity, and how intense devotion to a cause can either consume one’s identity or allow one to flourish, resulting in a searing look at mass market–oriented transformation.

Narrator Lisa Flanagan will have listeners laughing at this ironic coming together of two very different estranged women. Artist Lilian is reunited with her cousin, the Internet personality now known as "Eleven." Flanagan helps listeners differentiate the two women and their idiosyncrasies by using a rapid pace and higher pitch for Lilian's self-inflicted neuroses. She maximizes the novel's ironic attitude toward such contemporary phenomena as New Age trends and superficial social media. Listeners will chuckle at the predicaments that pepper Lilian's choice to join her cousin's self-help program, offered at The Temple, Eleven's Manhattan office. This fun story told by a confident narrator will help make any jog, drive, or wait enjoyable. M.R. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine