Holly Bowen's Blog - Posts Tagged "ya-fantasy"
🎉 It's Release Day for By the Moon! 🌙
It is a wet and rainy Tuesday, and Taupō lies under the threat of a heavy thunderstorm warning. I can hear the rain hissing on the roof as I quietly make my way to the office, click the heater on. The smell of summer dust still burns from the components.
It’s the 22nd of April, 2025, and it is release day for my debut novel, By the Moon.
🌍
You’re busy, I know.
I know because everyone is. It seems like a ‘these days’ thing, but I definitely remember adults being busy in the 90s too. You see an email ping up on your phone - or maybe you’ve turned off push notifications because you’re savvy like that - and you read, Holly Bowen Release Day. And you may or may not have time to read this. Perhaps because your kid drop kicks your phone out of your hand, or you’re rushing to the gym, or you’ve already started work and your time is precious, or because you just don’t want to. Power to ya 💥
But please know, this little blog post represents a dream coming true.
I have dreamed of writing a novel since I was 23, writing a travel blog and living in Spain.
Books like When God Was a Rabbit, and The Book Thief, and The Time Traveler’s Wife were coming out, and I remember holding those tomes with such yearning and heart-piercing admiration. God, how I wanted to be an author. I wrote several manuscripts for Nanowrimo (RIP), a global challenge where you are pitted to write 50,000 words in month. I completed the challenge every time, but never took them further. I think I have four or more 50,000 word manuscripts, languishing in some digital drawer, covered in computer dust. The dream of writing a book, of actually overcoming all of the hurdles and creating a complete piece of art, and then managing to sell it, seemed completely unrealistic. Something for Americans in movies, not something real for me.
When I came back to New Zealand and began working in tourism, a career which I both loved and excelled at, I remember speaking to a family friend, telling her about my job.
“Oh,” she said, obviously disappointed. “I always thought you would be an author.”
And internally I screamed, “that was even an option?!”
It took ten more years, and it was finally when I was home with my first baby that I thought - this is my chance, it’s now or never.
I’ll never have this much time again.
*Cue the hollow laugh from all the sleep-deprived mothers around the world, oh how beautifully optimistic I was!*
But I started, writing 15-45 minutes in nap time, spending real money on editors and writing courses, slowly beating down that path. I realised that if I wanted to do this, I had to make it happen.
Mainly because I didn’t want to be on my death bed, telling everyone about the book I had always wanted to write, but I didn’t even try.
How heart-breaking would that be? What a waste.
I’m sure you have a similar dream.
✨
So just know, this little email in your inbox, represents a lifelong dream being realised.
As of today, I am a published author. Today, the novel that I spent four years on - seven months first-drafting, countless 5am starts, something like nine (nine!) editing passes, and developmental edits and copy edits and so many read-throughs - today, that novel is released into the wild.
Like a bird taking flight, hopping to the side of its nest and unfurling its prepubescent wings, peeking over the edge and - I’d imagine because I’m dramatic like that - perhaps gulping a little. Its mother - I think that’s me in this metaphor - gives it a little push, and off it goes.
Maybe it drops like a stone for a metre or so, before finding its way.
Maybe it jumps and soars, taking flight immediately.
But one thing is certain, it’s not in the nest anymore, and therefore it’s not mine.
It’s yours.
The early reviews for By the Moon have been wonderful. If you have read it and loved it, I would so appreciate a review over on Goodreads, Amazon, Kobo, Instagram, anywhere! Every single review helps me reach more readers with this story.
And I think Feyla and Guthnick would like that.
If you haven’t read it and you’d like to, signed copies are available within New Zealand from my website, along with ebooks. If you’re overseas and you would like a paperback, they are now available on all versions of Amazon. The ebook is available on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, and everywhere else ebooks are sold. In NZ you can also ask for By the Moon in your local library and they will be able to purchase it on your behalf.
I picked the 22 April because it is Earth Day today, and the earth and its beauty is a huge part of Feyla’s story. The breath-taking scenery of the realm was important to me to depict; I wanted it to be reminiscent of the open-world adventure games that I love playing so much, like Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, and Red Dead Redemption II. 22 is my favourite number, always has been, and I’m hippy enough to think (know?) that numbers have power.
So please, continue with your day. Go back to your work, your children, your cat, your workout.
And know, that somewhere, in a little lakeside town at the bottom of the world, a budding author has finally realised her lifelong dream, and released a book.
💚
Thank you for being here, and for reading this far. I’m so grateful for you, for all the readers of this world.
