STILLWATER, OK – May 13th, 2022 – A Stillwater local recently published a young adult mystery novel about a young woman in coastal North Carolina who can talk to birds and see the future.
Newfangled Madness by E.M. Chaffin ($12.99, Bearded Rat Mysteries LLC, April 2022) follows fourteen-year-old Marion Morrissey, a young woman with an overactive imagination. When she sees the body of a dead woman reflected in her bedroom mirror, no one thinks much about it, until that same woman washes ashore after a hurricane, and things get real…and real weird. First, Marion finds a ring on the waterfront. Second, she tries it on – and she can talk to birds. The police say the woman on the shore took her own life, but the birds? The birds say she was murdered.
Now Marion must solve the murder to prove her sanity, because either she can talk to birds and the woman was murdered, or she’s crazy. And Marion isn’t crazy.
A whirlwind mystery of whimsy and wit, Newfangled Madness is about standing for truth, even if it kills you. Daniel Chaffin, E.M. Chaffin’s brother, designed the cover.
“I grew up in Southport, North Carolina, where I was homeschooled along with my four brothers,” Chaffin says. “I wanted to write a story about homeschoolers, because the practice of homeschooling is growing, yet it’s still underrepresented in books and movies. And I wanted to weave the landscape of the area I grew up in throughout the story – the Cape Fear region is so beautiful and full of history. It’s a very special place, and I want everyone to know it.”
Bliss Books & Bindery on 120 E. 9th Ave. will host a book signing event for E.M. Chaffin on Saturday, July 23rd at 4pm. For more information, visit @emchaffinwrites on Facebook or Instagram, or contact her at www.emchaffin.com.
E.M. Chaffin grew up in coastal North Carolina and currently lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma. A former homeschooler with a love for reading and writing, Chaffin attended Oklahoma State University where she received her BA in English. She enjoys eating mashed potatoes, taking vitamins, and petting fat animals. There was this one time she floated on the Yellow River on a raft made of inflated sheep skin, but that has nothing to do with her books. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram @emchaffinwrites, and on her website www.emchaffin.com, where you can join her newsletter for updates. Newfangled Madness is her second novel.
Newfangled Madness (Bearded Rat Mysteries LLC, $12.99, 450 pages, 5.5 x 8.25, paperback, ISBN: 978-1736532713) is available at online booksellers, Bliss Books and Bindery, Ruth’s Christian Bookstore, and the Stillwater Public Library. For more information, visit www.emchaffin.com.
