Little Bit of Faith wins a second place award in the Fall 2024 BookFest: Literary Fiction Thriller-Psychological

This fall I entered 'Little Bit of Faith' in the BookFest Book Award contest.  

https://www.thebookfest.com/

It placed second in the 'Literary Fiction-Psychological Thriller' category.

George Point's Book Review of 'Little Bit of Faith' posted Oct 3, 2024 in the Bucks County Herald

 George Point: Book Talk! “Little Bit of Faith”

“Who am I?” With that opening line, author Saverio Monachino raises a question that is plaguing Dr. Emily Selwood, a principal character in the psychological fiction novel “Little Bit of Faith” (Ingram Spark). It is also a fundamental question that the author invites all of us, himself included, to ponder we as we delve deeper into the cause of Selwood’s self-doubt.

Dr. Selwood, a clinical neuropsychologist, has checked herself into Greystone psychiatric hospital, in the throes of a profound identity crisis. Dosing on meds and caffeine, she contemplates the circumstances that have brought her to this juncture in her life.

She soon reveals that a situation involving a patient, one Arthur McAiden, a Ph.D. specializing in the philosophy of science, has brought her to this point. Wracked with self-doubt about her professional incompetence, she trusts the resolution of her quandary to Dr. Tey, department head at Greystone.

“Who am I?” is the first line of Dr. Selwood’s journal, and as we read on we’re immediately confronted with a dilemma. Dr. Selwood seems to be the narrator of the story yet to unfold, but, as a patient (albeit a voluntary one) in a psychiatric institution, is she a reliable one? It’s the first of many conundrums that Monachino asks us to ponder as we page through “Little Bit of Faith.”

Arthur McAiden has been placed under Selwood’s care as he recovers from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), the result of a tragic automobile accident. Physically recovering, but suffering from deficits in all measurable levels of cognition, a positive outcome for McAiden is far from assured.

McAiden’s condition has a real-life connection to author Monachino, once afflicted with a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma and was followed by a long and arduous period of rehabilitation and recovery. “Little Bit of Faith” is part of that recovery process.

As Monochano has stated, “As my ability to exist in the three-dimentional space we live in returned, memories of what I experienced began to fade. The story is fiction, the underlying revelations, I hope, are closer to reality.”

As part of her plan for McAiden’s recovery, Selwood engages him in what she believes will be a simple, but telling exercise, asking him to write down his account of the accident that nearly ended his life.

McAiden complies, and what follows is McAiden’s account of the accident gleaned over six mon-the of his treatment. But the result is nothing that Selwood could have expected. What should have been a simple, if incomplete, narrative is instead a detailed account told from the perspective of an omniscient observer. The details of safety issues concerning the intersection where the accident took place, the conversation of neighbors, witnesses and first responders, and other details that McAiden could not possibly have known.

Is the account that Selwood is asking us to believe a tale told by an unreliable narrator? Or is McAiden really an omniscient observer (impossible?), a fabulist of the highest order, or…? And there is more, much more to ponder in “Little Bit of Faith,” as Monachino leads us through Arthur McAiden’s comatose, fevered inner life, weaving tales of an international bioterrorist plot, a plot to wrest control of his biotech company, and a plot to topple another Arthur — a medieval Arthur — as well as Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale.”

Improbable as it may seem, Monachino’s gentle wit and informed narrative style are the glue that hold this metaphysical melange together. If you’re game to take a deep dive into the nature of consciousness, of bosons and other subatomic particles and the search for the ultimate intelligence, with a side trip into the Arthurian legend, “Little Bit of Faith” may just be your cup of mead. More at comicfictionnoir.com.

https://buckscounty.prenly.com/p/the-bucks-county-herald/10-3-24/a/george-point-book-talk-little-bit-of-faith/7159/1657715/57306165

 

Event at the Doylestown Book Shop

I will be visiting The Doylestown Bookshop on August 31 (from 1 to 3). I will join several other 'local' authors.

Love Doylestown, its a great place to get a slice of pizza on one block and then top it off with a macroon on another and between the two stop by the bookstore and chat a little.

Both my old (By Any Means) and newly printed (Little Bit of Faith) books will be on display.

Little Bif of Faith ... Psychological Thriller? What else can it be?

 

Psychological Thriller?  What better way to describe a neuropsychologist trying hard to understand exactly what her patient is trying to tell her.   After all, if all access points to one’s memory shut down when comatose, memory becomes a smattering of all of the internal repositories as the patient begins to reengage.  The silos harboring memories of books read begin to share space with those holding real time life events bringing time, space, thoughts and fears into a shared space inside one’s head.  What segregates the wheat from the chaff, the real from the imagination so to speak, to bring a patient back into our three-dimensional world might also put and end to his search for existence in the great beyond.

If you would like to read more, look for Saverio Monachino’s book ‘Little Bit of Faith’, which is available at 100 or so online bookstores. 

https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?EHCet1hVnYa7d96nCrrMiQNLoTj0mFXIeGH3PViJ3ym

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Bit-Faith-Saverio-Monachino/dp/1962587215?ref_=ast_author_dp

https://books.apple.com/us/book/little-bit-of-faith/id6478190672

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/little-bit-of-faith-saverio-monachino/1144753963

 

Book Review 'Little Bit of Faith' and Interview with the author by Theresa O'Brien, published by LVP News.

 Today the interview of 'me' by Theresa O'Brien is released in the Bethlehem News.  This is the internet version, tomorrow it will be out in 'print'.

