2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
hide

2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
hide

Guest Post: Don of the Q, and the Power of Innocence by Michael Guillebeau

Today I’m beyond pleased to bring you more fascinating insights from the talented Michael Guillebeau, whose new novel Don of the Q brings us exactly what we need right now… It’s a particular knack Michael has, writing these types of novels – so definitely check it out!

Don of the Q, and the Power of Innocence
by Michael Guillebeau

These last few years have been tough on good-hearted people of every political stripe. We are all so locked into what we’ve been taught that we have no room for kindness or introspection, much less meaningful action.

What if we weren’t?

What if we could be innocent again, guided by our hearts as we battle the darkness of the world?

Since I am a writer, I get to spend big chunks of my days with characters that interest me, and explore how they might perturb the world around them. So I discovered an innocent little man and followed him as he battled our very dark world, with no superpower but an open heart.

Don is a clerk in the Quick Stop convenience store (the Q) who wakes up one day and has no idea why he’s there or what he’s supposed to do. With no voices in his head telling him he has limits, he decides that he must be an angel on a mission, or a knight errant on a magnificent quest.

The world he is in is our world, in all of its darkness: People trapped in poverty and even slavery, caught up in addiction with too little help. Racism, sexism, nativism. And there’s even a bomb shaped like a fabulously rich necklace which will destroy the world, unless it’s stopped.

What can one man do? One man with no powers and very little of what we choose to call common sense. But a man too innocent to know that he has to give up and accept things as they are.

When I finished writing Don of the Q: An American Don Quixote for the Atomic Age last January, a writing buddy told me, “This is clearly as dark and silly as the world can ever get.”

Who knew what was waiting for us in March? July? And this upcoming November may be the scariest of them all. But, maybe, if the world is going to keep getting scarier, it may be time for us all to return to the Q and wake up our innocence.

About the Author
Michael Guillebeau has published four mystery novels and two anthologies, winning both the 2017 Foreword Reviews Indie Award for Best Humor book (MAD Librarian) and the 2017 Silver Falchion for Best Mystery Anthology (Eight Mystery Writers You Should be Reading Now.) His first book, Josh Whoever (Five Star Mysteries, 2013) received a starred review in Library Journal, and was named a Debut Mystery of the Month by Library Journal. Guillebeau has published over twenty short stories, including three in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>