We yearn for more, and often we find it within the pages of a beautiful book.
Do you have a dream that you’ve parked?
Why don’t you hit Comment, and tell me about it?
It’s the 22nd of April, 2025, and it is release day for my debut novel, By the Moon.
🌍
You’re busy, I know.
I know because everyone is. It seems like a ‘these days’ thing, but I definitely remember adults being busy in the 90s too. You see an email ping up on your phone - or maybe you’ve turned off push notifications because you’re savvy like that - and you read, Holly Bowen Release Day. And you may or may not have time to read this. Perhaps because your kid drop kicks your phone out of your hand, or you’re rushing to the gym, or you’ve already started work and your time is precious, or because you just don’t want to. Power to ya 💥
But please know, this little blog post represents a dream coming true.
I have dreamed of writing a novel since I was 23, writing a travel blog and living in Spain.
Books like When God Was a Rabbit, and The Book Thief, and The Time Traveler’s Wife were coming out, and I remember holding those tomes with such yearning and heart-piercing admiration. God, how I wanted to be an author. I wrote several manuscripts for Nanowrimo (RIP), a global challenge where you are pitted to write 50,000 words in month. I completed the challenge every time, but never took them further. I think I have four or more 50,000 word manuscripts, languishing in some digital drawer, covered in computer dust. The dream of writing a book, of actually overcoming all of the hurdles and creating a complete piece of art, and then managing to sell it, seemed completely unrealistic. Something for Americans in movies, not something real for me.
When I came back to New Zealand and began working in tourism, a career which I both loved and excelled at, I remember speaking to a family friend, telling her about my job.
“Oh,” she said, obviously disappointed. “I always thought you would be an author.”
And internally I screamed, “that was even an option?!”
It took ten more years, and it was finally when I was home with my first baby that I thought - this is my chance, it’s now or never.
I’ll never have this much time again.
*Cue the hollow laugh from all the sleep-deprived mothers around the world, oh how beautifully optimistic I was!*
But I started, writing 15-45 minutes in nap time, spending real money on editors and writing courses, slowly beating down that path. I realised that if I wanted to do this, I had to make it happen.
Mainly because I didn’t want to be on my death bed, telling everyone about the book I had always wanted to write, but I didn’t even try.
How heart-breaking would that be? What a waste.
I’m sure you have a similar dream.
✨
So just know, this little email in your inbox, represents a lifelong dream being realised.
As of today, I am a published author. Today, the novel that I spent four years on - seven months first-drafting, countless 5am starts, something like nine (nine!) editing passes, and developmental edits and copy edits and so many read-throughs - today, that novel is released into the wild.
Like a bird taking flight, hopping to the side of its nest and unfurling its prepubescent wings, peeking over the edge and - I’d imagine because I’m dramatic like that - perhaps gulping a little. Its mother - I think that’s me in this metaphor - gives it a little push, and off it goes.
Maybe it drops like a stone for a metre or so, before finding its way.
Maybe it jumps and soars, taking flight immediately.
But one thing is certain, it’s not in the nest anymore, and therefore it’s not mine.
It’s yours.
The early reviews for By the Moon have been wonderful. If you have read it and loved it, I would so appreciate a review over on Goodreads, Amazon, Kobo, Instagram, anywhere! Every single review helps me reach more readers with this story.
And I think Feyla and Guthnick would like that.
If you haven’t read it and you’d like to, signed copies are available within New Zealand from my website, along with ebooks. If you’re overseas and you would like a paperback, they are now available on all versions of Amazon. The ebook is available on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, and everywhere else ebooks are sold. In NZ you can also ask for By the Moon in your local library and they will be able to purchase it on your behalf.
I picked the 22 April because it is Earth Day today, and the earth and its beauty is a huge part of Feyla’s story. The breath-taking scenery of the realm was important to me to depict; I wanted it to be reminiscent of the open-world adventure games that I love playing so much, like Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, and Red Dead Redemption II. 22 is my favourite number, always has been, and I’m hippy enough to think (know?) that numbers have power.
So please, continue with your day. Go back to your work, your children, your cat, your workout.
And know, that somewhere, in a little lakeside town at the bottom of the world, a budding author has finally realised her lifelong dream, and released a book.
💚
Thank you for being here, and for reading this far. I’m so grateful for you, for all the readers of this world.
We yearn for more, and often we find it within the pages of a beautiful book.
Do you have a dream that you’ve parked?
Why don’t you hit Comment, and tell me about it?