 

I was hoping it would have been printed many weeks ago but they kept moving it back b/c the newspaper has limited space.  This week they did indeed have enough space to carry it.

 

https://www.lvpnews.com/20240723/the-power-of-love-and-the-nature-of-belief/

 

of course you might notice the photo used is a bit dated, and she didn't quite get all the wording quite right as she explained the book but hey, I'll take what I can get.

 

RR

Can Coma Survivors Remember Their Experiences?

Author Saverio Monachino, A Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor Does And He Gives Readers A Look In His New Psychological Fiction Novel, Little Bit Of Faith
 
Saverio Monachino amalgamates an odd collection of authors like John Irving, Tom Robbins, and Louise Penny into one, and the servings he presents—psychological fiction thrillers—come complete with a side order of comedy. Saverio believes adding a bit of humor helps wash down the truth while he discusses how open to interpretation the human condition can be.
 
Saverio Monachino’s traumatic brain injury left him in a coma. It took a while but, when he made it back to a conscious state, he had a story to tell. This story became the basis for his new psychological fiction novel, "Little Bit of Faith."
The book is a masterful work of fiction that is unlike any medical thriller available today. Through skillful storytelling and rich character development, the book offers a captivating and often humorous exploration of the creativity of the human mind and the interconnectedness of existence. The book leaves readers pondering the nature of true faith, the boundaries of one’s perception, the foundations of belief, family love, religious fanaticism, and the meaning of existence, long after the final page is turned. There is a message. It is one word, four letters.
 
Dr. Selwood (a neuropsychologist) had a real doozy of a case assigned to her: Dr. Arthur McAiden. When McAiden first began his outpatient stint at the Kessler Institute, he had trouble stringing cognitive sentences together. Selwood suggested he write his thoughts down, and so he did. At first, he wrote of the accident itself, which had her wondering how, if he was comatose, he knew what he did. Then his story moved on and intertwined his recovery process with what she believed to be a work of fiction. If he was trying to have fun at her expense, she did not know. Either way, it didn't matter, but when he moved on and began describing his take on the triune others have used to describe his faith, she wanted to file this away in the circular trash can beside her desk. Then one of his characters came to life and paid her a visit. While her patient had struggled to re-enter the three-dimensional space those living on earth call home, Dr. Selwood, in turn, now struggled to accept the continuum of life Arthur had presented to her.
 
"I wrote this book," Monachino stated, "because, as my ability to exist in the three-dimensional space we live in returned, memories of what I experienced began to fade. The story is fiction, the underlying revelations, I hope, are closer to reality."
Monachino is also the author of a murder mystery titled "By Any Means." Leaking top-secret information to the Press happens all the time. Just ask those holding office in Washington D.C. Up north in Montreal, Inspector Gervais has experienced a perfect storm of this art. Gervais’s story started on a typical summer night with a slightly overweight grocer sitting on the roof reciting poetry, dressed from head to toe in leather, and watching a man in the alley commit murder … with a hard salami. His life literally falls into the hands of the good Inspector, and that’s when the fun begins. “What,” Inspector Gervais wants to know, “do an overweight grocer, Batman, tax attorneys, a dysfunctional Italian family, city politics, and an esoteric secret society that may or may not be the remnants of the Knights Templar have in common?” Not much, but this is all he has to go on as he races to solve a gruesome murder By Any Means. Montreal in the summertime can be fun; murder can be funnier.
 
Saverio Monachino is available for media interviews and can be reached by email available on his website at https://comicfictionnoir.com.
 

 

An Author's Life

When not writing Saverio spends time sticking needles into a caricature of Douglas Adams cursing the day he first read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  Saverio no longer cares what the answer is (42), he is too busy trying to figure out the question using 'how' as the preface, not 'why'. 

When first gainfully employed, Saverio dragged his wife and later, growing family, around the U.S., with a pitstop in Quebec too, as he strove to make meaningful advances in the bio-pharmaceutical arena.  When not working, or playing with his children, or shoveling snow (think Canada not Texas), or writing articles for science journals in the wee small hours of the morning he either read a book or fell asleep.  If he listed all those tomes here, he would probably put each of you to sleep too.  A synopsis is this; start with Joseph Conrad, skip two pages, find Georges Simenon, skip to the last page (about two more pages in) and you will see Dashiell Hammett, Farley Mowat, Colin Dexter, Styron, Rowling, and finally Louise Penny.  I am very happy a friend turned me on to Penny’s work.

What was all that gibberish about?  Simple ... go read a book.  It's like health food and it can make you smile.

Little Bit of Faith

 

Saverio Monachino's new book is 'Little Bit of Faith'.

Anyone who handles a patient load knows how difficult some can be.  Dr. Selwood (a neuropsychologist) had a real doozy of a case assigned to her, Dr. Arthur McAiden.  When McAiden first began his outpatient stint at the Kessler Institute he had trouble stringing cognitive sentences together.  Selwood suggested he write his thoughts down, and so he did.  At first, he wrote of the accident itself, which had her wondering how he knew what he did.  Then his story moved on and intertwined his recovery process with what she believed to be a work of fiction.  If he was trying to have fun at her expense, she did not know.  Either way, it didn’t matter, but, when he moved on and began describing his take on the triune others have used to describe his faith, she wanted to file this away in the circular trash can beside her desk.  Then one of his characters came to life and paid her a visit.  While her patient had struggled to re-enter the three-dimensional space those living on earth call home, Dr. Selwood, in turn, now struggled to accept the continuum of life Arthur had presented to her. 

Published February 5, 2024

Available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.