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Flindering #1
Don't Pine for the Moonshine
Book 1 of the Flindering trilogy
* Winner of the Reader's Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, 2022 Kindle Book Awards
Two mismatched colleagues work for a wily entertainer — with lies, secrets, and a lot of banter — in a world of mischievously unreliable magic.
In Flindering, the magic is mischievous… and entertainment is everything. Long after the island was closed to sightseers, Flindering's "moonshine" entertainment is still restricted. But laws and licenses can never keep a good moonshiner down.
At first glance, Ten and Ginger are the unlikeliest people to work in the moonshine entertainment business. Ten is a cynical young man with a tough job: helping people fall out of love. Ginger doesn't need a job. She's a young woman with a lot of money… until she gives it away to escape gold-digging suitors.
But when Ginger and Ten start working for a famous moonshiner, they're drawn into the sly schemes of Flindering's entertainment industry. Their first job? Faking the ghost of another entertainer. The problem? She may not be dead yet.
The bigger problem: to avoid discrimination, some people in Flindering are encouraged to hide parts of themselves. Yet that kind of magic doesn't come cheap. So there's a new magical invention for "disadvantaged" folk… along with an impish colleague whom Ginger finds a little too attractive.
Now, Ten and Ginger must deal with contrasting social hierarchies, eccentric publicity stunts, and a tangle of inconvenient secrets.
Throughout it all, they must remember one thing — in Flindering, never trust a moonshiner.
--
This is the first book in the Flindering series, which follows a group of mismatched colleagues in a divided world of magical entertainment. Best read in order, these novels are full of the comedy-drama of colleagues becoming a found family. Along with buddy-comedy and found-family storylines, the Flindering books have a bit of romance and a lot of banter.
The Flindering trilogy:
1. Don’t Pine for the Moonshine
2. Won’t Shun the Low Run
3. Can’t Be a Shy Kind of Lie
* Winner of the Reader's Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, 2022 Kindle Book Awards
Two mismatched colleagues work for a wily entertainer — with lies, secrets, and a lot of banter — in a world of mischievously unreliable magic.
In Flindering, the magic is mischievous… and entertainment is everything. Long after the island was closed to sightseers, Flindering's "moonshine" entertainment is still restricted. But laws and licenses can never keep a good moonshiner down.
At first glance, Ten and Ginger are the unlikeliest people to work in the moonshine entertainment business. Ten is a cynical young man with a tough job: helping people fall out of love. Ginger doesn't need a job. She's a young woman with a lot of money… until she gives it away to escape gold-digging suitors.
But when Ginger and Ten start working for a famous moonshiner, they're drawn into the sly schemes of Flindering's entertainment industry. Their first job? Faking the ghost of another entertainer. The problem? She may not be dead yet.
The bigger problem: to avoid discrimination, some people in Flindering are encouraged to hide parts of themselves. Yet that kind of magic doesn't come cheap. So there's a new magical invention for "disadvantaged" folk… along with an impish colleague whom Ginger finds a little too attractive.
Now, Ten and Ginger must deal with contrasting social hierarchies, eccentric publicity stunts, and a tangle of inconvenient secrets.
Throughout it all, they must remember one thing — in Flindering, never trust a moonshiner.
--
This is the first book in the Flindering series, which follows a group of mismatched colleagues in a divided world of magical entertainment. Best read in order, these novels are full of the comedy-drama of colleagues becoming a found family. Along with buddy-comedy and found-family storylines, the Flindering books have a bit of romance and a lot of banter.
The Flindering trilogy:
1. Don’t Pine for the Moonshine
2. Won’t Shun the Low Run
3. Can’t Be a Shy Kind of Lie
276 pages, ebook
First published March 1, 2022
2 people want to read
About the author
Che Sauntioga
2 booksChe Sauntioga's novels include buddy comedy, romantic comedy, and found family storylines. Her characters often try to banter their way out of tricky situations—something that rarely works for her in real life.
Her recent book series, the Flindering trilogy, follows the comedy-drama of mismatched colleagues becoming a found family in a world of magical entertainment. The first Flindering novel won the reader-voted Reader's Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy category of the 2022 Kindle Book Awards. It was also longlisted for the Santa Fe Writers Project 2022 Literary Awards.
Che's next book series will continue to feature friendship, found family, and romantic comedy… but set in the real world this time!
A former lawyer, Che has lived in several countries and enjoys sharing stories with a diverse range of people.
To learn more about Che's books, visit her website: https://www.chesauntioga.com
To contact Che, please use her website contact form rather than a message or friend request here. Thank you to all the Goodreads Librarians who have helped with details of Che's books.
Her recent book series, the Flindering trilogy, follows the comedy-drama of mismatched colleagues becoming a found family in a world of magical entertainment. The first Flindering novel won the reader-voted Reader's Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy category of the 2022 Kindle Book Awards. It was also longlisted for the Santa Fe Writers Project 2022 Literary Awards.
Che's next book series will continue to feature friendship, found family, and romantic comedy… but set in the real world this time!
A former lawyer, Che has lived in several countries and enjoys sharing stories with a diverse range of people.
To learn more about Che's books, visit her website: https://www.chesauntioga.com
To contact Che, please use her website contact form rather than a message or friend request here. Thank you to all the Goodreads Librarians who have helped with details of Che's books.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 23, 2023
Such a fun read!
4.5 stars rounded up.
Some VERY funny parts... the Ten, Ginger interactive banter! Few sad parts made me tear up.
The discrimination and microaggression scenes felt very real, not forced or cheesy. I felt I was really there with the characters. This book mixes light fun scenes with the serious ones in an awesome way.
A snarky narrator pops in to explain the world/history like in some Discworld books. I liked this but a few descriptions could have been condensed. The historical excerpts give worldbuilding that comes up later in quite interesting ways.
Not much romance, more a story about work friendship and family. Good first in series. I want to know what happens next!
4.5 stars rounded up.
Some VERY funny parts... the Ten, Ginger interactive banter! Few sad parts made me tear up.
The discrimination and microaggression scenes felt very real, not forced or cheesy. I felt I was really there with the characters. This book mixes light fun scenes with the serious ones in an awesome way.
A snarky narrator pops in to explain the world/history like in some Discworld books. I liked this but a few descriptions could have been condensed. The historical excerpts give worldbuilding that comes up later in quite interesting ways.
Not much romance, more a story about work friendship and family. Good first in series. I want to know what happens next!
April 17, 2022
Fun workplace comedy with family themes set in a whimsical world that is not perfect. Nice romantic subplot too, a realistically imperfect young couple!
February 3, 2023
Che Sauntioga’s “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” is a new, different kind of fantasy. Instead of wizards and faeries or vampires and werewolves, we have a parallel-like universe with humans—some of whom possess magic and some who do not. Ten and Ginger are two non-magical individuals who have been selected by a famous moonshiner for a very important job: engineer a fake ghost of another musician. There’s just one complication: as far as they know, this other moonshiner is not yet dead. Ten, who works as a “downer” to break up other people’s relationships for a living, and Ginger, a young, perhaps too-generous woman who has never had to work a job in her life are about as different as two people can be. Despite their polar opposite personalities and upbringings, however, they soon find that maybe their goals aren’t altogether different. In a world where magical discrimination is on the rise, contriving up fake hauntings may possibly be the least of their worries.
“Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” is a humorous, magical fantasy story on the surface. Flindering is a horse-shoe shaped nation separated by a channel of water. On one side is Low Flindering, and the other is High Flindering. Each has its own different illegalities, restrictions, and social hierarchies. Ten is from the Low. Ginger is from the High. Ginger is from a highly affluent family and earns her income as a result of a trust fund from which she receives (and impulsively gives away) regular allowances. Ten appears to be of the middle, working class and wants nothing more than to escape city life and be a land manager somewhere quieter and with far, far fewer people. Ten and Ginger are likeable, identifiable main characters whose contrasting personalities manage to blend together to form a strong partnership and the growth of a begrudging kind of kinship.
Deeper in its pages, however, “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” is an ode to the dangers and nuances of discrimination among differing social classes and across different states. Some Flindering citizens have flinders, small, feather-like objects that float about the shoulders. There are five different size-classifications for flinders, each with a different label ascribed to them reflective of either Low Flindering slang or High Flindering slang. Nonsees are those without flinders whatsoever. Some in Flindering see the presence of flinders as a disadvantage, something to be hidden or discriminated against. As a result, new magical inventions and clothing accessories are often pushed on those such as Ginger, who have flinders, so that they can appear as nonsees. In addition to the flinders themselves, people and their flinders are also categorized according to their colors – such as brown, tan, pale – tones reminiscent to how contemporary humans ascribe racial distinctions.
Throughout “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine,” behind the façade of the unreliable magic, moonshiners and wishdrinks, is this theme of warring political and social ideals, not unlike that which we are seeing in our own world. Though the topics in the book may seem fanciful, at the heart they represent real prejudices and threats to social peace and equality. Sauntiago has thus produced a tale that both enchants the reader with both magical whimsy and important messages about how we humans navigate differences in appearance, ability and culture. While early on some of the Flindering-specific terminology took a little self-orienting to become accustomed to, the book held a subtle yet constant mystery and intrigue which kept the pacing fluid and the flow of the book overall steady.
I would recommend “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” to readers who enjoy humorous fantasy and fiction, but who also appreciate the subtle entwinement of real-world themes and issues with elements of magic and mystical universes.
“Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” is a humorous, magical fantasy story on the surface. Flindering is a horse-shoe shaped nation separated by a channel of water. On one side is Low Flindering, and the other is High Flindering. Each has its own different illegalities, restrictions, and social hierarchies. Ten is from the Low. Ginger is from the High. Ginger is from a highly affluent family and earns her income as a result of a trust fund from which she receives (and impulsively gives away) regular allowances. Ten appears to be of the middle, working class and wants nothing more than to escape city life and be a land manager somewhere quieter and with far, far fewer people. Ten and Ginger are likeable, identifiable main characters whose contrasting personalities manage to blend together to form a strong partnership and the growth of a begrudging kind of kinship.
Deeper in its pages, however, “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” is an ode to the dangers and nuances of discrimination among differing social classes and across different states. Some Flindering citizens have flinders, small, feather-like objects that float about the shoulders. There are five different size-classifications for flinders, each with a different label ascribed to them reflective of either Low Flindering slang or High Flindering slang. Nonsees are those without flinders whatsoever. Some in Flindering see the presence of flinders as a disadvantage, something to be hidden or discriminated against. As a result, new magical inventions and clothing accessories are often pushed on those such as Ginger, who have flinders, so that they can appear as nonsees. In addition to the flinders themselves, people and their flinders are also categorized according to their colors – such as brown, tan, pale – tones reminiscent to how contemporary humans ascribe racial distinctions.
Throughout “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine,” behind the façade of the unreliable magic, moonshiners and wishdrinks, is this theme of warring political and social ideals, not unlike that which we are seeing in our own world. Though the topics in the book may seem fanciful, at the heart they represent real prejudices and threats to social peace and equality. Sauntiago has thus produced a tale that both enchants the reader with both magical whimsy and important messages about how we humans navigate differences in appearance, ability and culture. While early on some of the Flindering-specific terminology took a little self-orienting to become accustomed to, the book held a subtle yet constant mystery and intrigue which kept the pacing fluid and the flow of the book overall steady.
I would recommend “Don’t Pine for the Moonshine” to readers who enjoy humorous fantasy and fiction, but who also appreciate the subtle entwinement of real-world themes and issues with elements of magic and mystical universes.
January 23, 2023
The author has a great imagination. However, I dtruggled with the first several chapter. She was trying too hard with vocabulary. Too many "new" words (flinders, nosees, creme-colored, downer, Silverners). It was very confusing. I couldn't keep the districts, colors, and "classes" straight.
Other words were easier to understand (danceries, neckerchief, time pieces, windcoat), but as I said earlier, it seems like the author was trying too hard to use different vocabulary.
Other words were easier to understand (danceries, neckerchief, time pieces, windcoat), but as I said earlier, it seems like the author was trying too hard to use different vocabulary.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews